On the walls of such chambers are recorded something that is never told. Thoughtful deeds, tender looks of sympathy and understanding, and years devoted, leave their traces there. With a thread of gossamer, memory leads us gently to them, and out into the world again, where we carry flowers to silent places. The strongest sometimes become the weakest, but who knows if such weakness is not the strength of the mighty?
Time had softened the sorrows of Elvirey Smetters. Little wrinkles were beginning to tell the story of her passing years, for she was nearly sixty, and a sense of life’s futility was creeping over her. She felt the need of new environment and new sensations.
“Now before you begin talkin’ about any duck you want to buy,” said Mrs. Smetters, after the object of the visit was explained, “I want to know if you’ve seen anythin’ o’ Cal. I ain’t seen ’im fer a month, an’ if you run across ’im, I want you to tell ’im I’m sick, an’ ’e better come an’ see how I am. I’ll make you a present o’ that duck if you’ll just walk in on ’im an’ tell ’im sump’n that don’t look like it come from me, that’ll make ’im come over ’ere. You needn’t let on that I want to see ’im, but you fix it somehow so’s ’e’ll come.”
I solemnly promised to do this, but insisted upon settling for the duck, which was soon dressed and wrapped in an old copy of The Weekly Clarion, which was published at the county seat.
“Now you be careful an’ not let ’im know I said a word about ’im,” was her parting injunction at the gate, “but you git ’im ’ere, an’ don’t say nothin’ to Sipes either!”
She was assured that great care would be exercised.
During the walk through the dunes I mused upon the wiles of Mrs. Smetters’s sex, and reflected upon the futility of any attempt to escape them, when they are practiced by an adept upon an average man. It is a world-old story—as old as the Garden of Eden. The lure of the feminine rules the earth, and it is a part of the scheme of things that it should be so. The female of all breathing creatures controls the wooing—from the lady-bug to Elvirey Smetters. However masculine vanity may seek to disguise it, the wooer is as clay in the hands of the potter. The meditations of some of the world’s greatest men have been devoted to the complexities of female human nature, and during these meditations they have often married.
Along toward noon the duck was turned over to Sipes in front of his shanty. He was greatly pleased. It varied the monotony of small gifts of tobacco and cigars which usually reciprocated his many hospitalities.
“Elvirey’s got a lot o’ them birds,” he remarked, “an’ I was goin’ over some night to persuade one of ’em to come to my shanty. If she wasn’t a woman, they’d all been gone long ago. I hear ’em spatterin’ in the ditch ev’ry time I go by, an’ I often think, s’posen them lily-white ducks b’longed to some o’ them fellers that set ’round the village store, wot would I do?”
I inquired if he had seen anything of Cal lately.