“You don’t happen to want the same girl he wants, or anything like that?”
“No--well now--why, I don’t know!” A sudden revelation came to Martin. Perhaps Lyman thought he had a rival in him. That would explain much. “There’s a son, as I said, and we know a girl I think he’s been crazy about for years. Perhaps he thinks I’m after her, too.”
“I see,” chuckled the old man. “Well, if the girl’s the right sort she won’t have to toss a penny to decide which one to choose.” He noted the embarrassment of Martin and changed the subject.
But later in the afternoon as Martin walked down the road from the trolley and drew near the Reist farmhouse the old man’s words recurred to him. Why, he’d known Amanda Reist all his life! He had never dreamed she could comfort and help a man as she had done that morning in the woods. Amanda was a fine girl, a great pal, a woman with a heart.
Now Isabel--a great disgust rose in him for the sniveling, selfish little thing and her impotence in the face of his trouble. “She’s just the kind to play with,” he thought, “just a doll, and like the doll, has as much heart as a thing stuffed with sawdust can have. I guess it took this jolt to wake me up and know that Isabel Souders is not the type of girl for me.”
When he reached the Reist home he found Amanda and her Uncle Amos on the porch.
“Oh, it’s all right!” the girl cried as he came into the yard. “I can read it in your face.” Gladness rang in her voice like a bell.
“It’s all right,” Martin told her.
“Good! I’m glad,” said Uncle Amos while Amanda smiled her happiness.
“Was I right?” she asked. “Was it the work of Mertzheimers?”