The night Fred Babcock married them, there had been no place for Nathan to take his bride but the local hotel. He would not take her to his father’s home; he did not care to go to Milly’s. They had separated for an hour, each going for their “things”, pitifully meeting at the Whitney House later to set sail on the tempestuous seas of mismated connubiality.
Nathan had found his father pacing the same room, wild-eyed, wild-faced, wild-haired, hands thrust deep in trousers pockets. The room was in wreckage. His mother was in an adjacent apartment, eternally rocking, rocking, rocking, considering her troubles in the dark. Father and mother quickly forgot their differences, however, when they beheld Nathan coming down the front stairs, suitcase in either hand.
“Where you going?” demanded Johnathan sharply.
“To the hotel.”
“You’re going nowhere of the sort. Put those valises back upstairs. No story’ll go ’round this town if I can help it, that the very night my son turned twenty-one, he packed his traps and scooted.”
“Do you think I’m going to bring a wife into this?”
“Bring a what?”
“A wife!”
“Wait till you’ve got a wife before you talk about bringing her into anything. Put those suitcases back upstairs!”
“But I’ve got a wife. I married one at nine o’clock.”