"She is uncommonly well, for her," Silas said, looking meekly at his companion. "She is almost gay."
"Oh, the young thing; is she," Tug retorted. "Do you know what she reminds me of? An old man in a dress trying to imitate a girl."
There was unutterable meanness in Mr. Whittle's last remark, and when he looked around the room with fierce dignity, he seemed to be wondering why any one should continue to live in the face of his displeasure.
"I heard her say to-night, when I brought in a third lot of cakes, that you were the bane of her life," Silas said, timidly, and dodging his head to one side, as if expecting Tug Whittle to jump at him for repeating the scandalous story. "Although she says she is heart-broken, I notice she eats mighty well; for her."
"And I suppose Reverend Good and Uncle Alfred encouraged her," Tug replied. "What good husbands bachelors imagine they would be, and what miserable old growlers they turn out. Before a man is married he takes a great deal of comfort to himself in thinking what a kind, indulgent husband and father he would be, and how different from other men, but they soon fall with a dull sickening thud to the level of the rest of us. It's easy enough to be a good husband in theory, and it's easy enough to be brave in theory, but when the theorists come down to actual business, they are like the rest of us. It's like an actor in a show. He wants to find a villain, and punish him, and the villain appears about that time, and makes no resistance, and is beaten to great applause, finally shrinking away while the other fellow looks ferociously at him, but it is not that way in real life. The villain fights in real life, and usually whips. If I knew that the men I dislike would stand it peaceable, like the villains in a show, I'd beat 'm all to death; but as it is, I am a coward, like Ponsonboy, and you, and Armsby, and all the rest of them; except Allan Dorris—there's a man who'd fight. When I read in books about brave men, it makes me feel ashamed, until I remember that the men in actual life are not like those in the books. What did Her Ladyship say about Hector?"
Mrs. Whittle's first husband had been a certain Hector Harlam, with whose history Silas was very familiar from his association with Tug, so he answered,—
"She wiped away a tear, and regretted his death. She seemed greatly affected,—for her."
"She can't possibly regret his death more than I do," Tug said. "He appreciated her; I never did, and I am sorry she does not join Hector in glory, or wherever he is, for she is no earthly good in Davy's Bend. She told me once that he always called her his baby."
There was no keeping it in now; the thought of his wife being called a "baby" was so absurd to Tug that he was about to laugh. His cheeks swelled out as though the laugh came up from below somewhere, and he found it necessary to swallow it, after which there was a faint smile on his face, and a gurgle in his throat. When Mr. Whittle smiled, it was such an unusual proceeding that his scalp had a habit of crawling over towards his face, to take a look, which it did in this instance, and then went back to its old position at the top of his head. It was a dreadful laugh, but Silas was used to it, and was not alarmed.
"That woman wants to be a man the worst way," the old scoundrel went on to say. "I hope it accounts for the circumstance that she never looks like a woman should. A white dress on a woman—a real woman, understand; not an imitation one—looks handsome; and I never see a girl dressed in white that I do not fall in love with her, but when the old lady puts it on, with a frill at her neck, or any such trifling thing, I want to find a woodpile and an axe to cut off my feet. I don't know why anyone should want to be a man; I know what a man is, and I wonder at this strange ambition of the old lady. I never see a man that I don't want to spit on him. Ugh!"