"He must like you," I observed.
"Ayah, he sure must. He must like me a sight better'n anyone else he ever met. Godfrey Mighty, I could catch him like a fly, if I was a mind to."
"Why don't you, then?"
"Well... Hellwig'd be pretty plaguey mad if I did anything like that!"
"He's had his chance. You've given him twenty-five years and he hasn't asked you to marry him. He hasn't any right to object now if you marry someone else."
"No..." Grandma said doubtfully.
And then I told her the idea I had had about Hellwig--that maybe it was his vow never to propose again that had prevented his popping the question; that maybe if she'd do the popping ... "He wun't never marry me," she said gloomily.
Grandma peeled potatoes while I added beaten eggs to a bowl of hamburger.
"Wagonseller . . . what a H. of a name," Grandma mused, scooping potato peelings into the sawed-off milk carton we used for a temporary garbage container. "An' he's the spittin' image of a pert little bird, ain't he? But he can sure spend the dough!"
"Oh, Wagonseller isn't a bad name," I said soothingly. "You should read some of the names on our registration cards. Last night, for instance, there were two or three outlandish ones. Let's see--well, Tinklingwhiskers for one. Mr. Tinklingwhiskers. How do you suppose the poor man ever gets to sleep at night?"