"Why bless my soul!" blustered Mr. Reynolds, his face a fine glowing color; "bless my soul!" he repeated, removing his shoes and slamming them down, as he always did under stress. "Women, my dear, will make up all sorts of stories. If I did give the door a bit of a slam, it was because the bacon didn't set right, perhaps. And a woman's always fancying things."
"But you don't put your arm about her, you know that, Reynolds. I was born in this town and I've never seen you put your arm about her."
Mrs. Reynolds' apron was over her head again, but she made no sound. Her husband knocked the ashes from his pipe, and ran his fingers through his thick hair. Then he stared helplessly at Suzanna. She rose valiantly to the occasion.
"If you say, 'There, there, don't cry, you should have married a better man,' she'll say: 'There couldn't be a better' and take her apron down." Thus innocently Suzanna exposed a tender home method of salving hurts, and her listener, as near as his nature could, appropriated the method. He rose from his chair and went softly to his wife. At her side he hesitated in sheer embarrassment, but as she began to sob, he hurriedly repeated Suzanna's formula: "There, there, dear, don't cry. I'm a bad 'un, I am—"
Mrs. Reynolds lowered her shield. "You know better than that, Reynolds," she denied, almost indignantly. "You're a good provider, with a bit of a temper."
"Well, out with it then. What is the trouble? I'm willing to do what I can, even occasionally to doing what the little lass suggests." And with the words, his big arm went clumsily about his wife, the while he looked at Suzanna for approval. She nodded vigorously, her eyes shining.
"It's just this, then, Reynolds," the words were now a whisper, and the big red-faced man had to stoop to hear. "It's that I'm achin' all the time to hold one in my arms; and always to you I've let on that I didn't care. An'—an'—I know the hunger in your own fine heart, my lad."
Mr. Reynolds' face grew wonderfully soft; indeed, tender in a new understanding. "I didn't know, Margie, that you grieved. Come, look up. You and me are together anyway."
"And you have me, now, too," broke in Suzanna, eager to help. "I'm going to stay with you forever'n forever, only except when my mother that used to be wants to borrow me back. Now, I'll go to bed, if you please."
And then one swift, cuddling memory of little Maizie alone in bed across the street brought the hot tears to Suzanna's eyes, but she winked them resolutely back as she lifted the black, shiny bag.