The baby howled on the floor. I was not to touch him. Gretchen-Cecilia tried to comfort him by saying, “Baby, dear dear baby; baby, dear dear baby.”
“Do you realize, young man,” asked Grandma, “that I, an old woman, am washing your dishes for you?”
I was busy. I was putting my wet stockinged feet on a kindling-board in the oven, and my shoes were curling up on the back of the stove.
“Young man—”
“Yessum—”
“Where’s your wife?”
I replied, “I have no wife, and never did have.” Then I ventured to ask, “May I have the hand of Gretchen? I want some one who can wipe dishes while I wash them.”
“But I’m not grown up,” piped the maiden. It seemed her only objection.
I said: “I will wait and wait till you are seventeen.”
The old lady had no soul for trifles. She intoned, like conscience that will not be slain: “Where’s your wife?”