The Triumph of Father
“Well, what do you want me to do to-day, Min? Speak up quick.” Mr. Harlow, in his holiday morning costume, consisting of a pair of old and baggy trousers, an outing shirt and an utterly incongruous coat, with bulging pockets, stood by the piazza steps, a disreputable grey felt hat held in one hand.
“It’s nearly ten o’clock, and I must go down-town and get some nails before the stores close for the day. I had expected to send one of the boys, but Betty tells me that Herbert has gone to play in the golf tournament, and Jack is off to the ball game. If there’s anything round the house you want mended, now’s your time to tell me.”
“We want a screw for the wringer—or perhaps it’s a nut,” said Mrs. Harlow, hazily, her eyes fixed on her husband. “The top is off the piano-stool again, and there is the arm of the red chair,—you’ll find it in the closet under the stairs,—and one of the faucets in the kitchen sink will keep running. Oh, yes, and there’s a caster broken off the refrigerator, too; we have to prop it up with a block of wood, but it’s so crooked that the water from it goes all over the cellar floor. Please don’t forget it, will you? But, David, you are not going down to the village looking like that? It’s really disgraceful! If any one should see you! It won’t take you a minute to go up-stairs and change your coat and put on another necktie.”
“What’s the matter with the clothes I have on?” Mr. Harlow looked down at himself with satisfaction. “Just the things to work in, good and easy. I’ll go on now, and you can think what else you want done, and tell me when I come back.” He stopped to take the letters from the grey-clad postman, who had just come up with the one mail of a holiday. “Here’s one for me from Tom. I’ll read it as I go along. Good-bye!”
Mr. Harlow, who had put on his hat, took it off in courtesy to his wife, as he looked back and smiled a last affectionate farewell to her from the other side of the gate. Her eyes watched his large form, with its firm stride, until it disappeared round the corner. She loved his little politenesses of manner to her.
The wind touched the purple clusters of wistaria above her head, and shook out a sweet perfume from them. The grass around the house was close cut and velvety, but next door the lawn-mower was click-clicking busily, and the sky was as blue as a summer sky.
Mrs. Harlow, slender and trim in a freshly washed lilac cambric gown that matched the wistaria, sat on the piazza opening her letters with the true holiday feeling of the suburbanite.