The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems | Page 7

Frances Fuller Victor
have been more unfeeling than you showed yourself. It
could not be that a man coming in that way expected to get any other
answer than the one you gave him?"
"I do not know, and I did not then care. One day a man, to whose
motherless children I had been kind when opportunity offered,
slouched into my room without the ceremony of knocking and
dropping into a chair as if his knees failed him, began twirling his
battered old hat in an embarrassed manner, and doing as so many of his
predecessors had done--proposing off-hand. He had a face like a
terra-cotta image, a long lank figure, faded old clothes, and a whining
voice."
"He told me that he had no 'woman,' and that I had no 'man,' a
condition that he evidently considered deplorable. He assured me that I
suited him 'fustrate;' that his children 'sot gret store by me,' and 'liked
my victuals;' and that he thought a 'heap' of my little boy. He also
impressed upon me that he had been 'considerin' the 'rangement of jinin'

firms for some time. To close the business at once, he proposed that I
should accept of him for my husband then and there."
"And pray, what did you say to him!"
"I told him that I did not know what use I had for him, unless I should
put him behind the stove, and break bark over his head."
This reply tickled my fancy so much that I laughed until I cried. I
insisted on knowing what put it into her mind to say that.
"You see, we burned fir wood, the bark of which is better to make heat
than the woody portion of the tree; but is never sawed or split, and has
to be broken. I used to take up a big piece, and bring it down with a
blow over any sharp corner to knock it into smaller fragments, and
something in the man's appearance, I suppose, suggested that he might
be good for that, if for nothing else. I did not stop to frame my replies
on any forms laid down in young ladies' manuals; but they seemed to
be conclusive as a general thing."
"I should think so. Yet, there must have been some, more nearly your
equals, attracted by your youth and beauty, loving you, or capable of
loving you, to whom you could not give such answers, by whom such
answers would not be taken."
"As I look back upon it now, I cannot think of any one I might have
taken and did not, that I regret. There were men of all classes nearly;
but they were not desirable, as I saw it then, or as I see it now. It is true
that I was young, and pretty, perhaps, and that women were in a
minority. But then, too, the men who were floating about on the surface
of pioneer society were not likely to be the kind of men that make true
lovers and good husbands. Some of them have settled down into
steady-going benedicts, and have money and position. The worst effect
of all this talk about marrying was, that it prepared me to be persuaded
against my inner consciousness into doing that which I ought not to
have done. My truer judgment had become confused, my perceptions
clouded, from being so often assailed by the united majority who could
not bear to see poor, little minority go unappropriated. But come, let us

have our cakes and lemonade. You need something to sustain you
while I complete the recital of my conquests."
I felt that she needed a brief interval in which to collect her thoughts
and calm a growing nervousness that in spite of her efforts at pleasantry
would assert itself in various little ways, evident enough to my
observation. A saucepan of water was set upon the hot coals on the
hearth, the lemons cut and squeezed into two elegant goblets, upon
square lumps of sugar that eagerly took up the keen acid, and grew
yellow and spongy in consequence. A sociable little round table was
rolled out of its seclusion in a corner, and made to support a tray
between us, whereon were such dainty cakes and confections as my
hostess delighted in.
There was an air of substantial comfort in all the arrangements of my
friend's house that made it a peculiarly pleasant one to visit. It lacked
nothing to make it home-like, restful, attractive. The house itself was
large and airy, with charming views; the furniture sufficiently elegant
without being too fine for use; flowers, birds, and all manner of curios
abounded, yet were never in the way, as they so often are in the houses
of people who are fond of pretty
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