“Squire Parker ’d ortter be ’shamed of himself,” said Mrs. Bixbee indignantly.
“Don’t you think that trew love had ought to be allowed to take its course?” asked David with an air of sentiment.
“I think the squire’d ortter be ’shamed of himself,” she reiterated. “S’pose them two old skinamulinks was to go an’ have children?”
“Polly, you make me blush,” protested her brother. “Hain’t you got no respect fer the holy institution of matrimuny?—and—at cet’ry?” he added, wiping his whole face with his napkin.
“Much as you hev, I reckon,” she retorted. “Of all the amazin’ things in this world, the amazinist to me is the kind of people that gits married to each other in gen’ral; but this here performence beats ev’rything holler.”
“Amri give a very good reason for’t,” said David with an air of conviction, and then he broke into a laugh.
“Ef you got anythin’ to tell, tell it,” said Mrs. Bixbee impatiently.
“Wa’al,” said David, taking the last of his pudding into his mouth, “if you insist on’t, painful as ’tis. I heard Dick Larrabee tellin’ ’bout it. Amri told Dick day before yestiday that he was thinkin’ of gettin’ married, an’ ast him to go along with him to Parson White’s an’ be a witniss, an’ I reckon a kind of moral support. When it comes to moral supportin’,” remarked David in passing, “Dick’s as good ’s a professional, an’ he’d go an’ see his gran’mother hung sooner ’n miss anythin’, an’ never let his cigar go out durin’ the performence. Dick said he congratilated Am on his choice, an’ said he reckoned they’d be putty ekally yoked together, if nothin’ else.”
Here David leaned over toward Aunt Polly and said, protestingly, “Don’t gi’ me but jest a teasp’nful o’ that ice cream. I’m so full now ’t I can’t hardly reach the table.” He took a taste of the cream and resumed: “I can’t give it jest as Dick did,” he went on, “but this is about the gist on’t. Him, an’ Lize, an’ Am went to Parson White’s about half after seven o’clock an’ was showed into the parler, an’ in a minute he come in, an’ after sayin’ ‘Good evenin’ ’ all ’round, he says, ‘Well, what c’n I do for ye?’ lookin’ at Am an’ Lize, an’ then at Dick.
“ ‘Wa’al,’ says Am, ‘me an’ Mis’ Annis here has ben thinkin’ fer some time as how we’d ought to git married.’
“ ’Ought to git married?’ says Parson White, scowlin’ fust at one an’ then at t’other.
“ ‘Wa’al,’ says Am, givin’ a kind o’ shuffle with his feet, ‘I didn’t mean ortter exac’ly, but jest as well—kinder comp’ny,’ he says. ‘We hain’t neither on us got nobody, an’ we thought we might ’s well.’
“ ‘What have you got to git married on?’ says the dominie after a minute. ‘Anythin’?’ he says.
“ ‘Wa’al,’ says Am, droppin’ his head sideways an’ borin’ into his ear ’ith his middle finger, ‘I got the promise mebbe of a job o’ work fer a couple o’ days next week.’ ‘H’m’m’m,’ says the dominie, lookin’ at him. ‘Have you got anythin’ to git married on?’ the dominie says, turnin’ to Lize. ‘I’ve got ninety cents comin’ to me fer some work I done last week,’ she says, wiltin’ down onto the sofy an’ beginnin’ to snivvle. Dick says that at that the dominie turned round an’ walked to the other end of the room, an’ he c’d see he was dyin’ to laugh, but he come back with a straight face.
“ ‘How old air you, Shapless?’ he says to Am. ‘I’ll be fifty-eight or mebbe fifty-nine come next spring,’ says Am.
“ ‘How old air you?’ the dominie says, turnin’ to Lize. She wriggled a minute an’ says, ‘Wa’al, I reckon I’m all o’ thirty,’ she says.”
“All o’ thirty!” exclaimed Aunt Polly. “The woman ’s most ’s old ’s I be.”
David laughed and went on with, “Wa’al, Dick said at that the dominie give a kind of a choke, an’ Dick he bust right out, an’ Lize looked at him as if she c’d eat him. Dick said the dominie didn’t say anythin’ fer a minute or two, an’ then he says to Am, ‘I suppose you c’n find somebody that’ll marry you, but I cert’inly won’t, an’ what possesses you to commit such a piece o’ folly,’ he says, ‘passes my understandin’. What earthly reason have you fer wantin’ to marry? On your own showin’,’ he says, ‘neither one on you ’s got a cent o’ money or any settled way o’ gettin’ any.’
“ ‘That’s jest the very reason,’ says Am, ‘that’s jest the very reason. I hain’t got nothin’, an’ Mis’ Annis hain’t got nothin’, an’ we figured that we’d jes’ better git married an’ settle down, an’ make a good home fer us both,’ an’ if that ain’t good reasonin’,” David concluded, “I don’t know what is.”
“An’ be they actially married?” asked Mrs. Bixbee, still incredulous of anything so preposterous.
“So Dick says,” was the reply. “He says Am an’ Lize come away f’m the dominie’s putty down in the mouth, but ’fore long Amri braced up an’ allowed that if he had half a dollar he’d try the squire in the mornin’, an’ Dick let him have it. I says to Dick, ‘You’re out fifty cents on that deal,’ an’ he says, slappin’ his leg, ‘I don’t give a dum,’ he says; ‘I wouldn’t ’a’ missed it fer double the money.’ ”
Here David folded his napkin and put it in the ring, and John finished the cup of clear coffee which Aunt Polly, rather under protest, had given him. Coffee without cream and sugar was incomprehensible to Mrs. Bixbee.
XXV
Two or three days after Christmas John was sitting in his room in the evening when there came a knock at the door, and to his “Come in” there entered Mr. Harum, who was warmly welcomed and entreated to take the big chair, which, after a cursory survey of the apartment and its furnishings, he
