The Wooing of Calvin Parks

"Well – s'pose he was a brown boy, same as I am man; brown to match the house. Hair and eyes, jumper and pants, just plain brown; not much of a boy to look at, you understand. S'pose there was jest him and father and mother. There had been a little gal; – s'pose she was like you, little un, slim and light on her feet, singin' round the house – but she was wanted somewheres else, and she went. S'pose the boy thought a sight of his mother, specially after the little gal went. Him and her used to play together for all the world like two kids. S'pose he dug her gardin for her, and sowed her seeds, and then he'd take and watch the plants comin' up, and seems though he couldn't wait for 'em to bloom so's he could git a posy to carry in to mother. Yes, sir! she liked them posies, mother did; she liked 'em, sure enough!"

He was silent a moment. "Go on!" cried the child. "You ain't half s'posing, brown man."

"No more I am!" said Calvin Parks. "Well, little un, I dono as I can play this game real well, after all. S'pose after a spell the boy's mother went away too. Where? Well, she'd go to the best place there was, you know; nat'rally she would."

"That's heaven!" said the child decidedly.

"Jes' so! to be sure!" Calvin assented. "S'pose she went to heaven; to see after the little gal, likely; hey? That'd leave father and the boy alone, wouldn't it? Well now, s'pose father couldn't stand it real well without her. What then, little un? S'pose the more he tried it the less he liked it, till bumby he begun to take things to make him forget, as warn't the best things in the world for him to take. S'pose he did; do you blame him?"

"N – no!" said the child. "Unless you mean stole 'em!"

"No! no! not that kind of takin', little un; 'tother kind, like when you take med'cine. S'pose he kind o' made believe 'twas med'cine for a spell. Then s'pose he got so he warn't jest like himself, and spoke kind o' sharp, and took a strap to the boy now and then, harder than he would by natur', you wouldn't blame him, would you? Not a mite! But s'pose things went on that way till they warn't real agreeable for neither one of 'em. Then – s'pose one night – when he warn't himself, mind you! – he shook out his pipe on the settin'-room carpet and set the house afire. You wouldn't blame him for that either, would you? Poor father!"

He paused.

"What do you s'pose then?" cried the child eagerly. "Did the house burn up?"

Calvin made a silent gesture toward the ruined cellar. Something in it struck the child silent too. She crept nearer, and slid her hand into Calvin's.

"You don't s'pose they was burned, do you?" she said in an awestruck whisper.

"No, they warn't burned," said Calvin slowly. "But father never helt his head up again, and 'twarn't a great while before he was gone too, after mother and the little gal. So then the boy was left alone. See?"

"Poor brown boy!" said the child. "S'pose what he did then!"

"S'pose he lit out!" said Calvin Parks; "And s'pose I light out too, little gal. It's gettin' towards sundown, and I've got quite a ways to go before night."

He rose, and stretched his brown length, towering a great height above the rose-bush.

"But before I go," he added; "s'pose we see what hossy's got in back of him. I shouldn't wonder a mite if we found a stick of candy. S'pose we go and look!"

"S'pose we do!" cried Mittie May.

CHAPTER IX

CANDY-MAKING

"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; 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 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 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 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 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.

"Elegant, Lonzo, elegant! you are smart, no mistake about that. Help yourself to the cream candy! that square pan is o' purpose for you."