第34章 XIV(1)

UNCLE BART DISCOURSES

UNCLE BART and Cephas were taking their nooning hour under the Nodhead apple tree as Waitstill passed the joiner's shop and went over the bridge.

"Uncle Bart might somehow guess where I am going," she thought, "but even if he did he would never tell any one."

"Where's Waitstill bound this afternoon, I wonder?" drawled Cephas, rising to his feet and looking after the departing team.

"That reminds me, I'd better run up to Baxter's and see if any-thing's wanted before I open the store."

"If it makes any dif'rence," said his father dryly, as he filled his pipe, "Patty's over to Mis' Day's spendin' the afternoon.

Don't s'pose you want to call on the pig, do you? He's the only one to home."

Cephas made no remark, but gave his trousers a hitch, picked up a chip, opened his jack-knife, and sitting down on the greensward began idly whittling the bit of wood into shape.

"I kind o' wish you'd let me make the new ell two-story, father;

't wouldn't be much work, take it in slack time after hayin'."

"Land o' Liberty! What do you want to do that for, Cephas? You 'bout pestered the life out o' me gittin' me to build the ell in the first place, when we didn't need it no more'n a toad does a pocketbook. Then nothin' would do but you must paint it, though I s han't be able to have the main house painted for another year, so the old wine an' the new bottle side by side looks like the Old Driver, an' makes us a laughin'-stock to the village;--and now you want to change the thing into a two-story! Never heerd such a crazy idee in my life."

"I want to settle down," insisted Cephas doggedly.

"Well, settle; I'm willin'! I told you that, afore you painted the ell. Ain't two rooms, fourteen by fourteen, enough for you to settle down in? If they ain't, I guess your mother'd give you one o' the chambers in the main part."

"She would if I married Phoebe Day, but I don't want to marry Phoebe," argued Cephas. "And mother's gone and made a summer kitchen for herself out in the ell, a'ready. I bet yer she'll never move out if I should want to move in on a 'sudden."

"I told you you was takin' that risk when you cut a door through from the main part," said his father genially. "If you hadn't done that, your mother would 'a' had to gone round outside to git int' the ell and mebbe she'd 'a' stayed to home when it stormed, anyhow. Now your wife'11 have her troopin' in an' out, in an' o ut, the whole 'durin' time."

"I only cut the door through to please so't she'd favor my gittin' married, but I guess 't won't do no good. You see, father, what I was thinkin' of is, a girl would mebbe jump at a two-story, four-roomed ell when she wouldn't look at a smaller place."

"Pends upon whether the girl's the jumpin' kind or not! Hadn't you better git everything fixed up with the one you've picked out, afore you take your good savin's and go to buildin' a bigger place for her?"

"I've asked her once a'ready," Cephas allowed, with a burning face. "I don't s'pose you know the one I mean?"

"No kind of an idee," responded his father, with a quizzical wink that was lost on the young man, as his eyes were fixed upon his whittling. "Does she belong to the village?"

"I ain't goin' to let folks know who I've picked out till I git a little mite forrarder," responded Cephas craftily. "Say, father, it's all right to ask a girl twice, ain't it?

"Certain it is, my son. I never heerd there was any special limit to the number o' times you could ask 'em, and their power o' s ayin' 'No' is like the mercy of the Lord; it endureth forever.

--You wouldn't consider a widder, Cephas? A widder'd be a good comp'ny-keeper for your mother."

"I hain't put my good savin's into an ell jest to marry a comp'ny-keeper for mother," responded Cephas huffily. "I want to be number one with my girl and start right in on trainin' her up to suit me."

"Well, if trainin' 's your object you'd better take my advice an' k eep it dark before marriage, Cephas. It's astonishin' how the female sect despises bein' trained; it don't hardly seem to be in their nature to make any changes in 'emselves after they once gits started."

"How are you goin' to live with 'em, then?" Cephas inquired, looking up with interest coupled with some incredulity.