"Perhaps not," he said ruefully. "You see when my little Virginia died, all my friends and hers got busy and found a roomful of worthy ladies that they considered the proper persons to marry me and bring up the twins, but all of them were rather rod-like in a way, and somehow I never could make up my mind to kiss 'em either. The trouble about me is I can't grow up, and anyone whom my friends consider a suitable age for me now, I look upon as a kind of mother to me."
"I think Tweedles are getting on pretty well without a stepmother," I managed to say. I felt about as bad as the twins themselves would have at the thought of Zebedee's marrying again. "They never do anything too bad to tell you, but they do lots of things I fancy they would not tell a stepmother."
"Well, little friend, if you think that, I reckon I'll worry along 'in single blessedness' for a while yet."
The Tucker Twins had been living in dread of a stepmother ever since they had been conscious of living at all. It was a theme with all of their relations and friends and one that was aired on every occasion. "Jeffry Tucker should marry again!" was the cry and sometimes the battle cry of every chaperone in Richmond. As Mr. Tucker said, it was always some good, settled lady who needed a home and was willing to put up with the twins who was selected as his mate.
"I don't want to run an old ladies' home. If I ever marry I shall do it for some reason besides furnishing a stepmother to my family and giving a haven of refuge to some deserving lady."
"I don't want to seem disloyal to Dum and Dee, but I think it might be rather salutary if you talk to them just as you have to me, I mean about stepmothers and things. It might make them a little more circumspect."
"All right, I'll try; but I am afraid I have cried 'Wolf!' too often and they would just laugh at me."
Tweedles did listen to him quite seriously when he broached the subject of his duty to marry again and give them the proper chaperonage.
"Oh, Zebedee, please don't talk about such terrible things. We'll be good and learn how to sew," wailed Dum. "I'm going to make some shirts the very first thing."
"Oh please, please spare me! I couldn't bear for you to get so good that I'd have to wear home-made shirts!" And so the threat of a stepmother was withdrawn for the time being.