"I'm already thinking of it," he said. He had expected opposition from his father, and was surprised at his suggestion.
"Yes," continued the "old man," as Ben already designated him, "I'd like to see you settle down before you're twenty-one. But you want to make a good choice. There's Abby Wilson, now. She's got the muscle of a man, and ain't afraid of anything. And her father has a fine property—a growin' property. Abby'll make a man a good, vigorous helpmate, and she'll bring him money in time. You'd better shine up to Abby, Ben."
Ben gave a contemptuous laugh. "I'd as soon marry a dressed-up boy," he said. "She's more like a boy than a girl in her looks and in her ways. I have other plans in my mind, father, more to my taste. I mean to marry Edith Gilman, if she'll take me, and I think she will."
A dark frown contracted Anson English's brow.
"Edith Gilman?" he repeated; "why, that puny schoolma'm, with her baby face and weak voice, 'll never help you to get a livin', Ben. What are you thinkin' of?"
"Of love, father, I guess. I love her, and that's all there is of it. And I shall marry her, if she'll take me, and you can like it or lump it, as you please. She's a good girl, and if she's treated well all round, she'll make a good wife, and she's the only woman that can put the check rein on me, when I get in my tempers. She'll make a man of me yet."
"But she can't work," insisted the father. "She looks as white and puny as 'Liz'beth did the year she died."
"She's overworked in the school-room. I mean to take her home, and give her a rest. I don't ask any woman to marry me and be my drudge. I expect my wife will keep help."
The old man groaned aloud. Ben's ideas were positively ruinous. If he married this girl, it would add to, not decrease, the family expenses. But it was useless to oppose. Ben would do as he pleased, the old man saw that plainly, and he might as well submit.