“Well?” he growled, looking away, troubled by her insistence.
“Then you don’t hate her, do you?” the child pursued. “I’m glad of that, Uncle Joe, for I like her very much. I think she’s a beautiful lady.”
To this Uncle Joe said nothing. He was not to be drawn, badger-like, to the mouth of his den. What he really thought of Miss Amanda he kept to himself.
“Anyway,” sighed Carolyn May at last, “she invited me to come to see her, now she’s home from nursing. And, if you haven’t got any objection, Uncle Joe, I’m going to see her.”
“Go ahead,” said Mr. Stagg. “I haven’t anything to say against it.”
But Carolyn May was far from satisfied by this permission. Child as she was, somehow she had gained an appreciation of the tragedy in the lives of Joseph Stagg and Amanda Parlow.
That cry the man had uttered when he sprang to Miss Parlow’s aid had been wrenched from the very depths of his being. Nor had Miss Amanda’s emotion been stirred only by the sight of a snake that was already dead when she had first seen it. Carolyn May had felt the woman’s hand tremble; there had been tears flooding her eyes when she kissed the little girl.
“I guess,” thought Carolyn May wisely, “that when two folks love each other and get angry, the love’s there just the same. Getting mad doesn’t kill it; it only makes ’em feel worse.
“Poor Uncle Joe! Poor Miss Amanda! Maybe if they’d just try to look up and look for brighter things, they’d get over being mad and be happy again.”
She felt that she would really like to advise with somebody on this point. Aunty Rose, of course, was out of the question. She knew that people often advised with their minister when they were in trouble, but to Carolyn May Mr. Driggs did not seem to be just the person with whom to discuss a love-affair. Kindly as the minister was disposed, he lacked the magnetism and sympathy that would urge one to take him into one’s confidence in such a delicate matter.