"No, I didn't pay him," she protested, the becoming flush on her cheeks
deepening. "I offered him a quarter, but he wouldn't take it, so I knew
he wasn't trying to flatter me, and I made him come up to the house to
get some dinner when he got the gate closed. You should have seen his
face when the semaphore went behind the gate-post. He was so delighted
that he opened and shut the gate several times to see it work,
exclaiming, 'My, my! ain't he got a head! Don't that work beautiful!'"
"I suppose you did right to give the poor old chap some dinner," I
observed, with a complacent smile.
"When he came into the kitchen," she continued, "he said the smell of
hot raspberry pies was the most appetizing smell in the whole world. He
said his aunt used to make them when he was a boy, and once he stole a
whole one and ate it, and ever since when he tries to feel sorry the
remembrance of the delightful sensation in his insides overpowers his
conscience and makes him feel glad. Of course I gave him one for dinner,
and I told him he might have another if he wished, but he declared that
one was enough--that no mortal could stand more than a certain amount of
bliss. Just fancy, Henry; he says his aunt's pies weren't a circumstance
to mine!"
"The old flatterer!" I exclaimed.
"You didn't say that when he praised your semaphore," cried Marion, with
resentment.
I hadn't intended any reflection on the quality of her pies, but it was
some little time before she could understand that I really thought them
to be infinitely superior to my mother's.
"After dinner," she went on, "he said he wasn't in a hurry, so he'd just
cut up some wood and do the stable work until you came home, for he
wanted to see you."
My curiosity was aroused, also my suspicions, for my wife's manner was
distinctly ingratiating. That might mean either that she had some new
project of her own in the background to submit to me, or that she was
about to tack off in another direction in regard to one of mine, as she
had done in the case of the cow.
"About my semaphore?" I inquired warily.
"So he said," she replied, with a tantalizing laugh. "He wants
to--to--handle the county right!"
My heart thumped; my brain seemed to turn a somersault. If Marion had
not been swaying to and fro with her handkerchief covering her face as
she struggled with her mirth I could not have concealed my exultation.
Months before, the success of my device had led me to think of having it
patented under the name of "The Eureka Non-Automatic Gate-Closing
Attachment," but Marion had nipped my project in the bud. The butcher,
too, when I asked his opinion, had chilled my enthusiasm by declaring
that if my gate-attachment proved salable in this locality he would move
to some other. Of course, that was before he had become expert in
keeping his head out of the way of the sign-board, and while he still
wore a strip of court plaster on the bridge of his nose.
Now my judgment was vindicated. A man could surely sell one hundred
semaphores at five dollars each in one county; ten counties would enable
me to buy Waydean; ten more would pay for a train load of implements, as
in my day dream of long ago; another ten would stock the farm with
domestic animals; tens of hundreds of counties still remained to furnish
the means for nebulous philanthropic schemes.
Did I breathe hard, grow flushed or pale with excitement, or do
anything to indicate that it was the moment of my triumph? No, I didn't.
For one thing, I was sure Marion was keeping something from me;
otherwise, why should it seem so funny to her? Until I understood what
she meant, I must appear calm, even bored.
"Well," I said, stifling a yawn, "I'll go and send him off. I wouldn't
be bothered selling county rights; besides, the semaphore isn't
patented."