“Well, there's two things anyway--I know them for sure--that I expect
will always get me--don't care if I live to thirty-five, or forty-five,
or eighty. And one's the ways lightning can strike.” He paused. Then
he got up and kicked the fire, and stood by it, staring at me. “And the
other is the people that other people will marry.”
He stopped again; and I said nothing.
“The people that other people will marry,” he repeated. “That will
surprise me till I die.”
“If my sympathy--” I began.
But the brief sound that he gave was answer enough, and more than enough
cure for my levity.
“No,” said he, reflectively; “not any such thing as a fam'ly for me,
yet. Never, it may be. Not till I can't help it. And that woman has
not come along so far. But I have been sorry for a woman lately. I keep
thinking what she will do. For she will have to do something. Do yu'
know Austrians? Are they quick in their feelings, like I-talians? Or
are they apt to be sluggish, same as Norwegians and them other
Dutch-speakin' races?”