The upshot of our inspecting places to live and haggling over prices was that we took a flat in the best quarter of Passaic—the top and in those elevatorless days the cheapest flat in the house. We were to pay forty dollars a month—a stiff rent that caused excitement in our neighborhood and set my mother and her father to denouncing us as a pair of fools bent upon ruin. I thought so, myself. But I could have denied Edna nothing at that time, and I made up my mind that by working harder than ever at the railway office I would compel another raise. When I told my mother about this secret resolve of mine, she said:
“If you do get more money, Godfrey, don’t tell Edna. She’s a fool. She’ll keep your nose to the grindstone all your life if you ain’t careful. It takes a better money-maker than you’re likely to be to hold up against that kind of a woman.”
“Oh, she’s like all girls,” said I.
“That’s just it,” replied my mother. “That’s why I ain’t got no use for women. Look what poor managers they are. Look how they idle and waste and run into debt.”
“But there’s a lot to be said against the men, too. Saloons, for instance.”
“And talkin’ politics with loafers,” said my father’s wife bitterly.
“I guess the trouble with men and women is they’re too human,” said I, who had inherited something of the philosopher from my father. “And, mother, a man’s got to get married—and he’s got to marry a woman.”
“Yes, I suppose he has,” she grudgingly assented. “Mighty poor providers most of the men is, and mighty poor use the women make of what little the men brings home. But about you and Edny Wheatlands— You ought to do better’n her, Godfrey. You’re caught by her looks and her style and her education. None of them things makes a good wife.”
“I certainly wouldn’t marry a girl that didn’t have them—all three.”
“But there’s something more,” insisted mother.