The Whole Family | Page 8

hear him talk. I guess he rather wants to draw me out,
for the most part."
"I don't wonder at that. I wish you'd draw yourself out. I've thought
something in the direction of your opinion myself."
"Have you? That's good! We'll tackle the doctor together sometime.
The difficulty about putting a thing like that in practice is that you have
to co-operate in it with women who have been brought up in the old
way. A man's wife is a woman--"
"Generally," I assented, as if for argument's sake.
He gave himself time to laugh. "And she has the charge of the children
as long as they're young, and she's a good deal more likely to bring up
the boys like girls than the girls like boys. But the boys take themselves
out of her hands pretty soon, while the girls have to stay under her
thumb till they come out just the kind of women we've always had."
"We've managed to worry along with them."
"Yes, we have. And I don't say but what we fancy them as they are
when we first begin to 'take notice.' One trouble is that children are sick
so much, and their mothers scare you with that, and you haven't the
courage to put your theories into practice. I can't say that any of my
girls have inherited my constitution but this one." I knew he meant the
one whose engagement was the origin of our conversation. "If you've
heard my mother-in-law talk about her constitution you would think
she belonged to the healthiest family that ever got out of New England
alive, but the fact is there's always something the matter with her, or
she thinks there is, and she's taking medicine for it, anyway. I can't say
but what my wife has always been strong enough, and I've been
satisfied to have the children take after her; but when I saw this one's

sorrel-top as we used to call it before we admired red hair, I knew she
was a Talbert, and I made up my mind to begin my system with her."
He laughed as with a sense of agreeable discomfiture. "I can't say it
worked very well, or rather that it had a chance. You see, her mother
had to apply it; I was always too busy. And a curious thing was that
though the girl looked like me, she was a good deal more like her
mother in temperament and character."
"Perhaps," I ventured, "that's the reason why she was your favorite."
He dropped his head in rather a shamefaced way, but lifted it with
another laugh. "Well, there may be something in that. Not," he gravely
retrieved himself, "that we have ever distinguished between our
children."
"No, neither have we. But one can't help liking the ways of one child
better than another; one will rather take the fancy more than the rest."
"Well," my neighbor owned, "I don't know but it's that kind of shyness
in them both. I suppose one likes to think his girl looks like him, but
doesn't mind her being like her mother. I'm glad she's got my
constitution, though. My eldest daughter is more like her grandmother
in looks, and I guess she's got her disposition too, more. I don't know,"
he said, vaguely, "what the last one is going to be like. She seems to be
more worldly. But," he resumed, strenuously, as if the remembrance of
old opposition remained in his nerves, "when it came to this going off
to school, or college, or whatever, I put my foot down, and kept it down.
I guess her mother was willing enough to do my way, but her sister was
all for some of those colleges where girls are educated with other girls
and not with young men. She said they were more ladylike, and a lot
more stuff and nonsense, and were more likely to be fit for society. She
said this one would meet a lot of jays, and very likely fall in love with
one; and when we first heard of this affair of Peggy's I don't believe but
what her sister got more satisfaction out of it than I did. She's quick
enough! And a woman likes to feel that she's a prophetess at any time
of her life. That's about all that seems to keep some of them going
when they get old." I knew that here he had his mother-in-law rather
than his daughter in mind, and I didn't interrupt the sarcastic silence
into which he fell. "You've never met the young man, I believe?" he
asked, at quite another point, and to the negation of my look he added,
"To be sure! We've hardly met him ourselves; he's only been here once;

but you'll