“Have you made up your mind what to call her?” she asked. “Mummer, or mother?”
“I shall call her whatever I please,” replied Maria; “it is nobody's business.” Then she arose and went out of the room, with an absurd little strut.
“Lord a-massy!” observed Mrs. Jonas White, after she had gone.
“I guess Ida Slome will have her hands full with that young one,” observed Lillian.
“I guess she will, too,” assented her mother. “She was real sassy. Well, her mother had a temper of her own; guess she's got some of it.”
Mr. Jonas White and Henry were a great alleviation of Maria's desolate estate during her father's absence. Somehow, the men seemed to understand better than the women just how she felt: that she would rather be let alone, now it was all over, than condoled with and pitied. Mr. Henry White took one of the market horses, hitched him into a light buggy, and took Maria out riding two evenings, when the market was closed. It was a warm November, and the moon was full. Maria quite enjoyed her drive with Mr. Henry White, and he never said one word about her father's marriage, and her new mother—her pronoun of a mother—all the way. Mr. Henry White had too long a neck, and too large a mouth, which was, moreover, too firmly set, otherwise Maria felt that, with slight encouragement, she might fall in love with him, since he showed so much delicacy. She counted up the probable difference in their ages, and estimated it as no more than was between her father and Her. However, Mr. Henry White gave her so little encouragement, and his neck was so much too long above his collar, that she decided to put it out of her mind.
“Poor little thing,” Mr. Henry White said to his father, next day, “she's about wild, with mother and Lill harping on it all the time.”
“They mean well,” said Mr. White.
“Of course they do; but who's going to stand this eternal harping? If women folks would only stop being so durned kind, and let folks alone sometimes, they'd be a durned sight kinder.”
“That's so,” said Mr. Jonas White.