They also thought he might be a little mite huffy about Undine Berry's taking up with an Albany man after "going" with him all summer, but that was nothing but guess-work and soon passed out of mind.
The side of the affair that Matthew turned toward his mother can best be told by his own letter to her, which was the longest one he had ever written in his life. He posted it on Saturday night at Wareham, but started for Vermont twenty-four hours later to bring her home.
"You keep house for me, Maria," he said with a forlorn attempt at gayety. "Mind you keep the improvements swept and dusted, and if the motor folks get too fresh, write a sign and hang it on the gate. Make it read: 'We intended this house to be green. If it looks too bright to suit you, drive by fast!'"
RIVERBORO, Sept. 10th, 19—
To MRS. CYRUS MILLIKEN,
Warsaw, Vermont
DEAR MOTHER:
I guess you suspicioned how it was with Undine and me when you offered to go and spend the summer with Lorenzo and his wife in Vermont, and I didn't say nothing to keep you home. It wa'n't that I didn't like to have you round, for I always did, and you know it, but the way I figured it out was, I was going to make so many improvements on the premises that you wouldn't hardly have a rest for the sole of your foot and you would be all fussed up till I got everything to rights.
Well, now, mother, I've got to tell you, nothing has turned out the same as I thought it would. Undine gave me to understand that she liked me first rate, and she knew well enough that I was fascinated with her from the minute I set eyes on her. I could see she thought the house and barn was kind of run down and common-looking, and I figured it out that if I made improvements enough in the premises and got everything fixed up fashionable, she'd marry me when the fall term of school was over. She was young and handsome and had more education than me, and she not being used to housework, I figured it out that I'd make things as easy and pleasant for her as I could, and try to keep up with the band more than you or I was used to.
Well, mother, I was fooled all round, and I guess I ain't the first man, neither. My improvements wouldn't 'a' had any weight with her, though I'd sweated all summer over 'em, even working 4th of July and right through dog-days without hardly sitting down to a square meal or stopping to change my shirt. She'd made up her mind to ship me even before she seen the cement walk and the electric lights and the lace curtain in the front door, which has attracted more attention than a circus ever sence it was put in.
When we said good-bye, she told me to go ahead and it would be all right. I took it as a sacred promise, and oh, mother, it mortifies me to confess how clean gone I was on that girl! The way it turned out was this: I got so upset and worried by not hearing from her by the last of August that I couldn't stand it any longer. If she'd stayed to home in Greenford, I could have drove over every week or two and kept her up to her word, or else, though I was blind as a bat, I might have seen through her; but when I wrote you all the news in July you remember I said, "Undine Berry has gone on a visit to Albany with her father." Well, she stayed in Albany, and she didn't correspond with me but one note and one post-card which I answered to general delivery, having no address. I didn't write her all the grand things I was doing, because her being a school-teacher, I figured it out that she'd catch me up on some mistake in spelling and turn me down cold. Well, mother, she done that anyway all right!