“What's the use thinkin' what I'd do?” she says, turnin' round to go. There didn't seem to be nothing special for me to say right then, so I just put my arm around her, and we went on.
We was plumb tired out when we got home, and mebby that is why we was more than usual quiet at dinner. I sure wasn't cross, but somehow our day hadn't panned out as satisfactory as we'd thought it would, and mebby the cryin' of the Wilkins' new baby got on my nerves, we being tired. I was glad when dinner was over and we could take our chairs and go out on the porch.
It was a fine night—still, and ca'm as you please. The only noise, not countin' the cryin' of the Wilkins' kid, was the sounds of the laughin' and chatter of the children in our end of town. But I was lonesome. I can't speak for the little woman, how she felt, but I felt lonesome—and her right there beside me, too.
Across the street we could see the two Hemingway children, who had coaxed an extra half hour to wait for their father to come home before they went to bed. They had their heads bent over a tumbler that they had caught two fireflies in, and on the porch Mrs. Hemingway was rockin' the sleepy baby.
Then we heard Hemingway's whistle—he can't whistle, but he likes to—and the two children dropped the tumbler, and run to the gate, and then there was a rush, and a mingling up of Hemingway kids and father, and the sleepy baby slid down from its ma's lap and stood, unsteady but tryin' to git in the kissing, with its arms held out. Happy?
I turned to the little woman, and I looked straight at her. Somehow I knew that now, if ever, was a time for me to do some cheering-up.
“Well, little woman,” I says, cheerful-like, “we don't need a lot of kids to bolster up our love, do we?”