This did not seem to have the desired effect. In fact, she ignored my remark in the most contemptuous fashion. Then Mrs. Burke suggested:
“Get up, and come round where she can see you. No lady wants to be talked to by a gentleman that’s out of sight.”
So I got up and went around by her head, fed her some clover, patted her on the neck, rubbed her nose, and began a little mild, persuasive appeal:
“Louise, I am really a man of irreproachable character. I am a son of the Revolution; I held three scholarships in Harvard; and I graduated second in my class at the General Sem. Furthermore, I’m not at all accustomed to being snubbed by ladies. Can’t you make up your mind to be obliging?”
Louise sniffed at me inquiringly, gazing at me with large-eyed curiosity. Then as if in token that she had come to a favorable conclusion, she ran out her tongue and licked my hand. When I resumed operations, the milk poured into the pail, and Mrs. Burke was just congratulating me on my complete success, 57 when, by some accident the stool slipped, and I fell over backwards, and the whole contents of the pail was poured on the ground. My! but wasn’t I disgusted? I thought Mrs. Burke would never stop laughing at me; but she was good enough not to allude to the loss of the milk!
Some day when we are married, and you come up here, I will take you out and introduce you to Louise, and she will fall in love with you on the spot.
My most difficult task is my Senior Warden—and it looks as if he would not make friends, do what I will to “qualify” according to his own expressed notions of what a country parson should be. But I rather suspect that he likes to keep the scepter in his own hands, while the clergy do his bidding. But that won’t do for me.
So you see the life up here is interesting from its very novelty, though I do get horribly lonesome, sometimes. If I had not pledged myself to the Bishop to stay and work the parish together into something like an organization, I am afraid I should be tempted to cut and run—back to you, sweetheart.
And there was a post script:
“I’ve not said half enough of how much Mrs. Burke’s wisdom has taught and helped me. She is a shrewd observer of human motives, and I expect 58 she has had a struggle to keep the sweetness of her nature at the top. She is, naturally, a capable, dominating character; and often I watch how she forces herself to let persuasiveness take precedence of combativeness. Her acquired philosophy, as applied to herself and others, is summed up in a saying she let drop the other day, modified to suit her needs: ‘More flies are caught with molasses than with vinegar—but keep some vinegar by you!’ Verb. Sap.!”