Part 21 (2/2)

”Easy there!” said the old man fretfully. ”Don't set down in the b.u.t.ter-scotch; it's just behind ye. It's all over town that you are goin' to marry Phrony Marlin a week from Sunday.”

He looked up, and after one glance at Calvin, rose hurriedly in his turn.

”There, friend Parks! there! don't say a word! I see by your face it ain't true, and I ask your pardon. Set down, son!”

But Calvin Parks still towered up among the rafters, and his brown eyes blazed down on the old candy-maker.

”It's a lie!” he said simply. ”Don't tell me you believed it, Mr.

Cheeseman; don't!”

The old man groaned. ”I'm a woodenhead, friend Parks; a plumb, dum old woodenhead!” he said; ”but I won't add another lie to that one. I did believe it, and I've been half sick about it all day. I won't say another word till you set down, except to ask your pardon again. I'm an old man, Calvin,” he added, with a piteous quaver in his voice, ”and I regard you as a son, sir!”

Calvin sat down instantly, and laid his hand on the old man's arm for a moment.

”That's all right, Mr. Cheeseman!” he said briefly but kindly. ”We'll forget that part. Now let's get on to the rest on't.”

Mr. Cheeseman drew a long breath that was almost a sob, and his frosty blue eyes were dim for a moment. He wiped them quietly with a blue cotton handkerchief.

”I thank you, sir!” he said. ”Well, I found the whole street buzzin'

with it yesterday. They said you gave her a fur tippet. How was that, friend Calvin?”

”I did!” Calvin's brown face flushed.

”I just plain fool did. She as good as asked me for it, Mr. Cheeseman, and what could I do? If ever I gredged money in my life 'twas that, and me turnin' every cent twice to make it go further. But when she went on about her brown keeters, and the doctor sayin' she must wrop her throat up, and if only she could have a fur tippet it might save her life--and goin' so fur as to name the special one she wanted in Hoskins's window--and Christmas time and all, and n.o.body seemin' to have any feelin' for them two forlorn creatur's--Mr. Cheeseman, if you're a woodenhead, I'm a sheep's-head, that's all there is to it. So that started the talk, did it? What in caniption makes folks want to talk I don't know!” he broke out. ”Darn their hides!”

”That started it!” said Mr. Cheeseman; ”and she has seen to it that the talk went on. She was in town all day yesterday, flyin' round like a hen with her head cut off--”

”She'd look a sight better with hers that way!” said Calvin _sotto voce_.

”Buyin' this and that, and givin' folks to understand 'twas her weddin'

things. I don't know as she used them precise words, but I do know she said to Hoskins--she was in there gettin' some dress goods, and he told me himself--'I'll take the blue,' she says, ”for Cap'n Parks admires blue, and I have to dress to please him now!' she says.”

Calvin Parks groaned. A vision rose before him of Mary Sands in her blue dress, with the sun s.h.i.+ning on her hair.

”Then she went to Jinny Bascom's,” the old man went on, ”and bought her a bunnet. Where she got the money I don't know, nor Jinny didn't. I guess she nor the old woman ever spent more than fifty cents at a time in their lives before; but she got a ten dollar bunnet, no two ways about that; and she was a caution gettin' it, by all accounts. Jinny has always knowed Phrony; every one round about Cyrus knows them two and their goin's on. Lived mostly on grocery samples and borrowed garden truck till you come to board with 'em; and I don't believe they've fed you high enough to hurt you any, have they?”

”Well! I don't know as I've been in any real danger of apoplexy from over-eatin',” said Calvin slowly; ”but I ain't made no complaint.”

”I know you ain't!” said Mr. Cheeseman. ”That's one thing has made folks anxious. You mustn't take it amiss, friend Calvin. You are well liked all round the neighborhood; and folks _will_ talk about what interests them, sir, it's the natur' of human bein's so to do. Well, about this bunnet. Jinny showed her a quiet, decent article, suitable to her years and appearance; but she tossed her head up, and says she, 'I guess not!' she says. 'Show me a bridal bunnet, please, Miss Bascom!' Well, Jinny Bascom runs mostly to eyes and ears, any way of it, and you may suppose that was nuts to her. So she fetched out a white bunnet, and says, 'You goin' to be married, Phrony?' Phrony she tosses her head again, and simpers up. 'I ain't sayin' anything yet,' she says, 'nor yet I don't want it _should_ be said till after a week from next Sunday; but if you should see me then in this bunnet, you can draw your own conclusions!' she says. Then she begun to turn her ridic'lous old head this way and that before the gla.s.s. 'Cap'n Parks likes a handsome bunnet!' she says. 'He wouldn't wish for me to wear any other;' and goes on like that till Jinny had all she could do to keep her face straight.

Now you know, friend Calvin, that was pretty straight talk, and Jinny Bascom wasn't one to keep it to herself; so you can't wonder it got about, can you?”

”Not a mite!” said Calvin moodily.

”But you could wonder at my bein' taken in by it,” Mr. Cheeseman went on, ”and I wonder myself. But I was startled, you see, and took aback, and--well, that's all over. Now, what are you goin' to do about this, friend Parks?”

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