“Well, his travels bein’ over, down he comes to make his sister-in-law a little visit.  And he stays on and stays on.  He never took no shine to me—­I judge he figgered I hadn’t no business sharin’ Abner’s property—­and I never took to him, much.

“Emeline noticed Bennie D. and me wa’n’t fallin’ on each other’s necks any to speak of, and it troubled her.  She blamed me for it.  Said Bennie was a genius, and geniuses had sensitive natures and had to be treated with consideration and different from other folks.  And that promise to Abner weighed on her conscience, I cal’late.  Anyhow, she petted that blame inventor, and it made me mad.  And yet I didn’t say much—­not so much as I’d ought to, I guess.  And Bennie D. was always heavin’ out little side remarks about Emeline’s bein’ fitted for better things than she was gettin’, and how, when his invention was ‘perfected,’ he’d see that she didn’t slave herself to death, and so on and so on.  And he had consider’ble to say about folks tryin’ to farm when they didn’t know a cucumber from a watermelon, and how ‘farmin’’ was a good excuse for doin’ nothin’, and such.  And I didn’t have any good answer to that, ’cause I do know more about seaweed than I do cucumbers, and the farm wasn’t payin’ and I knew it.

“If he’d said these things right out plain, I guess likely I’d have give him what he deserved.  But he didn’t; he just hinted and smiled and acted superior and pityin’.  And if I got mad and hove out a little sailor talk by accident, he’d look as sorry and shocked as the Come-Outer parson does when there’s a baby born to a Universalist family.  He’d get up and shut the door, as if he was scart the neighbors’ morals would suffer—­though the only neighbor within hearin’ was an old critter that used to run a billiard saloon in Gloucester, and his morals had been put out of their misery forty years afore—­and he’d suggest that Emeline better leave the room, maybe.  And then I’d feel ashamed and wouldn’t know what to do, and ‘twould end, more’n likely, by my leavin’ it myself.

“You can see how matters was driftin’.  I could see plain enough, and I cal’late Emeline could, too—­I’ll give her credit for that.  She didn’t begin to look as happy as she had, and that made me feel worse than ever.  One time, I found her cryin’ in the wash room, and I went up and put my arm round her.

“‘Emeline,’ I says, ’don’t; please don’t.  Don’t cry.  I know I ain’t the husband I’d ought to be to you, but I’m doin’ my best.  I’m tryin’ to do it.  I ain’t a genius,’ I says.

“She interrupted me quick, sort of half laughin’ and half cryin’.  ’No, Seth,’ says she, ‘you ain’t, that’s a fact.’

“That made me sort of mad.  ‘No, I ain’t,’ I says again; ’and if you ask me, I’d say one in the house was enough, and to spare.’

“‘I know you don’t like Bennie,’ she says.

“‘’Taint that,’ says I, which was a lie.  ‘It ain’t that,’ I says; ’but somehow I don’t seem to fit around here.  Bennie and me, we don’t seem to belong together.’