The Indiscreet Letter | Page 6

man once
appreciates all this--then Joy is come to the Home!
"Now there's Ella, for instance," continued the Traveling Salesman
thoughtfully. "Ella's a traveling man, too. Sells shotguns up through the
Aroostook. Yes, shotguns! Funny, ain't it, and me selling undervests?
Ella's an awful smart girl. Good as gold. But cheeky? Oh, my!--Well,
once I would have brought her down to the house for Sunday, and
advertised her as a 'peach,' and a 'dandy good fellow,' and praised her
eyes, and bragged about her cleverness, and generally done my best to
smooth over all her little deficiencies with as much palaver as I could.
And that little retriever of mine would have gone straight to work and
ferreted out every single, solitary, uncomplimentary thing about Ella
that she could find, and 'a' fetched 'em to me as pleased and proud as a
puppy, expecting, for all the world, to be petted and patted for her
astonishing shrewdness. And there would sure have been gloom in the
Sabbath.
"But now--now--what I say now is: 'Wife, I'm going to bring Ella down
for Sunday. You've never seen her, and you sure will hate her. She's big,
and showy, and just a little bit rough sometimes, and she rouges her
cheeks too much, and she's likelier than not to chuck me under the chin.
But it would help your old man a lot in a business way if you'd be
pretty nice to her. And I'm going to send her down here Friday, a day
ahead of me.'--And oh, gee!--I ain't any more than jumped off the car
Saturday night when there's my little wife out on the street corner with
her sweater tied over her head, prancing up and down first on one foot
and then on the other--she's so excited, to slip her hand in mine and tell
me all about it. 'And Johnny,' she says--even before I've got my glove
off--'Johnny,' she says, 'really, do you know, I think you've done Ella
an injustice. Yes, truly I do. Why, she's just as kind! And she's shown
me how to cut my last year's coat over into the nicest sort of a little
spring jacket! And she's made us a chocolate cake as big as a dish-pan.
Yes, she has! And Johnny, don't you dare tell her that I told you--but do

you know she's putting her brother's boy through Dartmouth? And you
old Johnny Clifford, I don't care a darn whether she rouges a little bit or
not--and you oughtn't to care--either! So there!'"
With sudden tardy contrition the Salesman's amused eyes wandered to
the open book on the Youngish Girl's lap.
"I sure talk too much," he muttered. "I guess maybe you'd like half a
chance to read your story."
The expression on the Youngish Girl's face was a curious mixture of
humor and seriousness. "There's no special object in reading," she said,
"when you can hear a bright man talk!"
As unappreciatingly as a duck might shake champagne from its back,
the Traveling Salesman shrugged the compliment from his shoulders.
"Oh, I'm bright enough," he grumbled, "but I ain't refined." Slowly to
the tips of his ears mounted a dark red flush of real mortification.
"Now, there's some traveling men," he mourned, "who are as slick and
fine as any college president you ever saw. But me? I'd look coarse
sipping warm milk out of a gold-lined spoon. I haven't had any
education. And I'm fat, besides!" Almost plaintively he turned and
stared for a second from the Young Electrician's embarrassed grin to
the Youngish Girl's more subtle smile. "Why, I'm nearly fifty years
old," he said, "and since I was fifteen the only learning I've ever got
was what I picked up in trains talking to whoever sits nearest to me.
Sometimes it's hens I learn about. Sometimes it's national politics.
Once a young Canuck farmer sitting up all night with me coming down
from St. John learned me all about the French Revolution. And now
and then high school kids will give me a point or two on astronomy.
And in this very seat I'm sitting in now, I guess, a red-kerchiefed Dago
woman, who worked on a pansy farm just outside of Boston, used to
ride in town with me every night for a month, and she coached me
quite a bit on Dago talk, and I paid her five dollars for that."
"Oh, dear me!" said the Youngish Girl, with unmistakable sincerity.

"I'm afraid you haven't learned anything at all from me!"
"Oh, yes, I have too!" cried the Traveling Salesman, his whole round
face lighting up suddenly with real pleasure. "I've learned about an
entirely new kind of lady to go home and tell my wife about. And I'll
bet you a hundred dollars that