“I should think she would want to stay here with you,” said Dosia.
Mr. Cater cleared his throat apologetically. “Well, the fact is,” he conceded, “my wife’s powerful fond of her family. There’s nothing against a woman being fond of her family.”
“Oh, no,” said Lois.
“No, ma’am. My wife’s a mighty fine woman. If I’d had the luck to belong to her family—but seems like I was made different; the Yankee side to me crops up, I expect, when I ain’t countin’ on it. She did bring the children and try livin’ up here in a flat the first year I went into the business, but it made her so pinin’ she had to go back; she wasn’t used to the neighborhood. Women depend a good deal on the neighborhood. You know my wife, Miss Dosia. Her parents are gettin’ sort of old and agin’, and she allowed that they needed her; and they kept on needin’ her, I reckon. Her brother Bob was jailed again on Christmas day for drawin’ a gun on one of the Groudys. It kind of broke her all up; he’d promised her to quit. Her sister’s husband, Jim Pierce, he’d lit out before. Now, there’s the other brother, Satterson—he’s a mighty fine fellow, six foot two in his stockin’s, but he doesn’t do anything. Just drinks. My wife she thinks the world and all of Satterson. I don’t blame any woman for being devoted to her family—shows heart.”
“Why, yes, I suppose so,” said Dosia, staring at Mr. Cater, who wore an inscrutable expression. She was wondering if this crew of unsavory relations-in-law lived on Mr. Cater’s earnings; she knew his wife as a pretty, fretful woman with a discontented mouth.
“After all, there isn’t much in a man, when you get down to it, to interest a woman,” continued Mr. Cater impartially. “She wants him to think of her; of co’se it’s his business to. I had a sort of set idea to begin on—but there’s nothin’ in life so wreckin’ as a set idea; I’ve found that out. You’ve got to keep your point of view on a swivel, and turn it so’s you can see to keep on your windin’ way without runnin’ down your fellow-bein’s—isn’t that so? I don’t blame any woman for findin’ out that a man doesn’t always make up for home and mother—I don’t know that I always yearn for my own society.” His inscrutable expression changed to a smile. “I reckon you won’t yearn for it, either, if I go on talkin’ in this way.”
“Oh, yes, I will,” said Dosia, dimpling. “Did you see my father and mother when you were in Balderville? How did they look?”
“Why—about the same as usual,” replied Mr. Cater delicately, with a swift mental view of them passing before his eyes that instantly materialized itself to Dosia. “I promised them I’d come and see you—and meant to before this. It was through Miss Dosia’s comin’ here that I got acquainted with your husband, Mrs. Alexander,” he continued, turning to Lois. “He’s a mighty fine man. He and I, we’re choppin’ at the same log, so to speak, only he’s takin’ side hacks at a lot more logs. I reckon he’s got a pretty good backin’?”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course, he doesn’t talk about it. I haven’t seen Mr. Alexander much for a couple of weeks; he’s been busy and I’ve been busy—we lunch at the same place sometimes. I know some of his friends—Mr. Leverich for one—slightly in the way of business. Mr. Martin—Mr. Martin’s a man nobody knows more’n slightly. You would not think he was such a smart business man, would you? He’s so sort of small and feeble-looking, and has such a little lisping voice. But I don’t care for any dealings with him; those little clawlike hands of his rake in all they touch. Now you think I’m hard on him, don’t you?” He hesitated, and then went on, looking with a veiled shrewdness at Lois: “Martin sort of reminds me of somethin’ that happened with my two boys when I was home at Christmas. They’re little shavers, Mrs. Alexander, right cute, too, if they are mine. Miss Dosia, here, she can tell you.”