"I don't know." He was looking before him. "When I got through college, I thought I was going to get on all right—thought I should be a big man some day." He looked at her and smiled.
"You look pretty big and strong," assented Aunt Jane.
He laughed out. "I'm big enough this way!" He reached out his arms from the broad shoulders and clinched the hands a little. "I can tackle anything in sight. But—" he leaned forward—"it's the things that are out of sight that I can't seem to come to grips with."
"That's what bothers most folks, I guess—men folks special," said Aunt Jane. "I've known a good many men, and I like them.... I like men better'n I do women," she added a little guiltily, "but sometimes it seems to me, when I'm with 'em, as if they were blind—a little mite blind about what's going on inside."
She rocked a little.
"Maybe it's just because they're slow," she said reflectively. "They can't see quick, the way women can, and they're kind of afraid of what they can't see—some like children in the dark." She was smiling at him.
He nodded. "You've got it! I shouldn't wonder if that's the way Edith feels. She's never said it just that way. But she doesn't seem to understand what I'm after; and I can't tell her—because I don't know myself," he added candidly.
"So while you're figuring it out, she calls it something else?" said Aunt Jane.
"That's it! And then we get—angry, and I can't even think. It seems to paralyze me, some way."