The Confessions of a Daddy
I. OUR NEIGHBORS’ BABIES
I guess we folks that live up at our end of town think we are about as good as anybody in Colorado, and mebby a little better. We get along together as pleasant as you please, and we are a sort of colony, as you might say, all by ourselves.
Me and Marthy make especial good neighbors. We don’t have no fights with the other folks in our end of town, and in them days the neighbors hadn’t any reason to fight with us, for we didn’t keep a dog and we hadn’t no children! I take notice that it is other folks dogs and children that make most of the bad feelin’s between neighbors. Of course we had mosquitos, but Providence gives everybody something to practise up their patience, and when me and Marthy sat out on our porch and heard other people’s children frettin’ because the mosquitos was bad, we just sat there behind our screened porch and thanked our stars that we did n’t have no children to leave our screen doors open.
It was n’t but right that me and Marthy should act accordingly. I don’t mean that we were uppish about it, but we did feel that we could live a little better than our neighbors that had all the expense of children, and if our house was fixed up a little better, and we was able to go off three or four weeks in the summer to the mountains, when all the rest stayed right at home, we had a right to feel pleased about it. Lots of times we had things our neighbors could n’t afford, and then the little woman would say to me: “Hiram, you don’t know how thankful I am that we ain’t got any children,” and I agreed with her every time, and did it hearty, too.
'T was n’t that we hated children. Far from it. We just thought that when we saw all the extra worry and trouble and expense that other people’s children brought about, we were right satisfied to live the way we had lived the five years since we was married – our neighbors still called us the “Bride and Groom.” Nor I can’t say that we were happier than the other folks in our end of town, but we was more care-free. We lived more joyous, as you might say.
One night when I come home from the store Marthy met me at the corner, and when I had tucked her arm under mine, I asked her what was the news. Bobby Jones had cut his finger bad; Stell Marks had took the measles; little Tot Hemingway had run off, and her ma had gone near crazy until the kid was found again; the Wallaces was n’t goin’ to take no vacation this year at all because Fred was to go off to school in the fall, and they could n’t afford both. It was the usual lot of news of children bein’ trouble and expense.
I was feelin’ fine, the next day bein’ a holiday, and Marthy, with the slick way women has, sprung a favor on me just when she set the broiled steak on the table. Extry thick, and burnt brown – that’s my favorite steak – and whenever I see it that way my mouth waters, and I look out for a favor to be asked.
“Hiram,” she says, quite as if she was openin’ up a usual bit of talk, “did you take notice of Mrs. Hemingway’s silk dress last Sunday?”
“Why no, Marthy,” I says, “I didn’t. Was it new?”
“New!” she laughed. “The idee! That’s just what it wasn’t. I believe she has had that same silk ever since we have lived in this end of town, and no one knows how much longer. It’s a shame. She puts every cent she can dig up on those children of hers, and has hardly a decent thing of her own. I feel right sorry for her.”
“I feel sorry for Hemingway,” says I. “The old boy is workin’ himself to death. He never gits home until supper is all over, and he told me just now that he felt it his bounden duty to work to-morrow. I tell you, Marthy, children is an expensive luxury!”
“That’s just what they are,” she agreed. “If it wasn’t for their children, the Hemingways could live every bit as good as we do, and he wouldn’t have to work of nights, poor fellow. But, Hiram,” she says, as if the idee had just hit her, “do you recall to mind when this end of town has seen a new silk dress?”
“Why, no – no,” I said; “when was it?”
“Years ago!” says the little woman. “I was figgerin’ it up to-day, and it was full two years ago. Ain’t it awful?”
“Downright scandalous!” I says. “And just on account of those children, too!”
Marthy looked down at her plate, innocent as you please.
“I’m glad we ain’t got any children, Hiram,” she says, full of mischief.
That tickled me. I was tickled to see how she was tickled to think she had trapped me.
“I guess it’s our bounden duty to hold up the honor of our end of town by showin’ it a new silk dress,” I says, and the next thing I knew I was fightin’ to keep her from chokin’ me to death.
All that evening Marthy was unusual quiet and right happy, too. As she sat on the porch her eyes would wander off over-the-hills-and-far-away, and I knew she was lost in joyous tanglements of bias and gores and plaits, where a man can’t foller if he wants to. But when we went inside and had the blinds pulled down she put her arms around my neck again and gave me another choke.
“Dear, dear old Hiram!” she says, and her eyes was tear-wet. “Just think! A new silk dress!” And just then there came into the room the noise of the Marks child – the one with the measles – whimpering.
“Ain’t you glad,” says the little woman, “that we haven’t any children to spoil all our fun, and bother us?” and when I looked down into that happy little face of hers, I was glad, and no mistake.
The next day was a beauty. It came in like a glory, and we was up almost as soon as the sun was; for we had figgered on one of our regular old-time jolly days by ourselves on the hills – one of the kind that made our end of town call us the “Bride and Groom.” It was our plan to take a good lunch, and just wander. Marthy was to take a book, and I was to take my fishin’ tackle, and beyond that was whatever happy thing that turned up.
“If we had children,” she said, “we couldn’t go off on these long tramps by ourselves.”
We got away while the neighbors in our end of town were still at breakfast, and as we passed the Wallace’s place we ran up to holler good-by through the window at them, and there was the youngest Wallace foolin’ on the floor with her stockings not on yet, and breakfast half over. Marthy stopped long enough to have a good, long look at the child.
“If all the children was like Daisy Wallace,” she says, “they wouldn’t be so bad. She is the dearest thing I ever did see. She’s got the cutest way of kissin’ a person on the eyelids.”
“She looks to be just as lazy in the dressin’ act as the rest,” I remarked, and I was surprised, the way Marthy turned on me.
“Why, Hiram Smith!” she cried; “didn’t you ever dawdle over your dressin’? When I was a girl I got lots of fun out of being late to breakfast. What difference does it make, anyway, when she is perfectly lovely all the rest of the time? I simply love that child. I wonder,” she said, sort of wistful, “if they would let us take her with us to-day. She would enjoy it so.”
“Foolishness,” I said. “We don’t want to pull a kid along with us all day; and anyhow, they are going to take her to the photographer’s to-day to have her picture took.”
We went out around town, and up the hill road. The morning air was great, and nobody on the road at all, so far as we could see, and we stepped out brisk and lively.
“Seems good to git away from the baby district, don’t it?” I says, as we was walkin’ up the road. “We ‘re like Mister and Missus Robinson Crusoe,” and at the very next turn we most fell over Bobby Jones and his everlastin’ chum, Rex, which is the most no-account dog on earth.
“Where y’ goin’?” he asks.
“Nowheres particular,” says Marthy. “Just walkin’ out to git the air.”
“So’m I,” says he, and then he says, sort of bluffin’, “I ain’t lost.”
“Yes you are, Bobby,” I says, severe as I could, “and if you know what’s good for a kid about your size you’d better turn right ‘round and scoot for home.”
He looked at me as if he would like to know who I was, to be bossin’ him.
“Ho!”