“I beg your pardin,” said the abashed woman.
“An’ well you may, I do declare! Five months arter the funeral, indeed! Why, ten months at least must elapse! But you teetotally mistook my meanin’, Mrs. Strang; it’s a woman I’d be wantin’—a woman with a heart an’ a soul, not an unbroken filly. All I was a-thinkin’ of was, Could thet thar Abner Preep clothe and feed your darter? But I ain’t the man to bear malice; and till you kin feel you kin trust her to him or some other man, my house is open to her. I don’t draw back my offer, and when I made it I was quite aware you would hev to be on the spot, too, to look arter her—hey?”
“Me?”
“Well, you’re not too ole, anyways.” And the deacon smiled again. “A’ready you’re here all day e’en a’most.” Here he half knelt down to attend to the stove, which was smoking very slightly. “It wouldn’t be much of a change to sleep here, hey?”
“Oh, but you’re forgittin’ the other children, deacon.”
“Deacon Hailey ain’t the man to forgit anythin’, I guess,” he said, over his shoulder. “Afore he talks he thinks. He puts everythin’ in the tan-pit an’ lets it soak, hey? Is it likely I’d take you over here an’ leave the little uns motherless? I never did like this kind of stove.” He fidgeted impatiently with the mechanism at the back, making the iron rattle.
“I—I—don’t—understand,” faltered Mrs. Strang, her heart beginning to beat painfully.
“How you do go on ter-day, Mrs. Strang! When I ain’t talkin’ o’ marriage you jump at it, and when I am you hang back like a mare afore a six-foot dyke. Ah! thet’s better,” and he adjusted the damper noisily, with a great sigh of satisfaction.
“You want to marry me?” gasped Mrs. Strang. The dark, handsome features flushed yet deeper; her bosom heaved.
“You’ve struck it! I do want ter, thet’s plain!” He rose to his feet, and threw his head back and his chest forward. “You’ll allus find me straightforward, Mrs. Strang. I don’t beat about the bush, hey? But I shouldn’t hev spoke so prematoor if you hedn’t druv me to it by your mistake ’bout Harriet. Es if I could marry a giddy young gal with her head full o’ worldly thoughts! Surely you must hev seen how happy I’ve been to hev you here, arnin’ money to pay off your mortgage. Not that I’d a-called it in anyways! What’s thet thar little sum to me? But I was thinkin’ o’ your feelin’s; how onhappy you would be to owe me the money. And then thinkin’ how to do somethin’ for your children, I saw it couldn’t be done without takin’ you into account. A mother clings to her children. Nater is nater, I allus thinks. And the more I took you into account, the more you figured up. There’s a great mother, I thinks; there’s a God-fearin’ woman. An’ a God-fearin’ woman is a crown to her husban’, hey? If ever I do bring myself to marry agen, thet’s the woman for my money, I vow! When I say money, it’s on’y speakin’ in parables like, ’cause I’m not thet sort o’ man. There air men as ’ud come to you an’ say, ‘See here, Mrs. Strang, I’ve got fifty acres of fust-class interval-land, an’ a thousand acres of upland and forest-land, an’ thirty head o’ cattle, an’ a hundred sheep a’most, an’ a tannery thet, with the shoemaker’s shop attached, brings me in two hundred pound a year, an’ a grist-mill, an’ I carry the local mail, an’ I’ve shares and mortgages thet would make you open your eyes, I tell you, an’ I’m free from encumbrances e’en a’most, whereas you’ve got half a dozen.’ But what does Deacon Hailey say? He says, jest put all thet outer your mind, Mrs. Strang, an’ think on’y o’ the man—think o’ the man, with no one to devote himself to.”