“Why—’cause—Well, you know, Mr. Parlow, she can’t be happy as long as she and my Uncle Joe are mad at each other.”
Mr. Parlow uttered another grunt, but the child went bravely on.
“You know very well that’s so. And I don’t know what to do about it. It just seems too awful that they should hardly speak, and yet be so fond of each other deep down.”
“How d’you know they’re so fond of each other—deep down?” Mr. Parlow demanded.
“I know my Uncle Joe likes Miss Mandy, ’cause he always speaks so—so respectful of her. And I can see she likes him, in her eyes,” replied the observant Carolyn May. “Oh, yes, Mr. Parlow, they ought to be happy again, and we ought to make ’em so.”
“You and me. We ought to find some way of doing it. I’m sure we can, if we just think hard about it.”
“Huh!” grunted the carpenter again, turning Cherry into the dooryard. “Huh!”
This was not a very encouraging response. Yet he did think of it. The little girl had started a train of thought in Mr. Parlow’s mind that he could not sidetrack.
He knew very well that what she had said about his daughter and Joseph Stagg was quite true. In his selfishness he had been glad all these years that the hardware merchant was balked of happiness. As for his daughter’s feelings, Mr. Parlow had put them aside as “women’s foolishness.” He had never much considered women in his life.