Who could be more interested in the happiness of Miss Amanda than Mr. Parlow himself? If his daughter had loved Uncle Joe and still loved him, it seemed to Carolyn May as though the carpenter should be very eager, indeed, to help overcome the difficulty that lay between the two parted lovers.
The little girl had been going to call on Miss Amanda. Aunty Rose had said she might, and Miss Amanda had invited her “specially.”
But the thought of taking the old carpenter into her confidence and advising with him delayed that visit. Mr. Parlow was busy on some piece of cabinet work, but he nodded briskly to the little girl when she came to the door of the shop and looked in.
“Are you very busy, Mr. Parlow?” she asked him after a watchful minute or two.
“My hands be, Car’lyn May,” said the carpenter in his dry voice.
“Oh!”
“But I kin listen to ye—and I kin talk.”
“Oh, that’s nice! You can talk when you are sawing and fitting things, can’t you? Not like when you are nailing. Then your mouth’s full of nails—like Mrs. Gormley’s is full of pins when she’s fitting you.”
“Miz Gormley never fitted me to nothin’ yet,” returned Mr. Parlow grimly, “less ’twas a suit of gossip.”
Carolyn May did not notice this remark, nor would she have understood it. She thought Chet Gormley’s mother a very interesting woman, indeed. She always knew so much about everybody.