Part 13 (1/2)
”Why not?”
”Why, bless your heart, I never thought of it!” answered the little man navely. ”It's taken 'bout all my time to get other folks spliced together. Besides,” he added, ”I've had my inventin'.”
He glanced out of the window at a moving figure, then shot abruptly to the door and called to some one who was pa.s.sing:
”Hi, Jack!”
A man in coast-guard uniform waved his hand.
”How are you, Willie?” he shouted.
”All right,” was the reply. ”How are you an' Sarah Libbie makin' out?”
”Same as ever.”
”You ain't said nothin' to her yet?”
Robert Morton saw the burly fellow in the road sheepishly dig his heel into the sand.
”N--o, not yet.”
”An' never will!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the inventor returning wrathfully to the shop. ”That feller,” he explained as he resumed his seat, ”has been upwards, of twenty years tryin' to tell Sarah Libbie Lewis he's in love with her. He knows it an' so does she, but somehow he just can't put the fact into words. I'm clean out of patience with him. Why, one day he actually had the face to come in here an' ask me to tell her--_me_!
What do you think of that?”
Robert Morton chuckled at his companion's rage.
”Did you?”
”Did I?” repeated Willie with scorn. ”Can you see me doin' it? No, siree! I just up an' told Jack Nickerson if he warn't man enough to do his own courtin' he warn't man enough for any self-respectin' woman to marry. An' furthermore, I said he needn't step foot over the sill of this shop 'till he'd took some action in the matter. That hit him pretty hard, I can tell you, 'cause he used to admire to come in here an' set round whenever he warn't on duty. But he saw I meant it, an'
he ain't been since.”
The old man paused.
”I kinder bit off my own nose when I took that stand,” he admitted, an intonation of regret in his tone, ”'cause Jack's mighty good company.
Still, there was nothin' for it but firm handlin'.”
”How long ago did you cast him out?” Bob asked with a chuckle.
”Oh, somethin' over a week or ten days ago,” was the reply. ”I thought he might have made some progress by now. But I ain't given up hope of him yet. He's been sorter quiet the last two times I've seen him, an'
I figger he's mullin' things over, an' mebbe screwin' up his courage.”
The room was still save for the purr of the plane.
”I suppose you will be marrying Miss Hathaway off some day,” observed Bob a trifle self-consciously, without raising his eyes from his work.
”You bet I won't,” came emphatically from the old inventor. ”I've got some courage but not enough for that. You see, the man that marries her has got to have the nerve to face the whole village--brave Zenas Henry, the three captains, an' Abbie Brewster, besides winnin' the girl herself. 'Twill be some contract. No, you can be mortal sure I shan't go meddlin' in no such love affair as that. Anyhow, I won't be needed, for any man that Delight Hathaway would look at twice will be perfectly capable of meetin' all comers; don't you worry.”
With this dubious comfort Willie stamped with spirit out of the shop.