George Weston

“ Bill and ma entered Cupid's Bower and grinned at each other. "These young people don't seem to need our help," said Bill, "so I'll try this easy-chair myself."
He sat down, as handsome a young man of forty-five (in his new suit) as you would wish to find in a month of Sundays. And ma sat on the couch opposite him, in her old-rose tea gown, beneath that romantic shade which they had planted there for Maude. ”

“ Young gentlemen callers! Beaus, if you want to call 'em beaus! Land o' goodness, William, you don't expect our Maude to be keeping books in a coal yard all her life, do you?"
"But, Minnie! Hold on! Our Maude's nothing but a kid yet—"
"Our Maude's twenty next birthday—older than I was when I was married. And I want to tell you again, we've simply got to give that girl a place where she can receive her callers, or she'll have no chance at all!"
"Has she got one, then?" asked Bill, immensely interested.
"One what?"
"One young man, of course," said Bill in an irritated voice. ”

“ Minnie took it for granted that she was going to invite Maude's prospective beau, while Bill understood that this delicate task devolved upon him. "I'll get young Joe Wilbur," thought Minnie. "He's got red hair."
"I'll invite Abner Bennett's boy," thought Bill. "He's got a head like a brick. But I won't tell Minnie till the last minute. She always was down on the Bennetts." ”

“ She resumed her place at the table, frowning at Bill with the prescience of an experienced wife who feels in her bones that her husband has made a precious mess of something or other which has not yet come to light. "Let me see," she said. "Oh, yes. Your father and I have decided, Maude, that no girl has any chance of finding a good husband nowadays unless she has a proper place to receive her callers—a place where she will look her best. ”

“ You've got a new lamp too!"
"I've been saving my tea checks for over two years!" beamed Minnie. "You wait till I light it."
Carefully she pulled down the curtains, and then she lighted the lamp. It was a pretty lamp, standing high on the table and dressed with a saucy flare of old-rose silk which looked like a ballet-dancer's skirt.
"See?" smiled Minnie. "That's the beauty of an old-rose shade. It makes everything look romantic."
"Some lamp!" quoth Bill. "And that reminds me. Down at Muller's there's a special sale of talking machines—dollar down and dollar a week. ”

“ Haskell had been a school-teacher just five months to a day when she had led Bill to the altar, and always after that she had regarded him as her scholar. Now, as all the world knows, in every class there is a favorite scholar, a naughty scholar, and a dunce. So, as time and circumstance demanded, Bill took all these parts, but more particularly he took the third.
"What's the matter with Maude?" asked Bill. "Doesn't she like her job down at the coal yard?"
"Coal yard!" sniffed ma. "For Heaven's sake, William, haven't you got a mind that can rise higher than a coal yard?" ”

“ And, of course, that's the reason you had the house turned upside down fixing Cupid's Bower. 'A girl hasn't the slightest chance nowadays unless she has a pleasant place to receive her company.' Oh, no! Certainly not!" (Bill's irony.) "And all the time Maude and this young Perkins were getting engaged down in the coal yard—down in a black and smutty coal yard, stealing kisses to the music of a switch engine, and holding hands behind the stove and chestnut bins. Don't tell me! But I guess I'd better chase those two red-headed young squirts out of Cupid's Bower. ”

“ On the piano were two glass vases, quicksilvered to look like metal and adorned with hand-painted flowers. Each vase contained a small sheaf of wheat tied with narrow white ribbon. This wheat had the miraculous power to shed about a bushel of chaff a week, so that no matter how often the top of the piano was dusted the vases were always surrounded by husks like two extinct volcanoes grandly rising from their circle of ashes.
A Franklin stove was installed in front of the mantel. ”

“ You just think of all the redheads you know, and tell me whether there's a lazy one among the lot. No! And never will be! I've noticed it all my life. It's because a redhead has a lot of ginger in him, I guess. Anyhow, they're always strong characters, and, if we can find a nice young red-headed man for our Maude, you can bet your life he'll be a hustler and a good provider."
"Well, there may be something in that," said Minnie thoughtfully, and to herself she added: "Young Joe Wilbur has red hair. ”

“ We could always get him. But he's too lackadaisical. If our Maude has one fault, she's too easy-going. So we ought to pick a young man who is full of fire and spirit, and then they'd make a good pair."
"The trouble is, you never can tell," objected ma. "I've seen so many young men start out like a house afire, but after a few years they take things just as easy as they can."
"Yes, that's so," acknowledged Bill, uneasily wondering whether this was a masked shot at himself. "But I'll tell you one class of young men who'll hustle as long as they live." ”

“ They've simply got to have a couch, so they can get used to the idea of sitting together."
For the first time since they had started it Bill shut off the gas and applied the brakes. That couch had always been regarded as his own particular resting place, and, peering distastefully into the future, he saw a long vista of evenings when he would have to sit on a straight-backed chair and have no couch whereon to stretch his weary bones. "Well," he almost grumbled, "I guess it's all right, but I don't know what you're going to tell Maude when she misses the couch." ”

“ And then if our Maude feels nervous at entertaining her beau, she can put in a record, wind the spring, and—there you are!"
"Well, I guess it won't break us," nodded Minnie. "But you've got to have a new suit and I've got to have a new dress. Whoever he is we must make him think he is marrying into a good family. And, Will, don't you be too free and easy with him. You must act dignified and stately—as though you were a judge or something like that. Can you get your new suit on Saturday?"
"I can," said Bill in a highly judicial manner, "if my credit is still good at Stewart's." ”

“ I didn't know Wilbur was coming over to-night, but I guess that isn't going to stop you from showing us the fine points about a talking machine, eh?"
"Bibble-bibble-bibble!"
"Good boy!" For a moment Bill's hand rested on the young man's shoulder with a friendly pressure that said: "I'm backing you to win," and the next minute he had opened their front door and had led his candidate into the hall. Mrs. Haskell had gone upstairs to fetch Maude, hut when she heard the footsteps in the hall below she ran to the upper landing and exclaimed in a loud whisper: "Is that you, Will? ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1968, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 55 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”