Galusha the Magnificent

by Joseph Crosby Lincoln

There was one thing that came from our dinner at the Brindlecombes' which I must tell you, because it is so very like this blessed husband of mine. I happened to speak of Mrs. Brindlecombe's pin, the wonderful one I just wrote about. The very next day Galusha came trotting in, bubbling over with mischief and mystery like the boy he is in so many things, and handed me a jeweler's box. When I opened it there was a platinum brooch with a diamond in it as big—honestly, Lulie, I believe it was as big as my thumbnail, or two thirds as big, anyway. This husband of mine had, so he told me, made up his mind that nobody's wife should own a more wonderful pin than HIS wife owned. “Because,” he said, “nobody else has such a wonderful wife, you know. Dear me, no. No, indeed.”

Well, I almost cried at first, and then I set about thinking how I could get him to change the pin and do it without hurting his feelings. As for wearing it—why, Lulie, I would have looked like the evening train just coming up to the depot platform. That diamond flashed like the Gould's Bluffs light. The sight of it would have made Zach Bloomer feel at home. And when I found out what it cost! My soul and body! Well, I used all the brains I had and strained them a little, I'm afraid, but at last I made him understand that perhaps something a tiny bit smaller would look, when I wore it in the front of my dress, a little less like a bonfire on a hill and we went back to the jewelry store together. The upshot of it was that I have a brooch—lots smaller, of course—and a ring, either of which is far, far too grand for a plain woman like me, and which I shall wear only on the very stateliest of state occasions and NEVER, I think, both at the same time, and I saved Galusha a good many dollars besides.

So, you see, Lulie, that he is the same impractical, absent-minded, dear little man he was down there in East Wellmouth, even though he is such a famous scientist and discoverer. I think I got the best salve for my conscience from knowing that, otherwise I should always feel that I never should have let him marry me. In most respects I am not a bit the wife he should have, but I hope I am of some use in his practical affairs and that at last I can keep him from being imposed upon. I try. For instance, on the steamer his cap blew overboard. I wish you could have seen the cap the ship's steward sold him. The thing he bought at Ras Beebe's store was stylish and subdued compared to it. And I wish you could have seen that steward when I got through talking to him. Every day smooth-talking scamps, who know him by reputation, come with schemes for getting him to invest in something, or with pitiful tales about being Americans stranded far away from home. I take care of these sharks and they don't bite me, not often. I told one shabby, red-nosed rascal yesterday that, so far as he was concerned, no doubt it was tough to be stranded with no way of getting to the States, as he called them; but that I hadn't heard yet how the States felt about it. So I help Galusha with money matters and see that he dresses as he should and eats what and when he should, and try, with Professor King, his chief assistant with the expedition, to keep his mind from worry about little things. He seems very happy and I certainly mean to keep him so, if I can.

We talk about you and Nelson and Captain Jethro every day. The news in your last letter, the one we found at Gibraltar, was perfectly splendid. So you are to be married in June. And Galusha and I can't come to your wedding; that is a shame. By the time we get back you will be so long settled in the cottage at the radio station that it won't seem new at all to you. But it will be very new to us and we shall just love to see it and the new furniture and your presents and everything. We both think your father's way of taking it perfectly splendid. I am glad he still won't have a word to say to Marietta Hoag or her crowd of simpletons. Galusha says to tell your father that he must not feel in the least obliged to him for his help in exposing Marietta as a cheat. He says it was very good fun, really, and didn't amount to much, anyway. You and I know it did, of course, but he always talks that way about anything he does. And your thanks and Captain Jethro's pleased him very much.

Primmie writes that...

(A page omitted. See Primmie's letter.)

Please keep an eye on her and see that she doesn't set fire to the house or feed the corn to the cat and the liver to the hens, or some such foolishness. And don't let her talk you deaf, dumb and blind.

There! this letter is so long that I think it will have to go in a trunk, by express or freight or something. One week more and we start for upper Egypt, by water, up the Nile, at first, then on by automobiles. Yes, little American automobiles. Galusha says we shall use camels very little, for which I say “Hurrah, hurrah!” I cannot see myself navigating a camel—not for long, and it IS such a high perch to fall from. Our love to you and Nelson and to your father. And oh, so very much to yourself. And we DO wish we might come to your wedding. We shall be there in spirit—and that doesn't mean Marietta's kind of spirits, either.

Your affectionate friend,

MARTHA BANGS.