Alfred Henley was coming home. Jim Cahews announced it one morning to a
cluster of farmers and chronic loungers at the store, and the news
rapidly spread through the village and country-side, and various
comments were made. He was going to do a man's part and try to put up
with the cranky woman he had married, said the men. He was heartily
ashamed of himself, said the women. He had got over his silly pout and
was coming home to make amends for his conduct in living so long away
from a woman who had shown such beautiful constancy to her first and,
perhaps--as it looked now--only love.
Dixie Hart heard the report on her way to the post-office, and, needing
a spool of cotton, she went into the store.
"Yes, he's headed this way," was Cahews's confirmation of the news. "The
truth is, Miss Dixie, if I'm any judge of a man's letters, Alf's
actually homesick. He wants the mountains he was fetched up in. He
writes about his lonely days and nights, when his speculations don't
keep him busy, an' says they don't have anything out thar but pesky
north winds an' sand-storms. He might have stayed away longer, as it
was, but one little thing I wrote him turned the scale. You know that
measly ten-cent circus that was to show here last month got stranded.
The performers all quit and footed it home, an' the sheriff levied on
the thing, lock, stock, and barrel, an' is to sell it piece by piece at
public outcry Saturday week. Alf wrote me that a sale of that sort was
exactly in his line, and that he'd try to be on hand. He didn't think
anybody here would have any money to invest in such truck, and he'd have
his own way. He said about the only man hereabouts that he'd have to
contend with would be old Welborne, but he would risk him. He don't
often allude to home matters, Miss Dixie, but I think Alf counts on
havin' things up at the house a little smoother than they was when he
went off."
"And maybe he will," the girl answered, thoughtfully, as she turned
away.
The only boarders Mrs. Henley had at this time were a certain young
married pair, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Allen, who had arrived only a week
before with a baby not yet a month old. Allen was a travelling
sewing-machine agent, and boarded his wife and child at some farm-house
while he drove about the country in a buggy with a sample machine to
instruct women in the use of it and take orders.
When Mrs. Allen heard the report that Henley was coming back, she was
considerably disturbed by the thought that she and hers might not be
wanted any longer. She nursed her fears all the morning, and finally,
with the infant on her arm, she went out to Mrs. Henley, who was in the
back-garden gathering cucumbers for the dinner-table.
"I reckon I'd as well come to the point an' be done with it," Mrs. Allen
began, timidly. She was thin, had blue eyes and faded blond hair, used
snuff, as was indicated by the brownish deposits in the corners of her
mouth and her stained teeth. "I want to speak to you about yore
husband."
"Well, what is it?" Mrs. Henley asked, as she drew herself up and peered
at the speaker from the hood of her sunbonnet, and rested her pan of
cucumbers on her hip.
"Why, they all say he's comin' home," said Mrs. Allen. "I've heard yore
father-in--I mean, I've heard old Mr. Wrinkle say that yore husband,
never havin' had children, can't abide babies, an' I got bothered. My
little darlin' don't cry much--in fact, compared to most babies, it's a
purty good un. It did cry some just a minute ago, but that wasn't its
fault. It was mine. Like a plumb fool, who certainly ought to have had
more sense, I was takin' a dip o' snuff from my box as I come out of the
house, an' a sudden whiff of wind round the corner blowed a speck of it
in the little thing's eyes. You know it stings like ackerfortis. We are
goin' next week, anyway, you see."
"Well, you needn't let my husband's coming hurry you off," Mrs. Henley
answered, as she reached out to a bean-pole and bore down on it that she
might fasten it more firmly in the soil, and it was impossible to judge
whether there was resentment in the tone. "He's coming back of his own
free will, and if he stays he'll put up with the house just as he finds
it. Nothing will be turned topsy-turvy, you may be sure. His room is
where it always was, and it ain't likely to be changed."
The conversation was disturbed by the appearance of the baby's father,
who emerged from the house and was on the way to the stable to feed and
water his horse. He wore a ready-made suit of clothes and a scarlet
necktie which clashed sharply with his blond hair and mustache. He was
almost as young as his wife, and he beamed proudly on the red human lump
in her arms as he paused for a moment. He smiled warmly on Mrs. Henley
when his wife playfully informed him that they would not have to move
till their week was up.
"Well, I certainly am glad to hear it," he declared. "I'd hate to look
for a new place just for a day or so, an' I've got so I feel sorter at
home here. Me an' yore father-in--(excuse me)--I mean, me 'n Mr. Wrinkle
have high old times. Even if I went to board somers else I'd come here
an' set of an evenin' to hear him talk. He drives off every spell of
blues I have. He is the beatenest man to get off jokes I ever knowed, to
be as old as he is. Just now he walked clean over to Pitman's to tell
that crusty old cuss that thar was a cow inside his lot fence, an' when
Pitman come down hoppin' mad with his shot-gun full o' pease yore
father-in--(excuse me)--Mr. Wrinkle p'inted to Pitman's own cow an'
said, 'I wasn't lyin' to you, Sam; thar she is.' He was laughin' just
now an' said he had a joke in store for Mr. Henley when he got here. I
tried to git it out of him, but he wouldn't say what was in the wind."
That evening, after supper, as the night was warm, the Allens, with the
child asleep on a pillow in a chair between them, were seated out under
the trees in front of the house, when Wrinkle slouched across the grass
to them. He was chewing tobacco, and frequently pressed two fingers over
his lips and between them spat with considerable accuracy at various
shrubs and tufts of grass about him. Even in the twilight they could see
that his small eyes were twinkling with suppressed amusement.
"I thought once, Allen," he chuckled, "that I wouldn't let you in on
this joke, but I'm afraid I won't sleep if I don't tell somebody. I
don't mind lettin' you two in on the quiet, but I wouldn't tell Hettie
for any amount. You see, this un's a baby joke, an' it may be a tender
point with her, not havin' a baby, an', in fact, never havin' had one up
to date, although she's had two husbands in her day, an' resided with
each one a sufficient time."
"So it's a baby joke?" Allen said. "Well, that interests _me_."
"That's what it is," the old man said, dryly. "You'd enjoy it if you
knowed Alf. The gang at the store was eternally laughin' at 'im about
babies. They could shet 'im up tight by jest gettin' a nigger nurse-gal
to tote a lusty one back to his desk while he was at work. Once one of
the gang sent 'im a tin rattler by mail, an' they was all thar to see
'im open it. He took it all in good fun, too; he's one joker that kin
stand one on hisself. You may 'a' noticed that Hettie is a sorter odd
woman in some ways. Well, she's more peculiar on the husband line than
any other. Alf's been off now goin' on ten months, an' she hain't once
put pen to paper for him. So the few lines that has gone from this
shebang has been writ by yours truly. Alf hasn't writ to me much, but
I've kept 'im posted. He didn't write me he was headed this way, but I
got it from Cahews. As soon as I heard he was comin' in a week or so, I
set down to write how glad we was. I was in my room j'inin' your'n at
the time, an' all at once it struck me that it would be a royal welcome
to greet 'im with some sort o' joke, an' while I was tryin' to study up
some'n yore baby rolled out o' the bed an' struck the floor with a
thump. It was as quiet as a stick o' wood fer a minute till it ketched
its wind, an' then it set up a scream like a Comanchy Injun, an' right
thar I got my idea. I determined to write Alf that he'd become the daddy
of a bouncin' baby boy. But I had to go about it right, you see, for I
knowed Alf would smell a mice if I brought it out bluntlike; so, knowin'
that I'd have time to hear from him ag'in before he started, I jest
ended my letter by sayin' that I didn't intend to take no hand in the
little cold spell betwixt him an' his wife, but that I felt bound to say
that after she had laid down her pride to write him _sech important_ an'
_delicate news_, for him to take no notice of it whatever was enough to
hurt and offend any woman. He bit. He took my bait an' hook an' line,
broke my pole, an' run up-stream. He writ by the next mail--said he
hadn't got no letter from Hettie, an' axed me what the news was. He was
so anxious to know that he said he was goin' to stop a day or so in
Atlanta, an' wouldn't I oblige him by sendin' my answer thar? You bet I
did. I'll do a friend a favor whenever I kin. I told 'im Alf Junior was
a buster, had a yell on 'im that would do for a fire-alarm, an' was
already keen enough to know the difference betwixt a bottle with a
rubber neck an' the rail thing. So thar it rests. He hain't got no use
for babies, an' he'll be as mad as Tucker, but when he finds out it's
jest a joke he'll be happy enough to set up the drinks."
"Gracious, surely you didn't go as far as that," Mrs. Allen cried,
casting a jealous look at her sleeping infant and sweeping it on to her
grinning spouse.
"Didn't I, though!" Wrinkle spat, gleefully. "Alf has often said I
couldn't fool _him_, an' we'll see--we'll see this pop."
"It certainly is a corker," Allen declared--"that is, if he swallows
it."
"He's already done it," sniggered the stepfather-in-law. "I writ a
document a Philadelphia lawyer and a Pinkerton detective combined
couldn't pick a flaw in. I hedged it in with roundabout reasons an'
facts, tellin' 'im he'd 'a' had letter after letter about how the baby
was thrivin' if he'd just answered Hettie's first official proclamation,
and so on, and so on. Folks, I can hardly wait. He'll git here to-morrow
night, an' we'll have the fun of our lives. I hope you two won't say a
word--at fust, anyway. Leave it all to me."