“Oh, I don’t mean anything, only—Sometimes I get so darn sick and tired of all this routine and the accounting at the office and expenses at home and fussing and stewing and fretting and wearing myself out worrying over a lot of junk that doesn’t really mean a doggone thing, and being so careful and—Good Lord, what do you think I’m made for?
I could have been a darn good orator, and here I fuss and fret and worry—”
“Don’t you suppose I ever get tired of fussing?
I get so bored with ordering three meals a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and ruining my eyes over that horrid sewing-machine, and looking after your clothes and Rone’s and Ted’s and Tinka’s and everybody’s, and the laundry, and darning socks, and going down to the Piggly Wiggly to market, and bringing my basket home to save money on the cash-and-carry and—EVERYTHING!”
“Well, gosh,” with a certain astonishment,
“I suppose maybe you do!
But talk about—Here I have to be in the office every single day, while you can go out all afternoon and see folks and visit with the neighbors and do any blinkin’ thing you want to!”
“Yes, and a fine lot of good that does me!
Just talking over the same old things with the same old crowd, while you have all sorts of interesting people coming in to see you at the office.”
“Interesting!
Cranky old dames that want to know why I haven’t rented their dear precious homes for about seven times their value, and bunch of old crabs panning the everlasting daylights out of me because they don’t receive every cent of their rentals by three G.M. on the second of the month!
Sure!
Interesting!
Just as interesting as the small pox!”
“Now, George, I will not have you shouting at me that way!”
“Well, it gets my goat the way women figure out that a man doesn’t do a darn thing but sit on his chair and have lovey-dovey conferences with a lot of classy dames and give ‘em the glad eye!”
“I guess you manage to give them a glad enough eye when they do come in.”
“What do you mean?
Mean I’m chasing flappers?”
“I should hope not—at your age!”
“Now you look here!
You may not believe it—Of course all you see is fat little Georgie Babbitt.
Sure!
Handy man around the house!
Fixes the furnace when the furnace-man doesn’t show up, and pays the bills, but dull, awful dull!
Well, you may not believe it, but there’s some women that think old George Babbitt isn’t such a bad scout!
They think he’s not so bad-looking, not so bad that it hurts anyway, and he’s got a pretty good line of guff, and some even think he shakes a darn wicked Walkover at dancing!”
“Yes.” She spoke slowly.
“I haven’t much doubt that when I’m away you manage to find people who properly appreciate you.”
“Well, I just mean—” he protested, with a sound of denial.
Then he was angered into semi-honesty. “You bet I do!
I find plenty of folks, and doggone nice ones, that don’t think I’m a weak-stomached baby!”
“That’s exactly what I was saying!
You can run around with anybody you please, but I’m supposed to sit here and wait for you.
You have the chance to get all sorts of culture and everything, and I just stay home—”
“Well, gosh almighty, there’s nothing to prevent your reading books and going to lectures and all that junk, is there?”
“George, I told you, I won’t have you shouting at me like that!
I don’t know what’s come over you.
You never used to speak to me in this cranky way.”
“I didn’t mean to sound cranky, but gosh, it certainly makes me sore to get the blame because you don’t keep up with things.”
“I’m going to!
Will you help me?”
“Sure.
Anything I can do to help you in the culture-grabbing line—yours to oblige, G. F. Babbitt.”
“Very well then, I want you to go to Mrs. Mudge’s New Thought meeting with me, next Sunday afternoon.”
“Mrs. Who’s which?”
“Mrs. Opal Emerson Mudge.
The field-lecturer for the American New Thought League.
She’s going to speak on
‘Cultivating the Sun Spirit’ before the League of the Higher Illumination, at the Thornleigh.”