"David," interrupted Sevier thoughtfully, "what do you really think is
the matter? Let's get down to facts while we are about it."
"Do you know, Andy, lately it has dawned upon me that Phoebe would like
to dictate a life policy to me; hand me out a good, stiff life job. I
believe she would marry me to-morrow if she could see me permanently
installed on the front seat of a grocery wagon--_permanently_. And I'll
come to it yet."
"I believe you are right," laughed Andrew. "She really glories in her
wage earning; it's a phase of them these days. She would actually hate
living on your income."
"Don't I know it? I suppose she would be content if she sewed on buttons
and did the family wash to conserve the delivery wagon income. I wish
she'd marry me for love and then I'd hire her at hundreds per week to
dust around the house and cook pies for me, gladly, gladly."
"We've developed thorns with our new rose, Dave," chuckled Andrew as he
relighted his pipe.
"Sweet hope of heaven, yes," groaned David. "My gore drips all the time
from the gashes. I suppose it is a killing grief to her that I haven't a
star corporation practise instead of fooling around the criminal court
fighting old Taylor to get a square deal for the darky rag-tag most of my
time. But, Andy, it makes me blaze house-high to see the way he hands the
law out to 'em. They can cut and fight as long as it is in a whisky dive
and no indictment returned; but let one of 'em sidestep an inch in any
other ignorant pitiful way and it's the workhouse and the county road for
theirs.
"And the number of ways that the coons can get up to call on me to square
the deal, is amazing. Just look at the week I've had! All Monday and
Tuesday I spent on the Darky Country Club affair; the poor nigs just
hungering for some place to go off and act white in for a few hours.
Nobody would sell them an acre of ground near a car line and the dusky
smart set was about to get its light put out. Jeff and Tempie told me
about it. What did little Dave do but run around to persuade old man
Elton to sell them that little point that juts out into the river two
miles from town and just across from the rock quarry. No neighbors to
kick and the interurban runs through the field. It really is a choice
spot and I started their subscription with a hundred or two and got
Williams to draw them some plans to fix up an old house that stands on
the bank for a club-house. They are wide-mouthed with joy; but it sliced
two days to do it, which I might have spent on the grocery wagon."