AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
No human being expects to die and all expect to marry. Observation continually proves the groundlessness of one or both of these anticipations, without altering the attitude of the survivors. In the background of the consciousness of the most confirmed bachelor or spinster, stands the shadowy form of the possible wife or the possible husband.
Mr. James Doolittle, at fifty-five, had no idea of escaping the matrimonial yoke. He thought of himself always as an eligible young fellow, waiting for the right girl to come along. On two or three occasions earlier in life he had temporarily congratulated himself on finding the right girl, but as the ladies in question had disagreed with him, there had been no escape from the conclusion that he was mistaken. These disappointments he had accepted with an edifying equanimity, reminding himself that there were still as good fish in the sea as had ever graced a frying pan.
Just why, on a certain summer afternoon, Jim's vague and groping expectations should suddenly have focused upon Zaida Finch, and why her familiar, faded features and diminutive, gnome-like body should have taken on the quality of allurement, is one of the mysteries which will remain a mystery when the riddle of perpetual motion has been solved. As the memory of Miss Finch hurrying across the grass continually recurred to him, Jim said to himself that though a trifle more flesh would not hurt her, she was a cute little thing. And forthwith he was conscious of a feeling of youthful irresponsibility, flatly contradicting the testimony of the family Bible.
Yet it was with no very definite purpose in his mind that on the Wednesday following his brief call at Oak Knoll, Mr. Doolittle resolved on a second visit. Even incipient love is fertile in excuses. He argued that the most elementary sense of courtesy demanded his ascertaining the nature of the telegram of which he had been the bearer, and extending his sympathy in case it had brought bad news. With the lack of candor with himself, frequently manifested by wiser men in his condition, Mr. Doolittle failed to explain the fact that he assumed for the call the necktie which for thirty years he had worn on dress occasions, hand-painted daisies on a pink background. The silk was faded now and the daisies had lost much of their original perky luster, but with the hand-painted necktie tied under his chin, Mr. Doolittle felt himself a figure to appeal to the exacting feminine taste.
His state of mind pleasantly indeterminate, Mr. Doolittle jogged through the dust in the direction of Oak Knoll. As yet his ardor had not reached the point where the leisurely pace of the gray nag got on his nerves. The droning peace of the mid-summer world was reflected in the serenity of his spirit. But as he neared Oak Knoll, the sound of wheels halted him at the foot of the long driveway, and waiting there, some intuition ruffled the placidity of his mood, and left him alert and uneasy.
Jim knew his suspicion justified when suddenly upon his startled and hostile vision emerged another buggy, smarter than his own, and newly washed. The driver, Deacon Wiggins, looked up from the contemplation of his sorrel mare to bark a gruff greeting, "Afternoon, Jim."
Deacon Wiggins was eminently a marrying man. He had married early, and as often as a complacent Providence, assisted by pneumonia, heart disease and typhoid, had permitted. A rather rusty band of crêpe around his hat, preserved with commendable thrift from one bereavement to another, bore witness to his latest loss some three months earlier. And with a lover's quick suspicion, Mr. Doolittle leaped to the conclusion that the deacon's errand to Oak Knoll was the same as his own, that in his eyes, too, Zaida Finch had found favor. His voice rasping as he realized the insatiable greed of some of his sex, Jim Doolittle returned the deacon's greeting with a sneering, "Wasn't looking to see you here."