"She's had good cause," answered Henley. "A woman that don't get a speck of attention will hate anything. I reckon she's passed the line, and nobody will marry her."
"She's going to marry _me_," the boy blurted out, leaning over and striking the desk with his fist, as if to emphasize his words, "and when she's my wife I'll call and make you settle for what you've said. Remember that, sir." And he turned and strode angrily from the store.
"I hated to say it," Henley mused, "but I was doing it for the lasting good of all concerned. It won't do--it simply won't do. That meddlesome old maid simply shall not ruin that boy's life and break his old mammy's heart. I wonder--" He sat staring at the floor for several minutes, and then a smile disturbed the stern lines of his face. "It might work--by gum, I'll try it, anyway!"
Glancing down to the front, he saw that Cahews was disengaged and seated on the end of a counter swinging his long legs to and fro. Henley went to him.
"Say, Jim, Johnny Cartwright and Carrie Wade is driving his mammy mighty nigh distracted with their doings. I don't know when I've ever been so sorry for an old person. I wonder if me and you couldn't put our heads together and--and sort o' bust it up."
"Well, I don't know, Alf--you are a better schemer than I am. I'm willin' to help, but I can't git up nothing. If the boy was mine I'd give 'im a good spankin' in public, and maybe that ud shame Carrie into behavin' herself."
"If I could get you to help I think I could work a change in the thing, anyway," Henley said, persuasively.
"Yes, it's just this way, Jim, with a woman of that brand and vintage," Henley pursued. "You see, she's gone without the right sort of attention so long that she's kind o' lost respect for herself. Jim, you are the leading young man in Chester, not yet married, and considered a fine catch. I don't know how it will strike you, but you could really do a good turn all round if you'd just pay Carrie a little attention. Take her in your new top buggy to camp-meeting next Sunday."
"I don't mean for you to _marry_ her," Henley went on, smoothly. "But if I'm any judge of women, I think when a man of your stripe drives out in public with her she'll simply look up again, and, by gum, I believe she'll look clean over that boy's head. I'm asking you to take part in a good deed, Jim."