“Well, I didn’t.  And I didn’t have to talk.  Couldn’t if I wanted to; she done it all.  Her tongue was hung on ball-bearin’ hinges and was a self-winder guaranteed to run an hour steady every time she set it goin’.  Talk! my jiminy crimps, how that woman could talk!  I couldn’t get away; I tried to, but, my soul, she wouldn’t let me.  And, if ’twas a warm night, she’d more’n likely have a pitcher of lemonade or some sort of cold wash alongside, and I must stop and taste it.  By time, I can taste it yet!

“Well, there wa’n’t no harm in her at all; she was just a fool that had to talk to somebody, males preferred.  But my stayin’ out nights wasn’t helpin’ the joyfulness of things to home, and one evenin’—­one evenin’ . . .  Oh, there!  I started to tell you this and I might’s well get it over.

“This evenin’ when I came home from the store I see somethin’ was extry wrong soon’s I struck the settin’ room.  Emeline was there, and Bennie D., and I give you my word, I felt like turnin’ up my coat collar, ’twas so frosty.  ’Twas hotter’n a steamer’s stoke-hole outside, but that room was forty below zero.

“Nobody said nothin’, you know—­that was the worst of it; but I’d have been glad if they had.  Finally, I said it myself.  ‘Well, Emeline,’ says I, ‘here I be.’

“No answer, so I tried again.  ‘Well, Emeline,’ says I, ’I’ve fetched port finally.’

“She didn’t answer me then, but Bennie D. laughed.  He had a way of laughin’ that made other folks want to cry—­or kill him.  For choice I’d have done the killin’ first.

“‘More nautical conversation, sister,’ says he.  ’He knows how fond you are of that sort of thing.’

“You see, Emeline never did like to hear me talk sailor talk; it reminded her too much that I used to be a sailor, I s’pose.  And that inventor knew she didn’t like it, and so he rubbed it in every time I made a slip.  ’Twas just one of his little ways; he had a million of ’em.

“But I tried once more.  ‘Emeline,’ I says, ’I’m home.  Can’t you speak to me?’

“Then she looked at me.  ‘Yes, Seth,’ says she, ‘I see you are home.’

“‘At last,’ put in brother-in-law, ’"There is no place like home”—­when the other places are shut up.’  And he laughed again.

“‘Stop, Bennie,’ says Emeline, and he stopped.  That was another of his little ways—­to do anything she asked him.  Then she turned to me.

“‘Seth,’ she asks, ‘where have you been?’

“‘Oh, down street,’ says I, casual.  ‘It’s turrible warm out.’

“She never paid no attention to the weather signals.  ’Where ’bouts down street?’ she wanted to know.

“‘Oh, down to the store,’ I says.

“‘You go to the store a good deal, don’t you,’ says she.  Bennie D. chuckled, and then begged her pardon.  That chuckle stirred my mad up.

“‘I go where folks seem to be glad to see me,’ I says.  ’Where they treat me as if I was somebody.’