“Well, I don’t mean any harm. What
I mean is, I’ve knocked about the world so much,
and never had any home of my own, that to see folks
as happy as you be makes me happier than I’ve
been since I don’t know when. Now, you
let it stay. It was the first piece of gold I
picked up in Californy when I went out there in ’50,
and it’s about the last; I didn’t have
very good luck. Well, of course! I know
I ain’t fit to give it; but I want to do it.
I think Bartley’s about the greatest fellow and
he’s the best fellow this world can show.
That’s the way I feel about him. And I want
to do it. Sho! the thing wa’n’t no
use to me!”
Marcia always gave her maid off all work Sunday afternoon,
and she would not trespass upon her rule because she
had guests that day. Except for the confusion
to which Kinney’s unexpected gift had put her,
she would have waited for him to join the others before
she began to clear away the dinner; but now she mechanically
began, and Kinney, to whom these domestic occupations
were a second nature, joined her in the work, equally
absent-minded in the fervor of his petition.
Bartley suddenly flung open the doors. “My
dear, Mr. Ricker says he must be go—”
He discovered Marcia with the dish of potatoes in her
hand, and Kinney in the act of carrying off the platter
of turkey. “Look here, Ricker!”
Kinney came to himself, and, opening his mouth above
the platter wide enough to swallow the remains of
the turkey, slapped his leg with the hand that he
released for the purpose, and shouted, “The ruling
passion, Bartley, the ruling passion!”
The men roared; but Marcia, even while she took in
the situation, did not see anything so ridiculous
in it as they. She smiled a little in sympathy
with their mirth, and then said, with a look and tone
which he had not seen or heard in her since the day
of their picnic at Equity, “Come, see what Mr.
Kinney has given baby, Bartley.”
They sat up talking Kinney over after he was gone;
but even at ten o’clock Bartley said he should
not go to bed; he felt like writing.
XXIX.
Bartley lived well now. He felt that he could
afford it, on fifty dollars a week; and yet somehow
he had always a sheaf of unpaid bills on hand.
Rent was so much, the butcher so much, the grocer
so much; these were the great outlays, and he knew
just what they were; but the sum total was always much
larger than he expected. At a pinch, he borrowed;
but he did not let Marcia know of this, for she would
have starved herself to pay the debt; what was worse,
she would have wished him to starve with her.
He kept the purse, and he kept the accounts; he was
master in his house, and he meant to be so.
Copyrights
A Modern Instance from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
