The Wit and Humor of America Volume II Part 21

"Healthy."

Seffy agreed to this, also.

"No doctor-bills!" his father amplified.

Seffy said nothing.

"Entire orphen."

"She's got a granny!"

"Yas," chuckled the old man at the way his son was drifting into the situation--thinking about granny!--"but Sally owns _the farm_!"

"Uhu!" said Seffy, whatever that might mean.

"And Sally's the boss!"

Silence.

"And granny won't object to any one Sally marries, anyhow--she da.s.sent!

She'd git licked!"

"Who said anything about marrying?"

Seffy was speciously savage now--as any successful wooer might be.

"n.o.body but me, sank you!" said the old man with equally specious meekness. "Look how she ken jump a six-rail fence. Like a three-year filly! She's a nice gal, Seffy--and the farms j'ine together--her pasture-field and our corn-field. And she's kissing her hand backwards!

At me or you, Seffy?"

Seffy said he didn't know. And he did not return the kiss--though he yearned to.

"Well, I bet a dollar that the first initial of his last name is Sephenijah P. Baumgartner, _Junior_."

"Well!" said Seffy with a great flourish, "I'm going to set up with her to-night."

"Oach--git out, Sef!"--though he knew it.

"You'll see."

"No, I won't," said his father. "I wouldn't be so durn mean. Nossir!"

Seffy grinned at this subtle foolery, and his courage continued to grow.

"I'm going to wear my high hat!" he announced, with his nose quite in the air.

"No, Sef!" said the old man with a wonderful inflection, facing him about that he might look into his determined face. For it must be explained that the stovepipe hat, in that day and that country, was dedicated only to the most momentous social occasions and that, consequently, gentlemen wore it to go courting.

"Yes!" declared Seffy again.

"Bring forth the stovepipe, The stovepipe, the stovepipe--"

chanted Seffy's frivolous father in the way of the Anvil Chorus.

"And my b.u.t.terfly necktie with--"

"Wiss the di'mond on?" whispered his father.

They laughed in confidence of their secret. Seffy, the successful wooer, was thawing out again. The diamond was not a diamond at all--the Hebrew who sold it to Seffy had confessed as much. But he also swore that if it were kept in perfect polish no one but a diamond merchant could tell the difference. Therefore, there being no diamond merchant anywhere near, and the jewel being always immaculate, Seffy presented it as a diamond and had risen perceptibly in the opinion of the vicinage.

"And--and--and--Sef--Seffy, what you goin' to _do_?"

"Do?"

Seffy had been absorbed in what he was going to wear. "Yas--yas--that's the most important." He encircled Seffy's waist and gently squeezed it.

"Oh, of _course_! Hah? But what _yit_?"

I regret to say that Seffy did not understand.

"Seffy," he said impressively, "you haf' tol' me what you goin' to wear.

It ain't much. The weather's yit pooty col' nights. But I ken stand it if you ken--G.o.d knows about Sally! Now, what you goin' to _do_--that's the conuntrum I ast you!"

Still it was not clear to Seffy.

"Why--what I'm a-going to do, hah? Why--whatever occurs."

"Gosh-a'mighty! And nefer say a word or do a sing to help the occurrences along? Goshens! What a setting-up! Why--say--Seffy, what you set up _for_?"

Seffy did not exactly know. He had never hoped to practise the thing--in that sublimely militant phase.

"What do _you_ think?"

"Well, Sef--plow straight to her heart. I wisht I had your chance. I'd show you a other-guess kind a setting-up--ya.s.sir! Make your mouth warter and your head swim, begoshens! Why, that Sally's just like a young stubble-field; got to be worked constant, and plowed deep, and manured heafy, and mebby drained wiss blind ditches, and crops changed constant, and kep' a-going thataway--constant--constant--so's the weeds can't git in her. Then you ken put her in wheat after a while and git your money back."

This drastic metaphor had its effect. Seffy began to understand. He said so.

"Now, look here, Seffy," his father went on more softly, "when you git to this--and this--and this,"--he went through his pantomime again, and it included a progressive caressing to the kissing point--"well, chust when you bose comfortable--hah?--mebby on one cheer, what I know--it's so long sence I done it myself--when you bose comfortable, ast her--chust ast her--aham!--what she'll take for the pasture-field! She owns you bose and she can't use bose you and the pasture. A bird in the hand is worth seferal in another feller's--not so?"

But Seffy only stopped and stared at his father. This, again, he did _not_ understand.

"You know well enough I got no money to buy no pasture-field," said he.

"Gosh-a'mighty!" said the old man joyfully, making as if he would strike Seffy with his huge fist--a thing he often did. "And ain't got nossing to trade?"

"Nothing except the mare!" said the boy.

"Say--ain't you got no feelings, you idjiot?"

"Oh--" said Seffy. And then: "But what's feelings got to do with cow-pasture?"