Besides being so lonesome there’s another thing that worries me, too; and that is, this—­what I’m writing, I mean.  The novel.  It’s getting awfully stupid.  Nothing happens. Nothing! Of course, if ’twas just a story I could make up things—­lots of them—­exciting, interesting things, like having Mother elope with the violinist, and Father shoot him and fall in love with Mother all over again, or else with somebody else, and shoot that one’s lover.  Or maybe somebody’d try to shoot Father, and I’d get there just in time to save him.  Oh, I’d love that!

But this is a real story, so, of course, I can’t put in anything only just what happens; and nothing happens.

And that’s another thing.  About the love story—­I’m afraid there isn’t going to be one.  Anyway, there isn’t a bit of a sign of one, yet, unless it’s Mother.  And of course, I haven’t seen her for three months, so I can’t say anything about that.

Father hasn’t got one.  I’m sure of that.  He doesn’t like ladies.  I know he doesn’t.  He always runs away from them.  But they don’t run away from him!  Listen.

As I said before, quite a lot of them call here to see Aunt Jane, and they come lots of times evenings and late afternoons, and I know now why they do it.  They come then because they think Father’ll be at home at that time; and they want to see him.

I know it now, but I never thought of it till the other day when I heard our hired girl, Susie, talking about it with Bridget, the Smalls’ hired girl, over the fence when I was weeding the garden one day.  Then I knew.  It was like this: 

Mrs. Darling had been over the night before as usual, and had stayed an awfully long time talking to Aunt Jane on the front piazza.  Father had been there, too, awhile.  She stopped him on his way into the house.  I was there and I heard her.  She said: 

“Oh, Mr. Anderson, I’m so glad I saw you!  I wanted to ask your advice about selling poor dear Mr. Darling’s law library.”

And then she went on to tell him how she’d had an offer, but she wasn’t sure whether it was a good one or not.  And she told him how highly she prized his opinion, and he was a man of such splendid judgment, and she felt so alone now with no strong man’s shoulder to lean upon, and she would be so much obliged if he only would tell her whether he considered that offer a good one or not.

Father hitched and ahemmed and moved nearer the door all the time she was talking, and he didn’t seem to hear her when she pushed a chair toward him and asked him to please sit down and tell her what to do; that she was so alone in the world since poor dear Mr. Darling had gone. (She always calls him poor dear Mr. Darling now, but Susie says she didn’t when he was alive; she called him something quite different.  I wonder what it was.)

Well, as I said, Father hitched and fidgeted, and said he didn’t know, he was sure; that she’d better take wiser counsel than his, and that he was very sorry, but she really must excuse him.  And he got through the door while he was talking just as fast as he could himself, so that she couldn’t get in a single word to keep him.  Then he was gone.