The Wooing of Calvin Parks

He paused, and shook his head with a reminiscent chuckle.

"Last week we had us quite a time!" he said. "Phrony got some kind of a bee in her bunnet – I dono what it was! seemed to have a kind of idee that she was goin' to git married, if only she had some money. I never see no man round the house, nor yet heard none speak of her; and, too, if she'd looked in the glass she'd have seen 'twarn't real reasonable to expect it. However it was, so it was; she's got her eye on somebody, no question about that. Well, it's a small farm, and the soil ain't any too rich; they git along, but no more than, I expect; and yet they don't spend a cent more'n they have to, you may resk your eye-teeth on that. Well, anyways, here's what happened. I come in one night, and the old lady was sittin' studyin' over a letter or like that. When she saw me, 'Cap'n,' she says (always calls me Cap'n, same as she did the old man), 'will you cast your eye over that,' she says, 'and tell me what you think of it?'

"I looked it over, and you may call me a horn-pout, Miss Hands and boys, if 'twarn't a bill from Phrony, drawed up in reg'lar style, chargin' her mother three dollars a week wages for thirty years. Now, Miss Hands, I'd like to know what you think of that."

"I think 'twas scandalous!" cried Mary Sands, emphatically. "I think she ought to be ashamed of herself. The idea!"

"Well, it didn't seem to me real suitable," said Calvin; "I couldn't make it seem so, and so I said. 'What's got into her?' I said. 'You and her belong together; and what's one's is 'tother's, ain't it, so far as livin' goes?'

"The old lady looks at me kind o' queer. 'Phrony ain't satisfied,' she says. 'She thinks the Lord designs her to be a helpmeet, and that He's manifestin' Himself at present, or liable so to do.'

"Well, I studied over that a bit, but I didn't make nothin' out of it. The old lady has spells, as I told you, when she ain't just right in her head. Makes me laugh sometimes, the things she'll say. Take last night, now! I didn't have no fork, and I asked her to please give me one. Honest, if she didn't take and bring me a spoon! 'There, Cap'n!' she says. 'It don't look like a fork,' she says, 'but I dono what's the matter with it. The Lord'll provide!' she says. 'It's all dust and ashes!' Other days, she'll be as wide awake as the next one, and talk straight as a string. Well, about the bill! I told her she'd better let it go, and Phrony'd come round and see she wa'n't actin' real sensible, nor yet pretty. But not she! Next mornin' before I left she come out to the barn and showed me another paper, and – Jerusalem crickets! if it warn't a bill against Phrony for board and lodgin' for forty-seven years! Haw! haw! That's where the old lady come out on top. There warn't no bee in her bunnet that time!"

"He! he!" cackled Mr. Sim.

"Ho! ho!" piped Mr. Sam.

But Mary Sands looked troubled. "Mr. Parks," she said; "you'll excuse me, as am little more than a stranger to you; but yet I can't help but say I do wish you was in a different kind of place. There must be lots of nice places where you would be more than welcome."

"Mebbe so, and mebbe son't!" said Calvin Parks placidly. "Folks is real friendly, all along the route. Yes, come to think of it, there's several has said they would be pleased to take me in for a spell, if I should be thinkin' of a change. But old Widder Marlin, she needs the board money, and – well, here's where it is, Miss Hands; I don't know as she'd be real likely to get another boarder. I knew the Cap'n, you see, and he was always good to me aboard ship. But I'm full as much obliged to you," he added, with a very friendly look in his brown eyes, "for givin' it a thought. Bless your heart, this old carcass don't need much attention; it gets all it deserves, I presume likely, and more too.

"Well, I must be ramblin' along, I guess. I promised to pick up Miss Phrony at the Corners. She's been visitin' there to-day, and she'll think I'm lost for good. I tell you what it is, though, Miss Hands and boys; it's easier to turn in at this gate than what it is to turn out again, and I expect I shall be comin' in real often, if no objection is made."

"So do, Calvin! so do!" cried both twins together. Calvin looked at Mary Sands, and her eyes were as friendly as his own. "The oftener you come, Mr. Parks," she said, "the better I shall be pleased, for certin."

"Gitty up, hossy!" said Calvin. "We're late for supper now, and it don't do for me to get too sharp-set; there ain't likely to be more supper than what I can get away with. There's the store now, and there's Miss Phrony, sure enough, lookin' out for me. Now I put it to you, hossy; what was the object, precisely, of makin' a woman look like that? The ways is mysterious, sure enough. There's a plenty of material there for a good-lookin' woman, take and spread it kind o' different."

A tall, scraggy woman, with pale green eyes seeking each other across a formidable beak, and teeth like a twisted balustrade, greeted him with a reproachful look as he drove up to the corner store.

"Good afternoon, Miss Phrony," he said comfortably. "I expect I'm just a mite late, ain't I?"

"I should think you was!" replied the scraggy woman. "I've been waitin' full two hours, Cap'n Parks."

"Have!" said Calvin affably. "Now ain't that a sight! But it's a good thing you had such pleasant company to wait in; I'm glad of that. How do, Si? how do, Eph?" he nodded to two men who were leaning against the door-posts, chewing straws and observing the universe. "Any trade doin' with little Calvin to-day?"

"Nothin' only a box of wintergreen lozenges, I guess," said Si, the storekeeper. "Mebbe you might leave another box of broken," he added, after a glance in at his showcase. "Trade hasn't been real smart this week. You ain't goin' to charge me full price for them goods, are you, Cal?"

"If I took off anything," replied Calvin, "'twould be because you were so handsome, and that wouldn't be real good for your disposition, so I expect I shall have to deny myself the pleasure. Three dollars and ninety cents – thank you, sir! Now, Miss Phrony, if you're ready – these your bundles? Why, you've been buyin' out the store, I expect! Let me help you in; up she comes! So long, boys!"

"Think she'll get him?" said Si to Eph, as they watched the wagon disappearing down the road.

"I – don't – know!" replied Si slowly. "Sometimes I think he's as simple as he is appearin', and then again I have my doubts. But one thing's sure; she's goin' to do her darndest towards it!"

CHAPTER VII

MATCH-MAKING

"Cal!" said Mr. Sim.

"Wall!" said Calvin Parks. "That's poetry, Sim, or as nigh to it as you and me are likely to come."

"Quit foolin', Cal! I want to speak to you serious."

"Fire away!" said Calvin, leaning back in his chair and stretching his long legs.

"I want to know what you think of Cousin!" Mr. Sim went on.

Calvin sat up, and drew in his legs.

"She's all right!" he said shortly.

"Of course she's all right!" said Mr. Sim peevishly. "She wouldn't be here if she was all wrong, would she? I want to know what you think of her."

"I think she's a fine-appearin' woman!" said Calvin slowly. "And smart. And personable. A 1, clipper-built and copper-fastened, is the way I should describe your cousin if she was a vessel."

"You're right, Cal; you're right!" said Mr. Sim. "She's all that and more. She's agreeable, and she's capable, and she's savin', Calvin; savin'. Ma allers said, 'If the time comes when you have to marry, marry a saver!' she'd say."

Calvin said nothing. He felt the honest middle-aged blood mounting in his cheeks, but reflected comfortably that it would not show through the brown.

"Now, Cal," Mr. Sim went on; "a woman like that ain't goin' through life single."

"You bet she ain't!" said Calvin briefly; "you darned old weasel!" he added, but not aloud.

"She ain't no more than forty, and she don't look that. She's well fixed, too; she ain't no need to work, Cousin ain't; she come here to accommodate, you understand."

"I understand!" said Calvin; "you blamed old ferret!" Calvin was fond of finishing his sentences in silence.

"Now what I say is, – " and Mr. Sim leaned forward, and sank his voice to a whisper, – "What I say is, that woman ought not to go out of the family, Calvin Parks!"

Calvin grunted. A grunt may mean anything, and Mr. Sim took it for assent.

"Jes' so! That's what I'm sayin'. I knew you'd see it that way. Now, Calvin, I want you to help us."

A spark came into Calvin's brown eyes. "Help you!" he repeated. "What's the matter? Ain't you old enough to speak for yourself?"

"Not for myself, Calvin!" cried Mr. Sim. "No, no, no! for Sam'l! for Sam'l!"

"Well, I am blowed!" said Calvin Parks.

Mr. Sim leaned forward anxiously. "Don't you see, Cal?" he cried. "I ain't a marryin' man; that's plain to be seen. Sam'l was allers the one for the gals, you know he was. You remember Ivy Bell?"

Calvin nodded.

"Well, that's the way of it!" Mr. Sim continued. "His mind allers run that way; mine didn't. Besides, I ain't a well man; I ain't in no shape to marry, Calvin, no way in the world, if I wanted to, and I don't. Now, Calvin, I want you to kind of urge Sam'l on. We ain't speakin', Sam'l and me, you know that. I told you how 'twas, fust time you come round. Nothin' agin one another, only we don't like. So I can't urge him myself; and fust thing we know some outlandishman or other'll step in and kerry her off, and then where should we be, Sam'l and me? I ask you that, Calvin Parks. We're gettin' on, you know, Cal; we're five years good older than what you be, and we couldn't abide hired help, no way in the world. You urge Sam'l on to speak to Cousin, won't you now? I'd take it real friendly of you, Cal. I allers thought a sight of you, and so did Ma. 'Twould please Ma if you got a good woman for Sam'l, Cal. Say you'll think about it!"

"I'll think about it!" said Calvin Parks.

An hour later, Calvin was out in the barnyard, leaning over the pigsty, and looking at the finest hogs in the county. Mr. Sam pronounced them so, and he ought to know, Calvin thought. Calvin had never cared for hogs himself.