Chapter IV: “man Proposes”

Mrs. Strang was busy in Deacon Hailey’s kitchen. The providential death of Mrs. Hailey had given her chores to do at the homestead; for female servants--or even male--were scarce in the colony, and Ruth had been brought up by her mother to play on the harpsichord.

When Mrs. Strang got home after a three mile walk, sometimes through sleet and slush, she would walk up and down till the small hours, spinning carded wool into yarn at her great uncouth wheel, and weeping automatically at her loneliness, reft even of the occasional husband for whom she had forsaken the great naval city of her girlhood, the beautiful century-old capital. “It’s ’nough to make a body throw up the position,” she would cry hysterically to the deaf rafters when the children were asleep and only the wind was awake. But the droning wheel went round just the same, steady as the wheel of time (Mrs. Strang moving to and fro like a shuttle), till the task was completed, and morning often found her ill-rested and fractious and lachrymose. Matt would have pitied her more if she had pitied herself less. In the outside world, however, she had no airs of martyrdom, bearing herself genially and independently. At the “revivals” held in private houses she was an important sinful figure, though neither Harriet nor Matt had yet found grace or membership. She smiled a pleasant response to-night when Deacon Hailey came in from the tannery and said “Good-evenin’.” It was a large, low kitchen, heated by an American stove, with a gleaming dresser and black wooden beams, from which hams hung. The deacon felt more comfortable there than in the room in which Ruth was at that moment engaged in tinkling the harpsichord, a room that contained other archaic heirlooms: old china, a tapestry screen, scriptural mottoes worked in ancestral hair, and a large colored lithograph of the Ark on Mount Ararat, for refusing to come away from which Matt had once been clouted by his mother before all the neighbors. The house was, indeed, uncommonly luxurious, sheltered by double doors and windows, and warmly wrapped in its winter cincture of tan-bark.

“An’ how’s Billy?” asked the deacon. “Some folks ’ud say how’s Billy’s mother, but thet I can see fur myself--rael bonny and han’sum, thet’s a fact. It’s sick folk es a Christian should inquire arter, hey?”

“Billy’s jest the same,” replied Mrs. Strang, her handsome face clouding.

“No more fits, hey?”

“No; not for a long time, thank God. But he’ll never be straight again.”

“Ah, Mrs. Strang, we’re all crooked somehow. ’Tis the Lord’s will, you may depend. Since my poor Susan was took, my heart’s all torn and mangled; my heartstrings kinder twisted ’bout her grave. Ah! never kin I forgit her. Love is love, I allus thinks. My time was spent so happy, plannin’ how to make her happy--for ’tis only in makin’ others happy that we git happy ourselves, hey? Now I hev no wife to devote myself to my han’s are empty. I go ’bout lookin’ everyways fur Sunday.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you’ve never got a minute to spare.”

“You may depend,” said the deacon, proudly. “If I ain’t ’tarnally busy what with the tannery an’ the grist-mill an’ the farm an’ the local mail, it’s a pity. I don’t believe in neglectin’ dooty because your heart’s bustin’ within.” He spat sorrowfully under the stove. “My motto is, ‘Take kear o’ the minutes, and the holidays ’ll take kear o’ themselves.’ A man hes no time to waste in this oncivilized Province, where stinkin’ Indians, that never cleared an acre in their lazy lives, hev the right to encamp on a man’s land, an’ cut down his best firs an’ ashes fur their butter-butts and baskets, and then hev the imperence to want to swop the identical same for your terbacco. It’s thievin’, I allus thinks; right-down breakin’ o’ the Commandments, hey?”

“Well, what kin you expec’ from Papists?” replied Mrs. Strang. “Why, fur sixpence the holy fathers forgive ’em all their sins.”

“‘Tain’t often they’ve got sixpence, hey? When ’lection-day comes round agen I won’t vote fur no candidate that don’t promise to coop all them greasy Micmacs up in a reservation, same es they do to Newfoundland. They’re not fit to mix with hard-workin’ Christian folk. Them thar kids o’ yourn, now, I hope they’re proper industrious. A child kin’t begin too airly to larn field-work, hey?”

“Ah, they’re the best children in the world,” said Mrs. Strang. “They’ll do anythin’ an’ eat anythin’ e’en a’most, an’ never a crost word; thet’s a fact.”

The deacon suppressed a smile of self-gratulation. Labor was scarcer than ever that year, and in his idea of marrying Harriet Strang, which he was now cautiously about to broach, the possibility of securing the gratuitous services of the elder children counted not a little, enhancing the beauty of his prospective bride. He replied, feelingly:

“I’m everlastin’ glad to hear it, Mrs. Strang, for I know you kin’t afford t’ employ outside labor. They’re goin’ to arx three shillin’s a day this summer, the blood-suckers.”

“The laborer is worthy of his hire,” quoted Mrs. Strang.

“Yes; but he allus wants to be _highered_, hey? A seasonable joke ain’t bad in its right place, I allus thinks. You needn’t allus be pullin’ a long face. Thet Matt of yourn, now, I’ve seen him with a face like ole Jupe’s fiddle, and walkin’ along es slow es a bark-mill turns a’most.”

Mrs. Strang sighed.

“Ah, you’re a good woman, Mrs. Strang. There’s no call to blush, fur it’s true. D’ye think Deacon Hailey hesn’t got eyes for what’s under his nose? The way you’re bringing up them thar kids is a credit to the Province. I only hopes they’ll be proper thankful fur it when they’re growed up. It makes my heart bleed a’most, I do declare. Many a time I’ve said to myself, ‘Deacon Hailey, ’tis your dooty to do somethin’ fur them thar orphans.’ Many a time I’ve thought I’d take the elder ones off your han’s. There’s plenty o’ room in the ole farm--’twere built for children, but there’s on’y Ruth left. An’ _she_ isn’t my own, though when you see a gal around from infancy you forgits you ain’t the father, hey? What a pity poor Sophia’s two boys were as delicate as herself.”

“Sophia?” murmured Mrs. Strang, interrogatively.

“Thet was my fust wife afore you came to these parts. She died young, poor critter. Never shall I forgit her. Ah, there’s nothin’ like fust love, I allus thinks. If I hedn’t wanted to hev children to work fur, I should never ha’ married agen. But it’s a selfish business, workin’ for one’s own han’, I allus thinks, knowin’ thet when you die all you’ve sweated fur ’ll go to strangers. An’ now thet I’ve on’y got one soul dependent on me, I feels teetotally onswoggled. What do you say? s’pose I relieve you of Matt--dooty don’t end with passin’ the bag round in church, hey?--it’s on this airth that we’re called upon to sacrifice ourselves--or better still--s’pose I take Harriet off your han’s?”

Mrs. Strang answered, hesitatingly: “It is rael kind o’ you, deacon. But, of course, Harriet couldn’t live here with you.”

“Hey? Why not?”

“She’s too ole.”

“An’ how ole might she be?”

“Gittin’ on for seventeen.”

“I guess thet’s not too ole for me,” he said, with a guffaw.

Mrs. Strang paused, startled. The idea took away her breath. The deacon smiled on. In the embarrassing silence the tinkle of Ruth’s harpsichord sounded like an orchestra.

“You--would--raelly--like my Harriet?” Mrs. Strang said, at last.

“You may depend--I’ve thought a good deal of her, a brisk an’ handy young critter with no boardin’-school nonsense ’bout her.” He worked his quid carefully into the other cheek, complacently enjoying Mrs. Strang’s overwhelmed condition, presumably due to his condescension. “Of course there’s heaps of han’sum gals every ways, but booty is only skin-deep, I allus thinks. She’s very young, too, but thet’s rather in her favor. You can eddicate ’em if you take ’em young. Train up a _child_, hey?”

“But I’m afeared Harriet wouldn’t give up Abner Preep,” said Mrs. Strang, slowly. “She’s the most obstinate gal, thet’s a fact.”

“Hey? She walks out with Abner Preep?”

“No--not thet! I’ve sot my face agin thet. But I know she wouldn’t give him up, thet’s sartin.”

Ruth’s harpsichord again possessed the silence, trilling forth “Doxology” with an unwarranted presto movement. Mrs. Strang went on: “The time o’ your last muddin’ frolic she danced with him all night e’en a’most and druv off home in his sleigh, an’ there ain’t a quiltin’ party or a candy-pullin’ or an infare but she contrives to meet him.”

“Scendalous!” exclaimed the deacon.

“I don’t see nothin’ scendalous!” replied Mrs. Strang, indignantly. “The young man wants to marry her genu_ine_. ’Pears to me _your_ darter is more scendalous a’most, playin’ hymns as if they were hornpipes. I didn’t arx my folks if I might meet my poor Davie; we went to dances and shows together, and me a Baptist, God forgive me! And Harriet’s jest like that--the hussy--she takes arter her mother.”

“But if you were to talk to her!” urged the deacon.

Mrs. Strang shook her head.

“She’d stab herself sooner.”

“Stab herself sooner’n give up Abner Preep!”

“Sooner’n marry any one else.”

The deacon paused to cut himself a wedge of tobacco imperturbably. There was no trace of his disappointment visible; with characteristic promptitude he was ready for the next best thing.

“Well, who wants her to marry anybody else?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “_You_ don’t, do you?”

“N-n-o,” gasped Mrs. Strang, purpling.

“Thet’s right. Give her her head a bit. It don’t do to tie a grown-up gal to her mammy’s apron-strings. You may take a horse to the water, but you kin’t make her drink, hey? No, no, don’t you worry Harriet with forcin’ husbands on her.”

“I--I--kinder--thought--” gasped Mrs. Strang, looking handsomer than ever in the rosy glow of confusion.

“You kinder thought--” echoed Old Hey, spitting accurately under the stove.

“Thet you wanted Harriet--”

“Thet’s so. I guessed she could live here more comfortable than to home. I don’t ask no reward; ‘the widder and the orphan,’ as Scripter says--hey?”

“You didn’t mean marriage?”

“Hey?” shouted the deacon. “Marriage? Me? Well, I swow! Me, whose Susan hes only been dead five months! A proper thing to suspec’ me of! Why, all the neighbors ’ud be sayin’, ‘Susan is hardly cold in her grave afore he’s thinkin’ of another.’”

“I beg your pardin,” said the abashed woman.

“An’ well you may, I do declare! Five months arter the funeral, indeed! Why, ten months at least must elapse! But you teetotally mistook my meanin’, Mrs. Strang; it’s a woman _I_’d be wantin’--a woman with a heart an’ a soul, not an unbroken filly. All I was a-thinkin’ of was, Could thet thar Abner Preep clothe and feed your darter? But I ain’t the man to bear malice; and till you kin feel you kin trust her to him or some other man, my house is open to her. I don’t draw back my offer, and when I made it I was quite aware you would hev to be on the spot, too, to look arter her--hey?”

“Me?”

“Well, you’re not too ole, anyways.” And the deacon smiled again. “A’ready you’re here all day e’en a’most.” Here he half knelt down to attend to the stove, which was smoking very slightly. “It wouldn’t be much of a change to sleep here, hey?”

“Oh, but you’re forgittin’ the other children, deacon.”

“Deacon Hailey ain’t the man to forgit anythin’, I guess,” he said, over his shoulder. “Afore he talks he thinks. He puts everythin’ in the tan-pit an’ lets it soak, hey? Is it likely I’d take you over here an’ leave the little uns motherless? I never _did_ like this kind of stove.” He fidgeted impatiently with the mechanism at the back, making the iron rattle.

“I--I--don’t--understand,” faltered Mrs. Strang, her heart beginning to beat painfully.

“How you do go on ter-day, Mrs. Strang! When I ain’t talkin’ o’ marriage you jump at it, and when I am you hang back like a mare afore a six-foot dyke. Ah! thet’s better,” and he adjusted the damper noisily, with a great sigh of satisfaction.

“You want to marry _me_?” gasped Mrs. Strang. The dark, handsome features flushed yet deeper; her bosom heaved.

“You’ve struck it! I do want ter, thet’s plain!” He rose to his feet, and threw his head back and his chest forward. “You’ll allus find me straightforward, Mrs. Strang. I don’t beat about the bush, hey? But I shouldn’t hev spoke so prematoor if you hedn’t druv me to it by your mistake ’bout Harriet. Es if I could marry a giddy young gal with her head full o’ worldly thoughts! Surely you must hev seen how happy I’ve been to hev you here, arnin’ money to pay off your mortgage. Not that I’d a-called it in anyways! What’s thet thar little sum to me? But I was thinkin’ o’ _your_ feelin’s; how onhappy you would be to owe me the money. And then thinkin’ how to do somethin’ for your children, I saw it couldn’t be done without takin’ you into account. A mother clings to her children. Nater is nater, I allus thinks. And the more I took you into account, the more you figured up. There’s a great mother, I thinks; there’s a God-fearin’ woman. An’ a God-fearin’ woman is a crown to her husban’, hey? If ever I do bring myself to marry agen, thet’s the woman for my money, I vow! When I say money, it’s on’y speakin’ in parables like, ’cause I’m not thet sort o’ man. There _air_ men as ’ud come to you an’ say, ‘See here, Mrs. Strang, I’ve got fifty acres of fust-class interval-land, an’ a thousand acres of upland and forest-land, an’ thirty head o’ cattle, an’ a hundred sheep a’most, an’ a tannery thet, with the shoemaker’s shop attached, brings me in two hundred pound a year, an’ a grist-mill, an’ I carry the local mail, an’ I’ve shares and mortgages thet would make you open your eyes, I tell you, an’ I’m free from encumbrances e’en a’most, whereas you’ve got half a dozen.’ But what does Deacon Hailey say? He says, jest put all thet outer your mind, Mrs. Strang, an’ think on’y o’ the man--think o’ the man, with no one to devote himself to.”

He took her hand, and she did not withdraw it. Emotion made her breathing difficult. In the new light in which he appeared to her she saw that he was still a proper man--straight and tall and sturdy and bright of eye, despite his grizzled beard and hair.

“An’ if you kin’t give him devotion in return, jest you say so plump; take a lesson from his straightforwardness, hey? Don’t you think o’ your mortgage, or his money-bags, ’cause money ain’t happiness, hey? An’ don’t you go sacrificin’ yourself for your children, thinkin’ o’ poor little Billy’s future, ’cause I don’t hold with folks sacrificin’ themselves wholesale; self-preservation is the fust law of nater, hey? an’ it wouldn’t be fair to _me_. All ye hev to arx yourself is jest this: Kin you make Deacon Hailey happy in his declinin’ years?” He drew himself up to his full height without letting go her hand, and his eyes looked into hers. “Yes, I say declinin’ years--there’s no deception, the ’taters air all up to sample. How ole might you think me?”

“Fifty,” she said, politely.

“Nearer sixty!” he replied, triumphantly. “But I hev my cold bath every mornin’--I’m none o’ your shaky boards that fly into etarnal bits at the fust clout, hey?”

“But you hev been married twice,” she faltered.

“So will _you_ be--when you marry me, hey?” And the deacon lifted her chin playfully. “We’re neither on us rough timber--we’ve both hed our wainy edges knocked off, hey? My father hed three wives--and he’s still hale and hearty--a widower o’ ninety. Like father like son, hey? He’s a deacon, too, down to Digby.”

As Deacon Hailey spoke of his father he grew middle-aged to Mrs. Strang’s vision. But she found nothing to reply, and her thoughts drifted off inconsequently on the rivulet of sacred music.

“But Ruth won’t like it,” she murmured at last.

“Hey? What’s Ruth got to say in the matter? I guess Ruth knows her fifth commandment, an’ so do I. My father is the on’y person whose blessin’ I shall arx on my ’spousals. I allus make a pint o’ thet, you may depend.”

The pathetic picture of Deacon Hailey beseeching his father’s blessing knocked off ten years more from his age, and it was a young and ardent wooer whose grasp tightened momently on Mrs. Strang’s hand.

“We might go to see him together,” he said. “It’s an everlastin’ purty place, Digby.”

“I’d rayther see Halifax,” said Mrs. Strang, weakly. In the whirl of her thoughts Ruth’s tinkling tune seemed the only steady thing in the universe. Oh, if Ruth would only play something bearing on the situation, so that Heaven might guide her in this sudden and fateful crisis!

“Halifax, too, some day,” said the deacon, encouragingly, laying his disengaged hand caressingly on her hair. “We’ll go to the circus together.”

She withdrew herself spasmodically from his touch.

“Don’t ask me!” she cried; “you’re Presbyterian!”

“Well, and what was your last husban’?”

“Don’t ask me. Harriet and Matt air ongodly ’nough as it is; they’ve neither on ’em found salvation.”

“Well, I won’t interfere with your doctrines, you bet. Freedom o’ conscience, I allus thinks. We all sarve the same Maker, hey? I guess you’re purty reg’lar at our church, though.”

“Thet’s God’s punishment on me for runnin’ away from Halifax, where I hed a church of my own to go to, but he never cared nuthin’ ’bout the ’sential rite, my poor Davie. I ought to ha’ been expelled from membership there and then, thet’s a fact, but the elders were merciful. Sometimes I think ’tis the old French nater that makes me backslide; my grandfather came from Paris in 1783, at the end o’ the Amur’can war, and settled to St. Margaret’s Bay; but then he married into a god-fearin’ German family that emigrated there the same time a’most, and that ought to ha’ made things straight agen.”

Mrs. Strang talked on, glad to find herself floating away from the issue. But the deacon caught her by the hand again and hauled her back.

“There won’t be no backslidin’ in Deacon Hailey’s household, you may depend,” he said. “When a woman hes a godly stay-to-home husband, Satan takes to his heels. It’s widders and grass-widders es he flirts with, hey?”

Mrs. Strang colored up again, and prayed silently for help from the harpsichord.

“I kin’t give you an answer yet,” she said, feebly.

Old Hey slowly squirted a stream of tobacco-juice into the air as imperturbably as a stone fountain figure.

“I don’t want your answer yet. Didn’t I tell you I couldn’t dream of marryin’ agen for ages? It don’t matter your bein’ in a hurry ’cause your pardner left you three years back, but I hev the morals o’ the township to consider; it’s our dooty in life to set a good example to the weaker brethren, I allus thinks. Eight months at least must elapse! I on’y spoke out now ’cause o’ your onfortunate mistake ’bout Harriet, and all I want is to be sure thet when I do come to ask you in proper form and in doo course, you won’t say ‘no.’”

Mrs. Strang remained silent. And the harpsichord was silent too. Even that had deserted her; its sound might have been tortured into some applicability, but its silence could be construed into nothing, unless it was taken to give consent. And then all at once Ruth struck a new chord. Mrs. Strang strained her ears to catch the first bar. The deacon could not understand the sudden gleam that lit up her face when the instrument broke into the favorite Nova Scotian song, “The Vacant Chair!” At last Heaven had sent her a sign; there was a vacant chair, and it was her mission to fill it.

“Well, is thet a bargen?” asked the deacon, losing patience.

“If you’re sure you want me,” breathed Mrs. Strang.

In a flash the deacon’s arms were round her and his lips on hers. She extricated herself almost as quickly by main force.

“‘Twarn’t to be yet,” she cried, indignantly.

“Of course not, Mrs. Strang,” retorted the deacon, severely. “On’y you asked if I was sure, and I allowed I’d show you Deacon Hailey was genu_ine_. It’s sorter sealin’ the bargen, hey? I couldn’t let you depart in onsartinty.”

“Well, behave yourself in future,” she said, only half mollified, as she readjusted her hair, “or I’ll throw up the position. I guess I’ll be off now,” and she took bonnet and mantle from a peg.

“Not in anger, Mrs. Strang, I hope. ‘Let all bitterness be put away from you,’ hey? Thet thar han’sum face o’ yourn warn’t meant for thunder-clouds.”

He hastened to help her on with her things, and in the process effected a reconciliation by speaking of new ones--”store clothes”--that would set off her beauty better. Mrs. Strang walked airily through the slushy forest road as on a primrose path. She was excited and radiant--her troubles were rolled away, and her own and her children’s future assured, and Heaven itself had nodded assent. Her lonely heart was to know a lover’s tenderness again; it was swelling now with gratitude that might well blossom into affection. How gay her home should be with festive companies, to be balanced by mammoth revivalist meetings! She would be the centre of hospitality and piety for the country-side.

But as she neared the house--which seemed to have run half-way to meet her--the primroses changed back to slush, and her face to its habitual gloom.

Matt and Harriet were alone in the kitchen. The girl was crocheting, the boy daubing flowers on a board, which he slid under the table as he heard his mother stamping off the wet snow in the passage. Mrs. Strang detected the board, but she contented herself by ordering him to go to bed. Then she warmed her frozen hands at the stove and relapsed into silence. Twenty times she opened her lips to address Harriet, but the words held back. She grew angry with her daughter at last.

“You’re plaguy onsociable to-night, Harriet,” she said, sharply.

“Me, mother?”

“Yes, you. You might tell a body the news.”

“There’s no news to Cobequid. Ole Jupe’s come back from fiddlin’ at a colored ball way down Hants County. He says two darkies hed a fight over the belle.”

Harriet ceased, and her needles clicked on irritatingly. Mrs. Strang burst forth:

“You might ask a body the news.”

“What news can there be down to Ole Hey’s?” Harriet snapped.

“Deacon Hailey,” began Mrs. Strang, curiously stung by the familiar nickname, and pricked by resentment into courage; then her voice failed, and she concluded, almost in a murmur, “is a-thinkin’ of marryin’ agen.”

“The ole wretch!” ejaculated Harriet, calmly continuing her crocheting.

“He’s not so ole!” expostulated Mrs. Strang, meekly.

“He’s sixty! Why, _you_ might as well think o’ marryin’! The idea!”

“Oh, but I’m on’y thirty-five, Harriet!”

“Well, it’s jest es ole. Love-makin’ is on’y for the young.”

“Thet’s jest where you’re wrong, Harriet. Youth is enjoyment enough of itself. It is the ole folks that hev nothin’ else to look fur thet want to be loved. It’s the on’y thing thet keeps ’em from throwin’ up the position, an’ _they_ marry sensibly. Young folks oughter wait till they’ve got sense.”

“The longer they wait the less sense they’ve got! If two people love each other they ought to marry at once, thet’s a fact.”

“Yes; if they’re two ole sensible people.”

“I’m tar’d o’ this talk o’ waitin’,” said Harriet, petulantly. “How ole were you when you ran away with father?”

“You ondecent minx!” ejaculated Mrs. Strang.

“You weren’t no older nor me,” persisted Harriet, unabashed.

“Yes, but I lived in a great city. I saw young men of all shapes and sizes. I picked from the tree--I didn’t take the fust thet fell at my feet; an’ how you can look at an onsightly critter like Abner Preep! I’d rayther see you matched with Roger Besant, for though his left shoulder _is_ half an inch higher than the right a’most, from carrying heavy timbers in the ship-yard, he don’t bend his legs like a couple o’ broken candles.”

“Don’t talk to me o’ Roger Besant--he’s a toad. It’s Abner I love. I don’t kear ’bout his legs; his heart’s in the right place!”

“You mean he’s give it to you!”

“I reckon so!”

“An’ you will fly in my face?”

“I must,” said Harriet, sullenly, “if you don’t take your face out o’ the way.”

“You imperent slummix! An’ you will leave your mother alone?”

“Es soon es Abner kin build a house.”

“Then if you marry Abner Preep,” said Mrs. Strang, rising in all the majesty of righteous menace, “I’ll marry Deacon Hailey.”

“What!” Harriet also rose, white and scared.

“You may depend! I’m desprit! You kin try me too far. You know the wust, now. I _will_ take my face out o’ the way, you onnatural darter! I will take it to one thet ’preciates it.”

There was a painful silence. Mrs. Strang eyed her daughter nervously. Harriet seemed dazed.

“You’d marry Ole Hey?” she breathed at last.

“You’d marry young Preep!” retorted the mother

“I’m a young gal!”

“An’ I’m an ole woman! Two ole folks is es good a match es two young uns.”

“Ah, but you don’t allow Abner and me _is_ a good match!” said Harriet, eagerly.

“If you allow the deacon and me is.”

Their eyes met.

“You see, there’s the young uns to think on,” said Mrs. Strang. “If you were to go away, how could I get along with the mortgage?”

“Thet’s true,” said Harriet, relenting a little.

“An’ if we were all to go to the farm, there’d be the house for you and Abner.”

Harriet flushed rosily.

“An’ mebbe the deacon wouldn’t be hard with the mortgage!”

“Mebbe,” murmured Harriet. Her heart went pit-a-pat. But suddenly her face clouded.

“But what will Matt say?” she half whispered, as if afraid he might be within hearing. “I guess he’ll be riled some.”

“Oh, he’ll be all right if you kinder break the news to him an’ explain the thing proper. I reckon he won’t take to the deacon at first.”

“The deacon! It’s Abner I’m thinkin’ on!”

“Abner! What does it matter what he thinks of Abner? ’Tain’t es if Matt was older nor you. He’s got nothin’ to say in the matter, I do allow.”

“But he calls him Bully Preep, and says he used to wallop him at McTavit’s.”

“And didn’t he desarve it?” asked Mrs. Strang, indignantly.

“He says he won’t hev him foolin’ aroun’. He calls him a mean skunk.”

“And who’s Matt, I should like to know, to pass his opinions on his elders an’ betters? You jest take no notice of his ’tarnation imperence and he’ll dry up. It’s hevin’ a new father he’ll be peaked about. Thet’s why you’d better do the talkin’ to Matt!”

“Then _you’ll_ hev to tell him ’bout Abner,” bargained Harriet.

But neither had the courage.