Still, there is a difference between going on the stage and getting married. “I don't know, though!” Mr. Baxter thought. “And Willie's certainly not so well balanced in a GENERAL way as I was.” He wished his wife would come down and reassure him, though of course it was all nonsense.
But when Mrs. Baxter came down-stairs she did not reassure him. “Of course Jane's too absurd!” she said. “I don't mean that she 'made it up'; she never does that, and no doubt this little Miss Pratt did say about what Jane thought she said. But it all amounts to nothing.”
“Of course!”
“Willie's just going through what several of the other boys about his age are going through—like Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and Wallace Banks. They all seem to be frantic over her.”
“I caught a glimpse of her the day you had her to tea. She's rather pretty.”
“Adorably! And perhaps Willie has been just a LITTLE bit more frantic than the others.”
“He certainly seems in a queer state!”
At this his wife's tone became serious. “Do you think he WOULD do as crazy a thing as that?”
Mr. Baxter laughed. “Well, I don't know what he'd do it ON! I don't suppose he has more than a dollar in his possession.”
“Yes, he has,” she returned, quickly. “Day before yesterday there was a second-hand furniture man here, and I was too busy to see him, but I wanted the storeroom in the cellar cleared out, and I told Willie he could have whatever the man would pay him for the junk in there, if he'd watch to see that they didn't TAKE anything. They found some old pieces that I'd forgotten, underneath things, and altogether the man paid Willie nine dollars and eighty-five cents.”