Part 12 (2/2)

”I take it you are not in favor of careers for women, Mr. Spence,”

observed Robert Morton, who had been eagerly drinking in every word the old man uttered.

”Yes, I am,” contradicted the inventor. ”There's times when a girl needs a career, but there's other times when to desert one's plain duty an' go huntin' a callin' is criminal. Queer how people will look right over the top of what they don't want to see, ain't it? I s'pose its human nature though,” he mused.

A soft breeze stirred the shavings on the floor.

”Tiny thinks,” resumed the quiet voice, ”that I mix myself up too much with other folks's concerns anyhow. Leastways, she says I let their troubles weigh on me more'n I'd ought. But to save my life I can't seem to help it. Don't you believe those on the outside of a tangle sometimes see it straighter than them that is snarled up in the mess?”

Robert Morton nodded.

”That's the way I figger it,” rambled on the old man. ”Mebbe that's the reason I can't keep my fingers out of the pie. You'd be surprised enough if you was to know the things I've been dragged into in my lifetime; family quarrels, will-makin's, business matters that I didn't know no more about than the man in the moon. Why, I've even taken a hand in love affairs!”

He broke into a peal of hearty laughter. ”That's the beatereee!” he declared, slapping his thigh. ”'Magine me up to my ears in a love affair! But I have been--scores of 'em, enough I reckon, put 'em all together, to marry off the whole of Cape Cod.”

”You must be quite an authority on the heart by this time,” Robert Morton ventured.

”I ain't,” the other declared soberly. ”You see, none of the snarls was ever the same, so you kinder had to feel your way along every time like as if you was navigatin' a new channel. Women may be all alike, take 'em in the main, but they're almighty different when you get 'em to the fine point, an' that's what raises the devil with makin' any general rule for managin' 'em.”

The philosopher held the piece of wood he had been planing to the light and examined it critically.

”Once,” he resumed, taking up his work again, ”when Dave Furber was courtin' Katie Bea.r.s.e, I drove over to Sawyer's Falls with him to get Katie a birthday present an' among other things we thought we'd buy some candy. We went into a store, I recollect, where there was all kinds spread out in trays, an' Dave an' me started to pick out what we'd have. As I stood there attemptin' to decide, I couldn't help thinkin' that selectin' that candy was a good deal like choosin' a wife. You couldn't have all the different kinds, an' makin' up your mind which you preferred was a seven-days' conundrum.”

The little inventor took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replaced them upon his nose.

”Luckily, as we was fixed, there was a chance in the box for quite a few sorts, so that saved the day. But s'pose, I got to thinkin', you could only have one variety out of the lot--which would you take?

That's the sticker you face when choosin' a wife. S'pose, for instance, I was pinned down to nothin' but caramels. The caramel is a good, square, sensible, dependable candy. You can see through the paper exactly what you're gettin'. There's nothin' concealed or lurkin' in a caramel. Moreover, it lasts a long time an' you don't get tired of it. It's just like some women--not much to look at, but wholesome an' with good wearin' qualities. Should you choose the caramel, you'd feel sure you was doin' the wise thing, wouldn't you?”

Robert Morton smiled into the half-closed blue eyes that met his so whimsically.

”But along in the next tray to the caramel,” Willie went on, ”was bonbons--every color of the rainbow they were, an' pretty as could be; an' they held all sorts of surprises inside 'em, too. They was temptin'! But the minute you put your mind on it you knew they'd turn out sweet and sickish, an' that after gettin' 'em you'd wish you hadn't. There's plenty of women like that in the world. Mebbe you ain't seen 'em, but I have.”

”Yes.”

”Besides these, there was dishes of sparklin' jelly things on the counter, that the girl said warn't much use--gone in no time; they were just meant to dress up the box. I called 'em brainless candies--just silly an' expensive, an' if you look around you'll find women can match 'em. An' along with 'em you can put the candied violets an' sugared rose leaves that only make a man out of pocket an' ain't a mite of use to him.”

Willie scanned his companion's face earnestly.

”Finally, after runnin' the collection over, it kinder come down to a choice between caramels or chocolates. Even then I still stood firm for the caramel, there bein' no way of makin' sure what I'd get inside the chocolate. I warn't willin' to go it blind, I told Dave. A chocolate's a sort of unknowable thing, ain't it? There's no fathomin'

it at sight. After you've got it you may be pleased to death with what's inside it an' then again you may not. So we settled mostly on caramels for Katie. I said to Dave comin' home it was lucky men warn't held down to one sort of candy like they are to one sort of wife, an'

he most laughed his head off. Then he asked me what kind of sweet I thought Katie was, an' I told him I reckoned she was the caramel variety, an' he said he thought so, too. We warn't fur wrong neither, for she's turned out 'bout as we figgered. Mebbe she ain't got the looks or the sparkle of the bonbons or jelly things, but she's worn almighty well, an' made Dave a splendid wife.”

”With all your excellent theories about women, I wonder you never picked out a wife for yourself, Mr. Spence,” Robert Morton remarked mischievously.

”Me get married?” questioned Willie, staring at the speaker open-eyed over the top of his spectacles.

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