ON THE SIDE PORCH
In the evening, after his work was done, a day or two after his talk
with Mrs. Maxwell, Jonathan went into the house and took a long look
at himself in the glass, with the satisfactory conclusion that he
didn't look so old after all. Why shouldn't he take Mrs. Betty's
advice and marry? To be sure, there was no fool like an old fool, but
no man could be called a fool who was discriminating enough, and
resourceful enough, to win the hand of Hepsey Burke. To his certain
knowledge she had had plenty of eligible suitors since her husband's
death. She was the acknowledged past-master of doughnuts; and her
pickled cucumbers done in salad oil were dreams of delight. What more
could a man want?
So he found that the question was deciding itself apparently without
any volition whatever on his part. His fate was sealed; he had lost
his heart and his appetite to his neighbor. Having come to this
conclusion, it was wonderful how the thought excited him. He took a
bath and changed his clothes, and then proceeded to town and bought
himself a white neck-tie, and a scarf-pin that cost seventy-five
cents. He was going to do the thing in the proper way if he did it at
all.
After supper he mustered sufficient courage to present himself at the
side porch where Mrs. Burke was knitting on a scarlet sweater for
Nickey.
"Good evenin', Hepsey," he began. "How are you feelin' to-night?"
"Oh, not so frisky as I might, Jonathan; I'd be all right if it
weren't for my rheumatiz."
"Well, we all have our troubles, Hepsey; and if it isn't one thing
it's most generally another. You mustn't rebel against rheumatiz. It's
one of those things sent to make us better, and we must bear up
against it, you know."
Hepsey did not respond to this philosophy, and Jonathan felt that it
was high time that he got down to business. So he began again:
"It seems to me as if we might have rain before long if the wind don't
change."
"Shouldn't be surprised, Jonathan. One--two--three--four--" Mrs. Burke
replied, her attention divided between her visitor and her sweater.
"Got your hay all in?"
"Yes, most of it. 'Twon't be long before the long fall evenin's will
be comin' on, and I kinder dread 'em. They're awful lonesome,
Hepsey."
"Purl two, knit two, an inch and a half--" Mrs. Burke muttered to
herself as she read the printed directions which lay in her lap, and
then she added encouragingly:
"So you get lonesome, do you, Jonathan, durin' the long evenin's, when
it gets dark early."
"Oh, awful lonesome," Jonathan responded. "Don't you ever get lonesome
yourself, Hepsey?"
"I can't say as it kept me awake nights. 'Tisn't bein' alone that
makes you lonesome. The most awful lonesomeness in the world is bein'
in a crowd that's not your kind."
"That's so, Hepsey. But two isn't a crowd. Don't you think you'd like
to get married, if you had a right good chance, now?"
Hepsey gave her visitor a quick, sharp glance, and inquired:
"What would you consider a right good chance, Jonathan?"
"Oh, suppose that some respectable widower with a tidy sum in the bank
should ask you to marry him; what would you say, Hepsey?"
"Can't say until I'd seen the widower, to say nothin' of the bank
book--one, two, three, four, five, six--"
Jonathan felt that the crisis was now approaching; so, moving his
chair a little nearer, he resumed excitedly:
"You've seen him, Hepsey; you've seen him lots of times, and he don't
live a thousand miles away, neither."
"Hm! Must be he lives in Martin's Junction. Is he good lookin',
Jonathan?"
"Oh, fair to middlin'. That is--of course--I well--I--I should think
he was; but tastes differ."
"Well, you know I'm right particular, Jonathan. Is he real smart and
clever?"
"I don't know as--I ought to--to--say, Hepsey; but I rather guess he
knows enough to go in when it rains."
"That's good as far as it goes. The next time you see him, you tell
him to call around and let me look him over. Maybe I could give him a
job on the farm, even if I didn't want to marry him."
"But he doesn't want any job on the farm, Hepsey. He just wants you,
that's all."
"How do you know he does? Did he ever tell you?"
"Hepsey Burke, don't you know who I'm alludin' at? Haven't you ever
suspected nothin'?"
"Yes, I've suspected lots of things. Now there's Jack Dempsey. I've
suspected him waterin' the milk for some time. Haven't you ever
suspected anythin' yourself, Jonathan?"
"Well, I guess I'm suspectin' that you're tryin' to make a fool of me,
all right."
"Oh no! Fools come ready-made, and there's a glut in the market just
now; seven--eight--nine--ten; no use makin' more until the supply's
exhausted. But what made you think you wanted to marry? This is so
powerful sudden."
Now that the point was reached, Jonathan got a little nervous: "To--to
tell you the truth, Hepsey," he stuttered, "I was in doubt about it
myself for some time; but bein' as I am a Christian man I turned to
the Bible for light on my path."
"Hm! And how did the light shine?"
"Well, I just shut my eyes and opened my Bible at random, and put my
finger on a text. Then I opened my eyes and read what was written."
"Yes! What did you find?"
"I read somethin' about 'not a man of them escaped save six hundred
that rode away on camels.'"
"Did that clear up all your difficulties?"
"No, can't say as it did. But those words about 'no man escapin''
seemed to point towards matrimony as far as they went. Then I tried a
second time."
"Oh did you? I should think that six hundred camels would be enough
for one round-up. What luck did you have the second time?"
"Well, I read, 'Moab is my wash pot, over Edom will I cast out my
shoe.' You've seen 'em cast shoes at the carriages of brides and
grooms, haven't you, Hepsey? Just for luck, you know. So it seemed to
point towards matrimony again."
"Say, Jonathan, you certainly have a wonderful gift for interpretin'
Scripture."
"Well, Scripture or no Scripture, I want you, Hepsey."
"Am I to understand that you're just fadin' and pinin' away for love
of me? You don't look thin."
"Oh, we 'aint neither of us as young as we once was, Hepsey. Of course
I can't be expected to pine real hard."
"I'm afraid it's not the real thing, Jonathan, unless you pine. Don't
it keep you awake nights, or take away your appetite, or make you want
to play the banjo, or nothin'?"
"No, Hepsey; to tell you the plain truth, it don't. But I feel awful
lonesome, and I like you a whole lot, and I--I love you as much as
anyone, I guess."
"So you are in love are you, Jonathan. Then let me give you some good
advice. When you're in love, don't believe all you think, or half you
feel, or anything at all you are perfectly sure of. It's dangerous
business. But I am afraid that you're askin' me because it makes you
think that you are young and giddy, like the rest of the village boys,
to be proposin' to a shy young thing like me."
"No, Hepsey; you aren't no shy young thing, and you haven't been for
nigh on forty years. I wouldn't be proposin' to you if you were."
"Jonathan, your manners need mendin' a whole lot. The idea of
insinuatin' that I am not a shy young thing. I'm ashamed of you, and
I'm positive we could never get along together."
"But I can't tell a lie about you, even if I do want to marry you.
You don't want to marry a liar, do you?"
"Well, the fact is, Jonathan, polite lyin's the real foundation of all
good manners. What we'll ever do when we get to heaven where we have
to tell the truth whether we want to or not, I'm sure I don't know.
It'll be awful uncomfortable until we get used to it."
"The law says you should tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothin'
but the truth," persisted the literal wooer.
"Now, see here, Jonathan. Would you say that a dog's tail was false
and misleadin' just because it isn't the whole dog?"
This proposition was exceedingly confusing to Jonathan's intelligence,
but after careful consideration he felt obliged to say "No."
"Of course you wouldn't," Mrs. Burke continued triumphantly, quickly
following up her advantage. "You see a dog's tail couldn't be
misleading, 'cause the dog leads the tail, and not the tail the dog.
Any fool could see that."
Jonathan felt that he had been tricked, although he could not see just
how the thing had been accomplished; so he began again:
"Now Hepsey, we're wanderin' from the point, and you're just talkin'
to amuse yourself. Can't you come down to business? Here I am a
widower, and here you are a widowess, and we're both lonesome, and
we----"
"Who told you I was lonesome, I'd like to know?"
"Well, of course you didn't, 'cause you never tell anything to anyone.
But I guessed you was sometimes, from the looks of you."
Hepsey bent her head over her work and counted stitches a long time
before she looked up. Then she remarked slowly:
"There's an awful lot of sick people in the world, and I'm mighty
sorry for 'em; but they'll die, or they'll get well. I guess I'm more
sorry for people who have to go on livin', and workin' hard, when
they're just dyin' for somebody to love 'em, and somebody to love,
until the pain of it hurts like a wisdom tooth. No, I can't afford to
be lonesome much, and that's a fact. So I just keep busy, and if I get
too lonesome, I just go and jolly somebody that's lonesomer than I am,
and we both feel better; and if I get lonely lyin' awake at night, I
light a lamp and read Webster's Dictionary. Try it, Jonathan; it's a
sure anti-doubt."
"There you go again, tryin' to change the subject, just when I thought
you was goin' to say somethin'."
"But you don't really want to marry me. I'm not young, and I'm not
interestin': one or the other you've just got to be."
"You're mighty interestin' to me, Hepsey, anyway; and--and you're
mighty unselfish."
"Well, you needn't throw that in my face; I'm not to blame for bein'
unselfish. I've just had to be, whether I wanted or not. It's my
misfortune, not my fault. Lots of people are unselfish because they're
too weak to stand up for their own rights." She paused--and then
looked up at him, smiling whimsically, and added: "Well, well,
Jonathan; see here now--I'll think it over, and perhaps some day
before--_go 'way_, you horrid thing! Let go my hand, I tell you.
There! You've made me drop a whole row of stitches. If you don't run
over home right now, before you're tempted to do any more flirtin,
I'll--I'll hold you for breach of promise."
[Illustration]