"if there's a pleasanter place than this in your village, i wish you'd show it to me!" said calvin parks. "i declare, mr. cheeseman, it does me good every time i come in here."
mr. cheeseman looked about him with contented eyes.
"it is pleasant," he said. "i'm glad you like it, friend parks, for you are one of the folks i like to see in it, and them isn't everybody."
mr. ivory cheeseman certainly did look rather like a monkey, but such a wise monkey! he was little and spare, with nothing profuse about him save his white hair, which grew thick and close as a cap;[pg 121]his whole aspect was dry and frosty, "like the right kind of winter mornin'," calvin parks said when he described the old man to mary sands. the kitchen in which he and calvin were sitting was just behind the shop; a low, dark room, with a little stove in the middle, glowing like a red jewel, and waking dusky gleams in the pots and pans ranged along the walls. they were not altogether ordinary pots and pans. uncle ivory, as east cyrus called him, was a collector in a modest way, and his bits of copper, brass and pewter were dear to his heart. lonzo, the village "natural," found the gaiety of his life in polishing them, and receiving pay in sugar-plums. he was at work now in a dim corner, chuckling to himself as he scoured a huge old pewter dish.
the air was full of the warm, homely fragrance of molasses candy; a pot of it was boiling on the stove, and from time to[pg 122] time uncle ivory stirred it, lifted a spoonful, and watched the drip. on a table near by other candies were cooling, peanut taffy, lemon drops, and great masses of pink and white cream candy.
"yes," said calvin, pursuing his own thoughts. "this is another pleasant home. considerable many of 'em in these parts, or so it appears to a lone person. i judge you're a single man, mr. cheeseman?"
"widower!" said mr. cheeseman briefly.
"that so!" said calvin.
they watched the molasses for a time, as it bubbled up in little gold-brown mounds that flowed away in foam as the spoon touched them.
"she's killin' good to-day!" remarked the old man.
"cream-o'-tartar?" asked calvin.
"yes! i never use any other. yes, sir; i had a good wife, a real good one; and[pg 123] might have had another, if i'd judged it convenient."
calvin looked up expectantly; it was evident that more was coming.
mr. cheeseman began to stir the molasses with long, slow sweeps of the spoon, talking the while.
"it was this way. my wife had a friend that she thought the world of. well, she thought the world of me too, and when it come time for her to go, nothin' to it but i must marry this woman. the night before 'liza was taken, she says to me, 'ivory,' she says, 'i've left it in writin' that if you marry elviry you'll get that two thousand dollars that's in the bank; and if not it goes to the children.' children was married and settled, two of 'em, and well fixed. 'i want you to promise me you will!' she says."
"and did you?" asked calvin.
"no, i didn't. i warn't goin' to tie myself[pg 124] up again. i'd been married thirty years, and that was enough."
"what did you say, if i may ask?"
"i said i'd think about it, and let her know in the mornin'. i knew she'd be gone by then, and she was."
again they watched the boiling in silence. calvin looked somewhat disturbed.
"but yet you liked the married state?" he asked presently.
"fust-rate!" said mr. cheeseman placidly. he glanced at calvin; stirred the candy, and glanced again.
"you ain't married, i think, friend parks?"
"n—no!" said calvin slowly. "i ain't; but—fact is, i'm wishful to be, but i don't see my way to it."
"i want to know!" said mr. cheeseman. "would you like to free your mind, or don't you feel to? i'm not curious, not a mite; but yet there's times when a person can tell[pg 125] better what he thinks if he outs with it to somebody else. like molasses! take it in the cask, and it's cold, and slow, and not much to look at; but take and bile it, and stir it good, and—you see!"
the molasses boiled up in a fragrant geyser, threatening to overflow the pot; but obedient to the spoon, fell away again in foamy ripples.
"like that!" mr. cheeseman repeated. "if it would clear your mind any to bile over, friend parks, so do!"
calvin glanced toward the corner. "does he take much notice?" he asked.
"lonzo? no! he's no more than a child. but yet 'tis time for him to go home. lonzo! dinner-time!"
the simpleton rose and shambled forward, a huge uncouth figure with a face like a platter; not an empty platter now, though, for it was wreathed in smiles. he held out the shining dish. "done good?" he asked.[pg 126]
"elegant, lonzo, elegant! you are smart, no mistake about that. help yourself to the cream candy! that square pan is o' purpose for you."
lonzo stowed a third of the contents of the pan in his cavernous mouth, the rest in various pockets, and departed grinning happily.
"he's as good as gold!" said mr. cheeseman. "not a mite of harm in lonzo; i wish all sensible folks was as pleasant. now, friend parks, bile up!"
calvin pulled his brown moustache, and looked shy.
"i guess i'm pretty slow molasses, mr. cheeseman," he said. "i ain't used to bilin', except in the way of gettin' mad once in a while, and i don't do that real often; but yet i'll try my best."
in a few words he described the twins and his relation to them. "no kin, you know, blood nor married; only just neighbors[pg 127] all our lives till late years. i should expect to do a neighbor's part by the boys, week-days and sundays, and i dono as ever i've done contrary."
then he told, with more reserve, of "miss hands's" coming; of his finding her there; of her striking him as, take it all round, the likeliest woman ever he saw; of his saying to himself that if ever things turned out so that he had a right to ask a woman to hitch her wagon to a middle-aged hoss that had some go in him yet, here was the woman.
"but yet i told myself first thing," he added, taking up the poker and tapping the bright little stove with it; "i told myself she would be marryin' one of the boys most likely; i kep' that in mind steady, as you may say. i thought i was so used to the idee that it wouldn't jar me much of any when it come to the fact. but it did; yes siree, it did, sure enough.[pg 128] 'peared as if a cog slipped somehow, and my whole works was jolted out of kilter."
he looked anxiously at mr. cheeseman, who nodded with grave comprehension.
"and when it comes," he went on, "to each one of them beseechin' me to get her to marry the other—why—i really am blowed, mr. cheeseman, and do you wonder at it?"
"she's done!" said mr. cheeseman, rising. "lend a hand with that pan, friend parks; the big square one yonder."
a moment of anxious silence followed, as the thick golden-brown mass flowed into the pan, curled into the corners, and finally settled in a smooth glossy sheet.
"there!" said mr. cheeseman. "now we'll let her cool a spell till she's fit to handle. take your seat, friend parks! no, i don't wonder no way in the world at your bein' blowed, or jolted either. what gets me is,[pg 129] why don't you speak for yourself, like that other feller in the story?"
calvin parks pulled his moustache meditatively.
"i know!" he said. "longfellow's poems. mother thought a sight of longfellow's poems. john alden, warn't it? and the old fellow was miles standish? yes, i rec'lect well. but you see, mr. cheeseman, the young woman herself give him the tip that time. 'why don't you speak for yourself, john?' i rec'lect well enough. now, miss hands never give me any reason to think she'd rather have me than ary one of the boys."
"has she given you any reason to think she wouldn't?" queried the old man.
"well—no! i don't know as she has."
"well, then, where does the trouble come in? you're twice the man they are, i take it, from all accounts. don't know as ever i saw them, but i knew the old woman,[pg 130] and used to hear of her goin's on bringing these young uns up. i don't see as you're bound to canvass for them, no way in the world. rustle in and get her yourself, is what i say."
calvin looked at him anxiously.
"you see, mr. cheeseman, it's this way," he said. "i think a sight of her, don't i? i've said so, and i haven't said half. that bein' so, nat'rally i want her to be well fixed, don't you see? the best that can be, ain't that so? now, either one of those two darned old huckleberries can give her a first-rate home; as nice a place as there is in this state, house, stock and fixin's all to match. a woman wants a home; one of them old gooseberries said so, and it's true. now, what have i got to offer her? i've got a hole in the ground, and a candy route. you see how it is, don't you, mr. cheeseman?"
mr. cheeseman reflected for a few minutes.[pg 131]
"where's your savin's?" he asked abruptly. "you were master of a coasting schooner for ten year, you say. single man, and no bad habits, i should judge,—you'd ought to have money in the bank, young man. what have you done with it?"
calvin hung his head.
"that's right!" he said. "that's so, mr. cheeseman. i had money in the bank. last year i drawed it out, like a fool; somebody'd been talkin' investments to me, and i thought i could do better with it; and—well, i had it on board, and there was a feller,—well, i needn't go into that. i never thought he would have, if his mind had been quite straight. wife died, and he warn't the same man afterwards. you can see how 'twas! he took it, and then got drownded with it in his pants pocket—or so it seemed likely—so nobody got much out of that deal. i had some part of it in another place, though, sufficient to buy me[pg 132] the route, and five dollars over. i put the five dollars in the bank, but it don't yield what you'd call an income precisely. so there it is, mr. cheeseman, and i can't see that things looks much like matrimony for little calvin. honest now, do you?"
mr. cheeseman rumpled his thick hair till it gave the impression of papa monkey's having married a white cockatoo. he glanced at calvin sidewise.
"she has money,—" he said slowly.
"and she can keep it!" said calvin parks. "i ain't that kind."
"just so!" said mr. cheeseman. "precisely. where are you livin' now, friend parks?"
"i'm boardin' with widder marlin;" said calvin.
the old man looked up sharply. "you are?" he said. "humph! that don't seem a very likely place, 'cordin' to folks's ideas[pg 133] round here. them two aren't thought specially well of by their neighbors."
"that so?" said calvin. "i guess they won't hurt me any. i sailed mate to cap'n marlin," he added, "and he was always good to me."
"humph!" said mr. cheeseman again. "i see." he rumpled his hair again, and rose to his feet. "friend parks," he said, slowly, "you've got to lay by, that's all there is to it; and i'm going to show you how."
