"Suppose you think up a way--but don't let there be any delay about
getting the piano back to the house."
"Well, it's a means of grace at the church."
"So it is at home, and I need all the means of grace I can get,
particularly those that are nearest home, while I am breaking myself in
to a new business."
Caleb had the piano brought back to the parlor, but he reverted to it
again and again, in season and out of season, until Philip told Grace
that there was no doubt that his uncle was right when he wrote that
Caleb would sometimes insist on being helped with projects of his own.
"That wasn't all," Grace replied. "He wrote also that he advised
you to give Caleb his way at such times, or your life would be made
miserable until you did, and that the cost of Caleb's projects would
not be great."
"H'm! I wonder if uncle knew the cost of a high-grade upright piano?
Besides, I need all my time and wits for the business, and Caleb's
interruptions about that piano are worrying the life out of me. To
make matters worse, there's a new set of commercial travellers coming
in almost every day--this is the season, while country merchants are
beginning to get money, in which they hope to make small sales for
quick pay, and they take a lot of my time."
"You ought to have a partner--and you have one, you know--to see those
people for you; and she will do it, if you'll let her."
"My partner knows that she may and shall do whatever she likes," said
Philip, "but, dear girl, 'twould be like sending a sheep among wolves
to unloose that horde of drummers upon you."
"I've had to deal with men, in some city stores in which I worked,"
Grace replied, "and some of them reminded me of wolves--and other
animals; but I succeeded in keeping them in their places. I know the
private costmarks on all of our goods, and I know the qualities of many
kinds of goods better than you or Caleb, and both of you will be within
call for consultation whenever I'm puzzled; so let me try. 'Twill give
me an excuse to spend all of my spare time in the store; so whenever a
drummer comes in, you can refer him to me. Say I'm the buyer for the
concern. 'Twill sound big; don't you think so?"
"Indeed I do! I wonder where a young woman got such a head for
business."
"Strange, isn't it," Grace replied, with dancing eyes which had also
a quizzical expression, "as she's been several years behind counters,
great and small, and listened to scores of buyers and drummers haggle
over fractions of a cent in prices?"
"And for about that much time," said Philip, reminiscently, "her
husband was a mere clerk and correspondent, yet thought himself a
rising business man! Have your own way, partner--managing partner, I
ought to say."
The next day was a very busy one, yet Caleb found time to say something
about instrumental music as a means of grace in churches, and to get a
sharp reply. Several commercial travellers came in and were astonished
at being referred to a handsome, well-dressed young woman. Grace
disposed of them rapidly and apparently without trouble. When husband
and wife sat down to supper, Philip said:--
"How did the managing partner get along to-day?"
"I bought very little," Grace replied.
"You saved Caleb and me a lot of time. I've never seen Caleb so active
and spirited as he has been this afternoon. It made me feel guilty,
for I was rude to him this morning for the first time. Just when I was
trying to think my hardest about something, he brought up again the
subject of the church and the piano."
"Poor Caleb! But he won't do it again, for I've settled the matter."
"You've not been tender-hearted enough to give up the piano?"
"Oh, no, but I--we, I mean--have taken the county agency for a
cabinet-organ firm."
"I see--e--e! And you're going to torment the church into buying one,
and you and Caleb are going to get up strawberry festivals and such
things to raise the money, and the upshot will be that I'll have to
subscribe a lot of cash to make up the deficiency. Ah, well, peace will
be cheap at--"
"Phil, dear, don't be so dreadfully previous. The bargain is that the
firm shall send us, without charge, a specimen instrument, which I've
promised to display to the best advantage, and I've also promised to
give elementary instruction to every one who manifests interest in it."
"Grace Somerton! The house will be full from morning till night.
Country people will throng about such an instrument like children about
a hand-organ. 'Twill be the end of your coming into the store to talk
to the drummers, or even to see me."
"Oh, Phil! Where are your wits? I'm going to have the organ kept at
the church, and let the most promising would-be learners and possible
buyers do their practising there. The organ firm sells on instalments;
we'll guarantee the instalments, for I'll select the buyers--who will
want only smaller instruments--from among women who bring us chickens
and butter and eggs and feathers and such things. So the church will
be sure of an instrument more appropriate to congregational singing
than a piano, and our piano won't be coveted, and we will make a little
money, and by the time the next revival season arrives there will be at
least a few people who can play, and perhaps some who are accustomed to
closed windows and stuffy air, and won't get splitting headaches and
lose five pounds of weight in a week, as I did."
"Allow me to catch my breath!" said Philip. "Give me some tea, please,
quick!--no milk or sugar. I hope 'tis very strong. You've planned all
this, yet there you sit, as natural and unassuming as if you'd never
thought of anything but keeping house and being the sweetest wife in
the world!"
"Thank you, but shouldn't sweetness have any strength and character?
And what is business for, I should like to know, but to enable women
to keep house--and keep their pianos, if they have any?"
"Caleb," said Philip, on returning to the store, "I want to apologize
for answering you rudely this morning about that enraging piano. I was
in a hard study over--"
"Don't mention it," said Caleb, with a beatific smile. "Besides,
'Providence tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' as the Bible says in
hundreds of different ways. I s'pose your wife's told you what she's
done about music for the church? Je--ru--salem! Ain't she a peeler,
though?"
"She is indeed--if I may assume that a 'peeler' is an incomparable
combination of goodness and good sense."
"That's about the meanin' of it, in my dictionary." Then Caleb fixed
his eyes inquiringly upon Philip's face and kept them there so long
that Philip asked:--
"What now, Caleb?"
"Nothin'," said Caleb, suddenly looking embarrassed. "That is, nothin'
that's any o' my business."
"If 'twas mine, you needn't hesitate to mention it. You and I ought to
be fair and frank with each other."
"Well," said Caleb, counting with a stubby forefinger the inches on a
yardstick, "I was only wonderin'--that is, I want to say that you're a
good deal of a man, an' one that I'm satisfied it's safe to tie to, an'
I'm mighty glad you're in your uncle's place, but--for the land's sake,
how'd you come to git her?"