A smile for you this morning. š
My Aunt’s Bonnet
by Edgar A. Guest
They say lifeās simple ā but I donāt know. Who can tell where a word will go? Or how many hopes will rise and fall with the weakest brick in the cellar wall? Or how many hearts will break and bleed as the result of one careless deed? Why, my old Auntās bonnet caused more dismay than a thousand suns could shine away. She wore it high through her top-knot pinned, a perfect kite for a heavy wind, but the hat would stick, though a gale might blow, if she found the place where the pins should go. One Sunday morning she dressed in haste, she hadnāt a minute which she could waste, sheād be late for church. Now the tale begins: she didnāt take care with those bonnet pins. Oh the wind it howled, and the wind it blew and away from her head that bonnet flew! It swirled up straight to select its course, first brushing the ears of the deaconās horse. With a leap he scampered away in fright and scattered the children, left and right. A stranger grabbed for the horseās head, but stumbled and fractured his own instead. After the bonnet a small boy ran, knocked over a woman and tripped a man. The deaconās daughter married the chap who rescued her from the swaying trap. And she lived to regret it later on; In all that town there abided none whose life wasnāt changed on that dreadful day when my old Auntās bonnet was blown away. Some were crippled and some went mad, some turned saintly and some turned bad; birth and marriage and death and pain were all swept down in that bonnetās train. Wives quarreled with husbands! I canāt relate the endless tricks which were played by fate. There are folk today who had not been born had my Aunt stayed home on that Sunday morn. From the book, Collected Verse of Edgar A. Guest, Ā©1934 by the Reilly & Lee Co