Naomi was suddenly pale and shaking. Without looking at Mabelle she said in a low voice, “I don’t have to see the doctor to find out why.”
Mabelle’s rocking-chair paused in its monotonous bobbing. “You don’t mean to say you’ve been doing sinful things to prevent it—you, Naomi Downes, a missionary!”
Naomi, wringing her hands, said, “No, I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t been doing sinful things.... I ... we couldn’t have had a baby ... we’ve—we’ve never lived together.”
The rocking-chair still remained quiescent, a posed symbol of Mabelle’s shocked astonishment. “Well, I don’t know what you mean. But it seems sinful to me if a man and wife don’t live together. What does the Bible say? Take unto yourself a wife and multiply. Look at all the begats.”
Naomi burst out, “We meant to ... some day. Only we couldn’t out there in Africa.”
“Well, you ought to have taken a chance.” Mabelle seemed outraged and angry for the first time in all Naomi’s friendship with her, and it was only after a long time that the rocking-chair began once more its unending motion. The baby, startled by a sudden cessation of the soothing motion, set up a cry and Mabelle, loosening ten of the twenty-one buttons that held together her straining basque, quieted it at once.
“What do you expect?” asked Mabelle rhetorically. “What do you expect? A man isn’t going on courting forever for nothing—especially after he’s married to a woman. He’ll get tired after a while. Philip’s a man like any other man. He’s not going on forever like this. He isn’t that kind. Any woman can tell in a glance—and he’s the kind that can wrap a woman around his thumb.” Then, being a woman whose whole philosophy was based upon her own experience, she said, “Why, even my Elmer wouldn’t stand it, like as not. He’s not much at things like that and he’s always ashamed of himself afterwards. I guess it was a kind of duty with him—still he’s a man.” And turning back again to the subject at hand, she asked, “Did you ever know about Philip’s father? Why, that man was like a rabbit. You’d better look out or you’ll lose him altogether.”
It was the longest single speech Mabelle had made in years, and after it she sat rocking herself for a long time in profound meditation. Naomi cried a little and dried her eyes, and the baby fell back into a state of coma. The chair creaked and creaked. At last Mabelle got up heavily, deposited the sleeping child on the sofa, and put on her jacket and hat.
“Take my advice, Naomi,” she said. “It can’t go on like this. If you don’t want to lose him, you’ll do what I say. I’m a good judge of men and Philip is worth keeping. He’s better than his Ma, Pa, Uncle Elmer, or any of ’em. I wish I was married to such a man.”