“Listen, papa. Just suppose Bibbs took it into his mind to get married. You know where he goes all the time—”
“Oh, Lord, yes!” Sheridan turned over in the bed, his face to the wall, leaving visible of himself only the thick grizzle of his hair. “You better go back to sleep. He runs over there—every minute she'll let him, I suppose. Go back to bed. There's nothin' in it.”
“WHY ain't there?” she urged. “I know better—there is, too! You wait and see. There's just one thing in the world that'll wake the sleepiest young man alive up—yes, and make him JUMP up—and I don't care who he is or how sound asleep it looks like he is. That's when he takes it into his head to pick out some girl and settle down and have a home and chuldern of his own. THEN, I guess, he'll go out after the money! You'll see. I've known dozens o' cases, and so've you—moony, no-'count young men, all notions and talk, goin' to be ministers, maybe or something; and there's just this one thing takes it out of 'em and brings 'em right down to business. Well, I never could make out just what it is Bibbs wants to be, really; doesn't seem he wants to be a minister exactly—he's so far-away you can't tell, and he never SAYS—but I know this is goin' to get him right down to common sense. Now, I don't say that Bibbs has got the idea in his head yet—'r else he wouldn't be talkin' that fool-talk about nine dollars a week bein' good enough for him to live on. But it's COMIN', papa, and he'll JUMP for whatever you want to hand him out. He will! And I can tell you this much, too: he'll want all the salary and stock he can get hold of, and he'll hustle to keep gettin' more. That girl's the kind that a young husband just goes crazy to give things to! She's pretty and fine-lookin', and things look nice on her, and I guess she'd like to have 'em about as well as the next. And I guess she isn't gettin' many these days, either, and she'll be pretty ready for the change. I saw her with her sleeves rolled up at the kitchen window the other day, and Jackson told me yesterday their cook left two weeks ago, and they haven't tried to hire another one. He says her and her mother been doin' the housework a good while, and now they're doin' the cookin,' too. 'Course Bibbs wouldn't know that unless she's told him, and I reckon she wouldn't; she's kind o' stiffish-lookin', and Bibbs is too up in the clouds to notice anything like that for himself. They've never asked him to a meal in the house, but he wouldn't notice that, either—he's kind of innocent. Now I was thinkin'—you know, I don't suppose we've hardly mentioned the girl's name at table since Jim went, but it seems to me maybe if—”
Sheridan flung out his arms, uttering a sound half-groan, half-yawn. “You're barkin' up the wrong tree! Go on back to bed, mamma!”
“Why am I?” she demanded, crossly. “Why am I barkin' up the wrong tree?”
“Because you are. There's nothin' in it.”
“I'll bet you,” she said, rising—“I'll bet you he goes to church with her this morning. What you want to bet?”
“Go back to bed,” he commanded. “I KNOW what I'm talkin' about; there's nothin' in it, I tell you.”
She shook her head perplexedly. “You think because—because Jim was runnin' so much with her it wouldn't look right?”
“No. Nothin' to do with it.”