Just before dinner he started up from the swing, craftily laid his finger beside his nose, and whispered something very exciting and mysterious to Mother, who kept saying: “Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, I’d be willing to. Though it would be hard.” Immediately after dinner they walked sedately down the village street, while blackbirds whistled from the pond and children sang ancient chants of play under the arc-lights at corners, and neighbors cried “’Evenin’” to them, from chairs on porches. They called upon the town newspaperman, old Lyman Ford, and there was a conference with much laughter and pounding of knees—also a pitcher of lemonade conjointly prepared by Mrs. S. Appleby and Mrs. L. Ford. Finally the Applebys paraded to the telegraph-office, and to Mr. Harris Hartwig, at Saserkopee, they sent this message:
Come see us when can. Wire at once what day and train. Will meet.
A sodden and pathetic figure, in his notorious blue-flannel shirt, and the suit, or the unsuit, which he had worn into Lipsittsville in the days when he had been a hobo, Father waited for the evening train and for Mr. Harris Hartwig.
Mr. Hartwig descended the car steps like a general entering a conquered province. Father nervously concealed his greasy shirt-front with his left hand, and held out his right hand deprecatingly. Mr. Hartwig took it into his strong, virile, but slightly damp, clasp, and held it (a thing which Father devoutly hated) while he gazed magnanimously into Father’s shy eyes and, in a confidential growl which could scarce have been heard farther away than Indianapolis, condescended: “Well, here we are. I’m glad there’s an end to all this wickedness and foolishness at last. Where’s Mother Appleby?”
“She wasn’t feeling jus’ like coming,” Father mumbled. “I’ll take you to her.”
“How the devil are you earning a living?”
“Why, the gent that owns the biggest shoe-store here was so kind as to give me sort of work round the store like.”
“Yuh, as porter, I’ll venture! You might just as well be sensible, for once in your life, Father, and learn that you’re past the age where you can insist and demand and get any kind of work, or any kind of a place to live in, that just suits your own sweet-fancy. Business ain’t charity, you know, and all these working people that think a business is run just to suit them—! And that’s why you ought to have been more appreciative of all Lulu did for you—and then running away and bringing her just about to the verge of nervous prostration worrying over you!”
They had left the station, now, and were passing along Maple Avenue, with its glory of trees and shining lawns, the new Presbyterian church and the Carnegie Library. Mr. Hartwig of Saserkopee was getting far too much satisfaction out of his rôle as sage and counselor to notice Maple Avenue. He never had the chance to play that rôle when the wife of his bosom was about.
“Another thing,” Mr. Hartwig was booming, as they approached the row of bungalows where the Applebys lived, “you ought to have understood the hardship you were bringing on Mother by taking her away from our care—and you always pretending to be so fond of her and all. I don’t want to rub it in or nothing, but I always did say that I was suspicious of these fellows that are always petting and stewing over their wives in public—you can be dead sure that in private they ain’t got any more real consideration ’n’ thoughtfulness for ’em than—than anything. And you can see for yourself now— Here you are. Why, just one look at you is enough to show you’re a failure! Why, my garbage-man wears a better-looking suit than that!”