Andrew the Glad | Page 2

with Mrs. Matilda and the rest 'soothing the fevered
brow.' Say, Major, give Mrs. Matilda the hint. The chump isn't really
sick any more. Hint that a little less--"
"David, sir," interrupted the major, "it takes more than a hint to stop a
woman when she takes a notion to nurse an attractive man, a sick lion
one at that. And depend upon it, it is the poetry that makes them hover
him, not the ribs."

"Well, you just stop her and that'll stop them," said David wrathfully.
"David Kildare," answered the major dryly, "I've been married to her
nearly forty years and I've never stopped her doing anything yet.
Stopping a wife is one of the bride-notions a man had better give up
early in the matrimonial state--if he expects to hold the bride. And
bride-holding ought to be the life-job of a man who is rash enough to
undertake one."
"Do you think Phoebe and bride will ever rhyme together, Major?"
asked David in a tone of deepest depression. "I can't seem to hear them
ever jingle."
"Yes, Dave, the Almighty will meter it out to her some day, and I hope
He will help you when He does. I can't manage my wife. She's a
modern woman. Now, what are we going to do about them?" and the
major smiled quizzically at the perturbed young man standing on the
rug in front of the fire.
"Well," answered Kildare with a spark in his eyes, as he flecked a bit of
mud from his boots which were splashed from his morning ride, "when
I get Phoebe Donelson, I'm going to whip her!" And very broad and tall
and strong was young David but not in the least formidable as to
expression.
"Dave, my boy," answered the major in a tone of the deepest respect, "I
hope you will do it, if you get the chance; but you won't! Thirty-eight
years ago last summer I felt the same way, but I've had a long time to
make up my mind to it; and I haven't done it yet."
"Anyway," rejoined his victim, "there's just this to it; she has got to
accept me kindly, affectionately and in a ladylike manner or I'm going
to be the villain and make some sort of a rough house to frighten her
into it."
"David," said the major with emphasis, "don't count on frightening a
woman into a compliance in an affair of the affections. Don't you know
they will risk having their hearts suspended on a hair-line between

heaven and hell and enjoy it? Now, my wife--"
"Oh, Mrs. Matilda never could have been like that," interrupted David
miserably.
"Boy," answered the major solemnly, "if I were to give you a succinct
account of the writhings of my soul one summer over a California man,
the agony you are enduring would seem the extremity of
insignificance."
"Heavenly hope, Major, did you have to go up against the other man
game, too? I seem to have been standing by with a basket picking up
chips of Phoebe's lovers for a long lifetime; Tom, Hob, Payt, widowers
and flocks of new fledges. But I had an idea that you must have been a
first-and-only with Mrs. Matilda."
"Well, it sometimes happens, David, that the individuality of all of a
woman's first loves get so merged into that of the last that it would be
difficult for her to differentiate them herself; and it is best to keep her
happily employed so she doesn't try."
"Well, all I can say for you, Major," interrupted Kildare with a laugh,
"is that your forty years' work shows some. Your Mrs. Buchanan is
what I call a finished product of a wife. I'll never do it in the world. I
can get up and talk a jury into seeing things my way, but I get
cross-brained when I go to put things to Phoebe. That reminds me, that
case on old Jim Cross for getting tangled up with some fussy hens in
Latimer's hen-house week before last is called for to-day at twelve
sharp. I'm due to put the old body through and pay the fine and costs;
only the third time this year. I'm thinking of buying him a hen farm to
save myself trouble. Good-by, sir!"
"David, David," laughed the major, "beware of your growing
responsibilities! Cap Hobson reported that sensation of yours before the
grand jury over that negro and policeman trouble. The darkies will put
up your portrait beside that of Father Abe on Emancipation Day and
you will be in danger of passing down to posterity by the
public-spirit-fame chute. Your record will be in the annals of the city if

you don't mind!"
"Not much danger, Major," answered David with a smile. "I'm just a