It took the women half an hour or more to feed Herbert up proper with all the nice things they could drag from the icebox. Then Mother Pulsifer patted him on the shoulder and shooed Edna and him through the French doors out on the veranda.
And what do you guess is Mrs. Pulsifer's openin' as we drifts back towards the scene of the late conflict?
"Why, Deary!" says she. "You haven't your cigars, have you? Here they are—and the matches. There! Now for the surprise. Our young people have decided—that is, Edna has—not to be married until two weeks from next Wednesday."
Does Pa Pulsifer rant any more rants? No. He gets his perfecto goin' nicely, blows a couple of smoke rings up towards the ceilin', and then remarks in sort of a weak growl:
"Hanged if I'll walk down a church aisle, Maria—hanged if I do!"
"I told them you wouldn't," says Ma Pulsifer, smoothin' the hair back over his ears soothin'; "so they've agreed on a simple home wedding, with only four bridesmaids."
"Huh!" says he. "It's lucky they did."
But, say, take it from me, his days of crackin' the whip around that joint are over. I'm beginnin' to believe too how some of that dope I fed to Herbert must have been straight goods. Vee insists on talkin' it over later, as we are camped in one of them swing seats out on the veranda.
"Wasn't he just splendid," says she: "standing up to Mr. Pulsifer that way, you know?"
"Some hero!" says I. "I wonder would he give me a few lessons, in case I should run across your Aunty some day?"