Life — May 3, 1906 — page 34: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

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The man from without stepped that he shut the door against the deliberate figure of Number Two. “No, Manda hasn’t come, but I have.” The stranger took his broad brimmed felt hat off and deliberately shook a circle of rain around him “Are you Henry Summalt?” The little man nodded in silence. “That’s all right, then.” Henry found his voice. “Tf you don’t mind, sir,—I'll—I'll take your hat. It—the rain’s bad for the floor. My wife is mighty particular about the floor!” The other laughed in his throat. It sounded like a reminiscent laugh. “Yes; that’s it, bad for the floor! Well, I was coming along your road, Mr. Summalt, and I saw the storm and stopped in. I’m bound for the night express down yonder at your switch station, by and by.” He removed his cloak and hung it on a nail behind the door, while Henry Summalt stared, puzzled. . “Yes, sir,” he said at length, “you're welcome, I’m sure. I don’t have much company. I’m busy mostly—my wife, she’s away to-night"—Henry stopped, his rather tired and startled eyes arrested by the stranger’s nod of comprehen sion, as he went across to the fire—“‘she’s gone up to Mis’ Brogden’s to the mite meetin’. She'll be back by and by, but”—he glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting a habitual protest—‘‘I’m—I’m just goin’ to eat supper alone, and maybe—I reckon you'd better have some, sir.”” “T reckon I had,” said the stranger, with a nod of thanks. He noticed that something of latent courage sprung to Henry’s eyes at the prospect of a guest. For to the hospitable soul who never exercises his hospitality it is absolute joy to extend it, and Henry Summalt hurriedly placed another chair and plate, with signs of excitement. For, after all, what is a secret orgy if ro one shares it? He puta of bread beside the sausages and a dish of apple- butter. The stranger eyed this and Henry as he took his seat opposite. “Don’t have sausages often, do you?” he said abruptly. “Special treat?” Henry looked up in surprise, and passed the plate. “Yes, sir—that is, I just got these and—and put them aside for to-night, because she—my wife—doesn’t like—that is, she has bread and spreadin’ for supper.” The other nodded gravely, deliberately. “That’s it! Bread and spreadin’ all the year round. I’ve been there: I was married to one once who had the bread and spreadin’ habit, straight along.” It takes a small touch of nature to make kin or kind. There was a delibera- tion about the man’s steady mien which inspired confidence. Henry's knife paused midway, and something escaped expression in his meek countenance as the two men looked at each other with the understanding of slowly awakened trust. Then he filled the other's glass with cider. “T’m right glad of company,” he said, with the breathlessness of utterance which denotes that the speaker seldom exercises liberty of expression. “I was goin’ to eat by myself and get through soon because-—” “Of the sausages,” put in the other flatly. “I know!” Henry nodded across his teacup. “Y’see she, my wife ’s a first-class housekeeper,—the best in these parts. Why, she just keeps house straight along and sets so much store by it—she can take a prize—a first—at any fair, for pickles and cakes and things, and she can keep goin-——” Henry sighed a little; ‘nothin’ don’t tire her! As for cleanin’ ,’”’"—he glanced at the floor apprehensively, “she can see dust where there aint none! And y’see it’s easier to clean up after bread and spreadia’ than fried things, Manda says. But, sir, she can make——" “The dust fly,” interpolated the other, leaning back, “‘if there was any. Mine could. Yes, man! Mine not only kept house, and cleaned everything off the face of the earth, but she kept everything else that war’nt nailed down —’cept me!” he chuckled a little in his throat; “‘no,sir, she couldn’t keep me!” Henry Summalt leaned forward an elbow on the table in the thrall of a delicious and unlicensed confidence, such as he had ever dreamed of expet- encing. In all his married life this was the first time another man had unsealed that door of suppression which had become so habitual a part of him that it was almost now a mechanical process of thought. “Is she dead?” he whispered. “She dead? No, man!” the stranger chuckled again. “Her sort don’t die It’s the other folks that dies! That’s why I cut out and went into the Spanish War. ’Cause I wanted to live!” Henry stared. Such heroic measures had never dawned in thought upo? his horizon. 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