In the Heart of a Fool

by William Allen White

But it took her all night to finish drinking and she did not return. Martha rose, began straightening up the littered music on the piano, and being near the door, slipped out. By this time the Captain was doing most of the talking. Chiefly, he was telling what he thought the sprocket needed to make it work upon an automobile. At the hall door of the dining room two heads appeared, and though the door creaked about the time the clock struck the half hour, Mr. Brotherton did not see the heads. They were behind him, and four arms began making signs at the Captain. He looked at them, puzzled and anxious for a minute or two. They were peremptorily beckoning him out. Finally, it came to him, and he said to the girls: “Oh, yes–all right.” This broke at the wrong time into something Mr. Brotherton was saying. He looked up astonished and the Captain, abashed, smiled and after shuffling his feet, backed up to the base burner and hummed the tune about the land that was fairer than day. Emma and Mr. Brotherton began talking. Presently, the Captain picked up the 400spitting cat by the scruff of the neck and held him a moment under his chin. “Well, Emmy,” he cut in, interrupting her story of how Miss Carhart had told the principal if “he ever told of her engagement before school was out in June, she’d just die,” with:

“I suppose there’ll be plenty of potatoes for the hash?”

And not waiting for answer, he marched to the kitchen with the cat, and in due time, they heard the “Sweet Bye and Bye” going up the back stairs, and then the thump, thump of the Captain’s shoes on the floor above them.

The eldest Miss Morton, in her best silk dress, with her mother’s cameo brooch at her throat, and with the full, maidenly ripeness of twenty-nine years upon her brow, with her hair demurely parted on said brow, where there was the faintest hint of a wrinkle coming–which Miss Morton attributed to a person she called “the dratted Calvin kid,”–the eldest Miss Morton, hair, cameo, silk dress, wrinkle, the dratted Calvin kid and all, did or did not look like a siren, according to the point of view of the spectator. If he was seeking the voluptuous curves of the early spring of youth–no: but if he was seeking those quieter and more restful lines that follow a maiden with a true and tender heart, who is a good cook and who sweeps under the sofa, yes.

Mr. Brotherton did not know exactly what he desired. He had been coming to the Morton home on various errands since the girls were little tots. He had seen Emma in her first millinery store hat. He had bought Martha her first sled; he had got Ruth her last doll. But he shook his head. He liked them all. And then, as though to puzzle him more, he had noticed that for two or three years, he had never got more than two consecutive evenings with any of them–or with all of them. The mystery of their conduct baffled him. He sometimes wondered indignantly why they worked him in shifts? Sometimes he had Ruth twice; sometimes Emma and Martha in succession–sometimes Martha twice. He like them all. But he could not understand what system they followed in disposing of him. So as he sat and toyed with his Shriner’s pin and listened to the tales of a tepid schoolmistress’ romance that Emma told, he wondered if 401after all–for a man of his tastes, she wasn’t really the flower of the flock.

“You know, George,” she was old enough for that, and at rare times when they were alone she called him George, “I’m working up a kind of sorrow for Judge Van Dorn–or pity or something. When I taught little Lila he was always sending her candy and little trinkets. Now Lila is in the grade above me, and do you know the Judge has taken to walking by the schoolhouse at recess, just to see her, and walking along at noon and at night to get a word with her. He has put up a swing and a teeter-totter board on the girls’ playgrounds. This morning I saw him standing, gazing after her, and he was as sad a figure as I ever saw. He caught me looking at him and smiled and said:

“‘Fine girl, Emma,’ and walked away.”

“Lord, Emma,” said Mr. Brotherton, as he brought his big, baseball hands down on his fat knees. “I don’t blame him. Don’t you just think children are about the nicest things in this world?”

Emma was silent. She had expressed other sentiments too recently. Still she smiled. And he went on:

“Oh, wow!–they’re mighty fine to have around.”