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Page 3
"But if it's absolutely 'on the square,'" protested the Traveling
Salesman, worriedly, "then where in creation does the 'indiscreet'
come in?"
The Youngish Girl's jaw dropped. "Why, the 'indiscreet' part comes
in," she argued, "because you're not able to prove in advance, you
know, that the stakes you're gambling for are absolutely 'on the
square.' I don't know exactly how to express it, but it seems somehow
as though only the very little things of Life are offered in open
packages--that all the big things come sealed very tight. You can poke
them a little and make a guess at the shape, and you can rattle them a
little and make a guess at the size, but you can't ever open them and
prove them--until the money is paid down and gone forever from your
hands. But goodness me!" she cried, brightening perceptibly; "if you
were to put an advertisement in the biggest newspaper in the biggest
city in the world, saying: 'Every person who has ever written an
indiscreet letter in his life is hereby invited to attend a
mass-meeting'--and if people would really go--you'd see the most
distinguished public gathering that you ever saw in your life! Bishops
and Judges and Statesmen and Beautiful Society Women and Little Old
White-Haired Mothers--everybody, in fact, who had ever had red blood
enough at least once in his life to write down in cold black and white
the one vital, quivering, questioning fact that happened to mean the
most to him at that moment! But your 'Honey' and your 'Dolly Girl' and
your 'Pink-Fingered Precious' nonsense! Why, it isn't real! Why, it
doesn't even _make sense_!"
Again the Youngish Girl's laughter rang out in light, joyous, utterly
superficial appreciation.
Even the serious Traveling Salesman succumbed at last.
"Oh, yes, I know it sounds comic," he acknowledged wryly. "Sounds like
something out of a summer vaudeville show or a cheap Sunday
supplement. But I don't suppose it sounded so specially blamed comic
to the widow. I reckon she found it plenty-heap indiscreet enough to
suit her. Oh, of course," he added hastily, "I know, and Martha knows
that Thomkins wasn't at all that kind of a fool. And yet, after
all--when you really settle right down to think about it, Thomkins'
name was easily 'Tommy,' and Thursday sure enough was his day in New
Haven, and it was a yard of red flannel that Martha had asked him to
bring home to her--not the scarlet automobile veil that they found in
his pocket. But 'Martha,' I says, of course, 'Martha, it sure does
beat all how we fellows that travel round so much in cars and trains
are always and forever picking up automobile veils--dozens of them,
_dozens_--red, blue, pink, yellow--why, I wouldn't wonder if my wife
had as many as thirty-four tucked away in her top bureau drawer!'--'I
wouldn't wonder,' says Martha, stooping lower and lower over
Thomkins's blue cotton shirt that she's trying to cut down into
rompers for the baby. 'And, Martha,' I says, 'that letter is just a
joke. One of the boys sure put it up on him!'--'Why, of course,' says
Martha, with her mouth all puckered up crooked, as though a kid had
stitched it on the machine. 'Why, of course! How dared you think--'"
Forking one bushy eyebrow, the Salesman turned and stared quizzically
off into space.
"But all the samey, just between you and I," he continued judicially,
"all the samey, I'll wager you anything you name that it ain't just
death that's pulling Martha down day by day, and night by night,
limper and lanker and clumsier-footed. Martha's got a sore thought.
That's what ails her. And God help the crittur with a sore thought!
God help anybody who's got any one single, solitary sick idea that
keeps thinking on top of itself, over and over and over, boring into
the past, bumping into the future, fussing, fretting, eternally
festering. Gee! Compared to it, a tight shoe is easy slippers, and
water dropping on your head is perfect peace!--Look close at Martha,
I say. Every night when the blowsy old moon shines like courting
time, every day when the butcher's bill comes home as big as a swollen
elephant, when the crippled stepson tries to cut his throat again,
when the youngest kid sneezes funny like his father--'WHO WAS
ROSIE? WHO WAS ROSIE?'"
"Well, who was Rosie?" persisted the Youngish Girl absent-mindedly.
"Why, Rosie was _nothing_!" snapped the Traveling Salesman; "nothing
at all--probably." Altogether in spite of himself, his voice trailed
off into a suspiciously minor key. "But all the same," he continued
more vehemently, "all the same--it's just that little darned word
'probably' that's making all the mess and bother of it--because, as
far as I can reckon, a woman can stand absolutely anything under God's
heaven that she knows; but she just up and can't stand the littlest,
teeniest, no-account sort of thing that she ain't sure of. Answers may
kill 'em dead enough, but it's questions that eats 'em alive."
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