Mr. Tubbs, indeed! Never within Madam Calthorp’s memory had that worthy “professor” entered her presence in such a condition as this. His hair looked as if it had never been combed; his spectacles were broken and dangling from his neck, instead of reposing respectably upon his bald forehead; his coat was torn and covered with bits of hay; and—must the truth be owned?—one pale gray eye was bruised and half-hidden by the rapidly swelling flesh which surrounded it; worst indignity of all, he was being marched into the dining-room by Mary Jane’s forcible grip upon his shoulder, and it was her disgusted voice which called attention to his damaged condition.
“Yis! I should say so! ‘Mis-ter Tubbs!’ Here he is! A wolf in sheep’s clothin’! Him a Methodist an’ a class-leader! Look at him! Drink him in! He ain’t nobody but my brother—oh, oh, oh!”
“Resolved! Mary Jane! Explain this matter at once. What has happened?”
“Happened, ma’am? Nothin’ but a—fight! A reg’lar, school-bubby actin’ up! It’s them two old simpletons, Sutro an’ Resolved. They’ve always wrangled an’ jangled ever sence they fust sot eyes on one another. But I’ve managed ter keep ’em from fisticuffin’ up till now. An’ him my only brother! A shinin’ light in the church, he is! Wait till I get my dishes washed, an’ I’ll step down ter Presidin’ Elder Boutwell’s, an’ let him hear what kind o’ sperritooal goin’s on we have down this way!”
“But why should you and Sutro Vives quarrel, Resolved? What provocation did he give you?” asked Mr. Calthorp, anxiously.
“Nothin’ in the world! It’s my poor, sinful old brother here, that’s done all the prov-ockin’! A tellin’ that poor heathen old Catholic that they wasn’t no use fer him here, no more. An’ no bread ter fill the mouths o’ our own household, let alone Mexicers. When he knowed well enough ’t I’d jest done my reg’lar bakin’, an’ no beautifuller never come out o’ that oven this hull summer, let alone more. An’ then pilin’ it on top o’ that, how if it hadn’t a be’n fer him—Sutry—’at Steenie needn’t ’a’ gin up her pony! Don’t wonder old feller was mad; an’ fust he knowed Resolved got a snap-word back—an’ then! Well, you know, ma’am, better ’n I kin tell ye, how quer’ls grows. Bad tempers—sass-hatefulness—candles hid—no light shinin’—an’ then—blows! Yis, ma’am,—blows!”
“Mary Jane! Those two old men!”
“Nobody elset. I don’t wonder ye’re dumberfoun’, I was myself. But fust whack I heered out I hurried an’ there they was! Reg’lar rough an’ tumble, right in the hay-mow, afore Teety pony’s own eyes; an’ I declar’, if that knowin’ critter didn’t actilly ’pear ter be laughin’. An’ ’shamed I am ter have lived ter this day! But—so much fer the Methodist doctrine! No, ma’am, nobody needn’t tell me ’at anything short o’ full ’mersion ’ll ever wash the wickedness out o’ poor humans like Resolved Tubbs! No, ma’am, ye needn’t.”
As Madam Calthorp had never “told” anything of the sort, she could afford to smile; and lamentable as the silly affair was, it yet, as a previous “quer’l” had done, served to divert the thoughts of the family from more serious troubles.
“Poor Mr. Tubbs! Naughty Mr. Tubbs! You—look—so funny!” cried Steenie, laughing. “Did my bad, darling old Sutro-boy hurt your lumbago?” And carried away by a mental picture of the strange conflict, she danced about the victim of his own valor in a manner which provoked his smiles, even if it did his anger, also.