“I’ve got twenty dollars for the rent an’ fifteen more for what’s likely to come up,” observed Enos Matchett cheerfully, as he put down his teacup. “There’s nothin’ to worry about this first of month, anyhow. Eh, Martha?”
His wife fingered her napkin in a nervous way, usual to her when the appalling call of their landlord was due, not to mention others who fished from pockets soiled packages of rubber-banded slips to draw out tentatively and none too expectantly those alarming accounts marked at their tops with the discredited name of Enos Matchett.
Poor Martha. The “Oh! Yes. I’ll speak to my husband about it,” and the hundred other subterfuges were growing gaunt with repetition. She had a regular repertory of excuses to apply as conditions demanded. For a first presentation a fixed and nonchalant smile and a “come ’round next month,” caused quick riddance of the unwelcome. “Next month,” it was, “I declare, I guess Mr. Matchett overlooked that little bill. Perhaps, you’d better leave it so he’ll keep it in mind.”
From then on, rang the changes of high prices, hard times and honest intentions until at last came the sharp, bullying threat of the collection lawyer and the crawling process of paying by small installments.
Sometimes she tore up the bills, sometimes they went into the fire, never, until her last bridge had collapsed, did she worry Enos.
He worked, hopefully, from morning to night at odd jobs and occasional bits of carpentry. A fortunate month might fatten their attenuated exchequer to a bulge of sixty dollars, but the months were not all fortunate and there was seldom a penny came in that remained over a fortnight. To meet the rent was imperative. That had to be met. For the rest—wits, hopes, and a somewhat shattered faith in the Lord’s providence.
However, when the Lord endowed average femininity with a high scorn of bills and an abnormal intelligence in the evasion of payment much was done for man.
Enos, undoubtedly, would have become as flighty and irresponsible as was Lucianna, upstairs, had he been obliged to face the shafts which his worried better half so successfully foiled to the last ditch.
Now, Martha gazed across the table at him, with the smile of one temporarily relieved from anxiety.
“That’s good,” she answered. “It’s queer how we’ve kep’ along.”