The Postmaster Part 40

"Course I did! Didn't I say so?"

"Yes; but Cap'n Zeb, I saw you put that letter in your overcoat pocket.

I saw you do it, myself."

So there 'twas. I'd forgot to tell her about my mistake in the overcoats and she thought I'd lost the letter and didn't know it.

"And so," says I, after I'd explained, "you thought I'd lost it and yet you took the blame all on yourself. You risked your place and told a lie just to save me, Mary. Why did you do it?"

"How could I help it?" she says. "You've been so good to me and so kind."

"Good and kind be keelhauled!" I sung out. "Mary, my goodness and kindness wouldn't explain a thing like that. Oh, Mary, don't let's have another misunderstandin'. I'm crazy maybe to think of such a thing, and I'm ten years older than you, and you'll be throwin' yourself away, but, _do_ you care enough for me to-"

She got up from her desk, all fl.u.s.tered like.

"It's mail time," she says. "I-I must-"

But 'twa'n't mail I was interested in just then. I caught her afore she could get away.

"Could you, Mary?" I pleaded. She wouldn't look at me, so I put my hand under her chin and tipped her head back so I could see her face. 'Twas as red as a spring peony, and her eyes were wetter than ever. But they were s.h.i.+nin' behind the fog.

Well, about three that afternoon, we were alone together in the mail room. Peters, who had as much common sense as anybody ever I see, had gone for a walk.

Mary was thinkin' things over and says she, "But it was too bad," she says, "that all the worry and trouble had to come on you just because of that foolish Sim Kelley. I'm so sorry."

"Sorry!" says I. "I'm goin' to give Sim a ten-dollar bill next time I see him. If I gave him a million 'twould be a cheap price for what I've got by his b.u.t.tin' in. Sorry! _I_ ain't sorry, I tell you that!"

And I've never been sorry since, either.

CHAPTER XVI-I PAY MY OTHER BET

'Twas June, and Mary and I were in New York together, on _our_ honeymoon. We'd been married, quietly, by the same parson that tied the knot for Jim and Georgianna, and Georgianna and Jim had been on hand at the ceremony. We was cal'latin' to stop in New York a few days, then go to Was.h.i.+ngton, and from there to Chicago, and from there to California or the Yellerstone, or anywhere that seemed good to us at the time. I'd waited fifty years for my weddin' tour and I didn't intend to let dollars and cents cut much figger, so far as regulatin' the limits of the cruise was concerned. Jim Henry and the clerk, who'd been swore in as subst.i.tute a.s.sistant, believed they could run the store and post-office while we were gone.

Mary and I were walkin' down Broadway together. I'd told her I had an errand to do and asked her if she wanted to come along. She said she did and we were walkin' down Broadway, as I said, when all at once I pulled up short.

"What is it?" asked Mary, lookin' to see what had run across my bows to bring me up into the wind so sudden.

"Nothin' serious," says I; "but, unless my eyesight is goin' back on me, this shop we're in front of is what I've been huntin' for."

She looked at the shop I was p'intin' at. The window was full of hats, straw ones mainly.

"Why!" says she, "it's a hat store, isn't it? You don't need a new hat, Zebulon, do you?"

"You bet I do!" says I, chucklin'. "I need just as much hat as there is.

Come in and watch me buy it."

I could see she was puzzled, but she was more so after I got into the store. A slick-lookin', but pretty condescendin' young clerk marched up to us and says he:

"Somethin' in a hat, sir?"

"Yes, sir," says I; "_everything_ in a hat."

He didn't know what to make of that, so he tried again.

"One of our new straws, perhaps?" he asks. "The fifteenth is almost here, you know."

"Maybe so," I told him, "but I don't want any straw, the fifteenth or the sixteenth either. I want a plug hat, a beaver hat-that's what I want."

The clerk was a little set back, I guess, but poor Mary was all at sea.

"Why, Zebulon!" she whispers, grabbin' me by the arm, "what are you doin'? You're not goin' to buy a silk hat!"

"Yes, I am," says I.

"But you aren't goin' to _wear_ it."

To save me, when I looked at her face I couldn't help laughin'.

"Ain't I?" says I. "Why, I think I'd look too cute for anything in a tall hat. What's your opinion?" turnin' to the clerk.

He coughed behind his hand and then made proclamation that a silk hat would become me very well, he was sure.

"Then you're a whole lot surer than I am," says I. "However, trot one out, the best article you've got in stock."

That clerk's back was gettin' limberer every second. "Yes, sir," says he, bowin'. "Our imported hat at ten dollars is the finest in New York.

If you and the lady will step this way, please."

We stepped; that is, I did. I pretty nigh had to _drag_ Mary.

"What size, sir?" asked the clerk.

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Any nice genteel size will do, I guess."

I had consider'ble fun with that clerk, fust and last, and when we came out of that store I was luggin' a fine leather box with the imported tall hat inside it. I'd made arrangements that, if the size shouldn't be right, it could be exchanged.

"And now, Mary," says I, "I cal'late you're wonderin' where we'll go next, ain't you?"

She looked at me and shook her head.

"Zeb," she says, half laughin', "I-I'm almost afraid we ought to go to the insane asylum."

I laughed out loud then. "Not just yet," I told her. "We're goin' on a cruise down South Street fust."

So I hired a hack-street cars ain't good enough for a man on his weddin'

trip-and the feller drove us to the number I give him on South Street.