“‘Let’s lick her: I’ll help.’
“But he wouldn’t hear a word. Says he:
“‘Hush, my boy; she’s your mother and my wife. She is not as she used to be. She’s sick and nervous.’
“And when I asked the difference between ugly and nervous, he made me stop, and was just as kind to her at supper-time as ever. Tell me such a man won’t make a good husband! He’ll be splendid, and he’s handsomer than he was,—he has lost that look as if he was afraid something was after him, a henpecked look, Clem called it. Poor father; he has had so little comfort, you must make him happy, Auntie; you will, and you’ll make us all so good. You know how like Cain we behave without you, and how we all mind when you tell us what is right. Will you be father’s wife and help us grow up good?”
He had her face between his warm hands, and was looking at her so earnestly, that for his sake Dora could almost have answered yes, but thoughts of what being his father’s wife involved chilled her through and through, and she answered him:
“Johnnie, I do not believe I can.”
For an instant the boy’s black eyes blazed fiercely at her, and then he angrily exclaimed, “I’ll go to ruin, just as fast as I can go! I’ll smoke to-morrow, if I live, and teach Jim and Ben to do so too! I’ll swear, and when the circus comes next week I’ll run away to that, and take ’Tish with me; I’ll gamble; I’ll drink, and when I’m brought home drunker’n a fool, you’ll know it is your work!”
He looked like a young tiger as he stood uttering these terrible threats, and Dora quailed before his flashing eyes, feeling that much he had said was in earnest. She did not fear his swearing, or gambling, or drinking, for the present, at least, but he might not always act his best; he might grow surly and hard and unmanageable, even by her, unless she yielded to his request, and this she couldn’t do.
“Johnnie,” she began, and something in her voice quieted the excited boy, “would you have me marry your father when I do not love him, and just the thought of being his wife makes me almost sick?”
Johnnie was not old enough to comprehend her meaning. He only felt that it was not a very bad thing to be the wife of a man as good as his father, and he answered her, “You do love him well enough, or you will, and he so affectionate. Why he used to hug and kiss mother every day, even when she was crosser than fury. Of course then he’ll hug you most to death.”