“Wait!” she interrupted excitedly, her old eyes alight and her cheeks flushed. “Let me tell ye first what this trip is ter us, then ye’ll have a right ter wish us good luck.”
Harding lowered his glass and turned upon her a gravely attentive face.
“‘Most fifty years ago we was married, Hezekiah an’ me,” she began softly. “We’d saved, both of us, an’ we’d planned a honeymoon trip. We was comin’ ter Boston. They didn’t have any ’lectric-cars then nor any steam-cars only half-way. But we was comin’ an’ we was plannin’ on Bunker Hill an’ Faneuil Hall, an’ I don’t know what all.”
The little lady paused for breath and Harding stirred uneasily in his chair. Livingstone did not move. His eyes were fixed on a mirror across the room. Over at the sideboard the waiter vigorously wiped a bottle.
“Well, we was married,” continued the tremulous voice, “an’ not half an hour later mother fell down the cellar stairs an’ broke her hip. Of course that stopped things right short. I took off my weddin’ gown an’ put on my old red caliker an’ went ter work. Hezekiah came right there an’ run the farm an’ I nursed mother an’ did the work. ’T was more’n a year ’fore she was up ‘round, an’ after that, what with the babies an’ all, there didn’t never seem a chance when Hezekiah an’ me could take this trip.
“If we went anywhere we couldn’t seem ter manage ter go tergether, an’ we never stayed fer no sight-seein’. Late years my Jennie an’ her husband seemed ter think we didn’t need nothin’ but naps an’ knittin’, an’ somehow we got so we jest couldn’t stand it. We wanted ter go somewhere an’ see somethin’, so.”
Mrs. Warden paused, drew a long breath, and resumed. Her voice now had a ring of triumph.
“Well, last month they got the ’lectric-cars finished down our way. We hadn’t been on ’em, neither of us. Jennie an’ Frank didn’t seem ter want us to. They said they was shaky an’ noisy an’ would tire us all out. But yesterday, when the folks was gone, Hezekiah an’ me got ter talkin’ an’ thinkin’ how all these years we hadn’t never had that honeymoon trip, an’ how by an’ by we’d be old--real old, I mean, so’s we couldn’t take it--an’ all of a sudden we said we’d take it now, right now. An’ we did. We left a note fer the children, an’--an’ we’re here!”
There was a long silence. Over at the sideboard the waiter still polished his bottle. Livingstone did not even turn his head. Finally Harding raised his glass.
“We’ll drink to honeymoon trips in general and to this one in particular,” he cried, a little constrainedly.