139 
American Agriculturist, August 30, 1924 
I Wonder— sy e. m. Fruit 
“ XI/HAT was the joke on your Dad the 
V V other day? I heard the men at the 
Corners joshing him.” It was Sunday 
afternoon and Sammy and I were sprawled 
on the grass in the shade. 
“Aw, Pa’s just been actin’ foolish.” 
“What about?” I asked lazily. I 
might have added, “this time,” but I 
knew better. While Sammy is perfectly 
willing to tell of his Dad's various mishaps 
and idiosyncrasies, he is mighty quick to 
resent it if anyone else says anything 
disparaging. 
“A skirt!” There was such a volume 
of disgust in Sammy’s usually placid 
drawl, that I looked up in surprise. I 
could scarcely, believe the speaker was 
Sammy. Usually the mildest kind of 
disapproval of anyone or anything is all 
lie exhibits. 
“Why, Sammy,” I exclaimed, “evi¬ 
dently you don’t appreciate the joke 
either.” 
“Joke!” Sammy jerked himself up on 
his elbow and fairly flung the word at me. 
“Can you see any joke in a man as old as 
Pa making a fool of himself over a Jane 
young enough to be his daughter?” 
Sammy glared at me. His expression 
dared me to admit the joke. 
“Tell me about it,” I said rather 
meekly. This indignant young person 
wasn’t my friend Sammy at all. 
He dropped back into the grass and 
after a moment said, with a disgusted 
grunt, “I s’pose I might as well. You’ll 
hear it any way: or part of it. The part 
that happened at home you probably 
wouldn’t; but that doesn't matter so 
much.” As a matter of fact, it was 
‘what happened at home’ that gave me 
the most food for thought. 
Sammy chewed thoughtfully on a 
blade of grass for a moment. Slowly a 
reluctant grin overspread his face. “I 
guess it was kinda funny. At least the 
fellows who were in on the joke seemed to 
think so.” Sammy paused so long I 
thought he had changed his mind about 
telling me. 
“Who was the lady?” I hazarded. 
“Lady!” he snorted. “She ain’t nothin' 
but a kid. It was that teacher at the 
Bend.” As a matter of fact, she is 
twenty-five if she is a day, but with her 
bobbed hair and carefully applied com¬ 
plexion, I’ll admit Sammy was justified in 
his assertion. And she is pretty. Her 
worst enemy, if she has one, would have 
to admit that. 
“IT was that Harry Jennings that 
started it. He’s always trying to 
make a fool of someone. The teacher 
had come into town with someone from 
the Bend and expected her folks to meet 
her. She was going home for over 
Sunday. You know' she lives about four 
or five miles from the Corners. For 
some reason they didn't show up and she 
was waiting in Jackson’s store for a 
chance to ride out with someone, when 
Harry saw Pa coming up the street. Pa 
had been down to the blacksmith shop 
and I was waiting in the store for him. 
‘There comes Bill Allen. He’s a ladies’ 
man. Just ask him to take you home in 
his flivver. If you smile at him and talk 
real pretty, maybe you can get him to 
come after you Sunday night and take 
you back to the Bend.’ He looked at her 
real sassy like, as tho he was daring her to 
do it, and she stuck up her nose and said: 
'“Maybe you think I can’t.’ He 
just laughed, the kind of laugh that 
would make you do a thing just to show 
him you could. I guess they didn’t see 
me. Just then Pa came in and Harry 
said: 
“Hello, Bill, here’s a fair damsel in 
distress. Don’t you want to be a modern 
knight?’ 
‘I’m not very well up on the Knight 
business,’ laughed Pa, ‘but I’m always 
at the service of ladies in distress.’ 
“‘Oh, Mister Allen,’ chimed in the 
teacher, ‘I really don’t know what I am 
going to do. I expected my folks to 
meet me and they haven’t come,’ and shq 
clasped her hands and rolled up her eyes, 
kinda sick, like she’d e’t something that 
didn’t agree with her. 
“‘I told her she could depend on you 
and your trusty flivver to take her home,’ 
said Harry, grinnin’ at Pa—that same 
kind of ‘dare-you-to-do-it’ grin. Of 
course after that anyone could see that 
there wasn’t anything for Pa to do but 
offer to take her home. So far it wasn’t 
Pa’s fault. It was after that he acted 
foolish. When he did offer to take her 
she said: 
' “‘Oh, Mister Allen, it is perfectly 
splendid of you, but I couldn't think of 
letting you go to all that trouble just for 
me.’ Just as though she hadn’t meant to 
make him take her all the time. It made 
me sick but Pa fell for it. 
“‘Not a bit of trouble,’ says he. ‘I 
can do it just as well as not.’ You 
wouldn’t think to hear him that he had 
seven pows to milk when he got home, 
’sides all the other chores. I followed 
them out to the car but Pa said, ‘ Sammy, 
you w r ait here till I get back.’ I didn’t 
see'any sense of my waiting there, but I 
didn’t care, so I went back into the store 
and Harry and all them other dumb-bells 
was laughin’ fit to split. 
“‘I’m surprised at you, Sammy,’ says 
Harry. ‘You should not expect a brave 
knight like your Pa to be bothered with 
a small boy when he is escorting a fair 
lady. Now r , the role of gooseberry—’ 
‘“Oh, no, Sammy, not fat. Rather 
heavy set, perhaps, but not fat.’ I 
didn’t argue the question, but if Pa is 
thin I’d hate to be fat. He bought him 
a tie, a red one, real flashy. I thought it 
was awful pretty, but when he showed it 
to Ma she just looked at him with that 
funny twinkle in her eyes and the corners 
of her mouth sort of quirked up—the 
kind of look that alw r ays makes Pa mad— 
I don’t know why. 
“ AT last we got started and when 
F\. we g 0 t pretty near home Pa 
cleared his throat a time or two and said 
sort of casual like, ‘Oh, by the way, 
Sammy, it might be just as well not to 
mention Miss Davis, that’s the teacher’s 
name, to your mother. Women don’t 
always understand things of that sort 
like us men do. Here’s a quarter for 
you.’ I said ‘all right’ and took the 
quarter, tho I wouldn’t have spilled the 
beans any way. Pa had let me off from 
hoein’ that afternoon and took me to 
town and bought me ice cream and let me 
go to a picture show. Pa’s kinda funny 
sometimes and awful quick tempered, 
but just the same when he takes a feller 
any place he’s a mighty good old scout, 
and not a bit stingy. 
“When we got home Ma had part of 
the milkin’ done and she said, ‘What 
kept you so late. Will?’ 
“‘Oh, I was detained,’ said Pa, off- 
A RADIO TEA IS POPULAR WITH THE WOMEN FOLK 
A LTHOUGH the boys and men folks like to sit up and tinker with 
the radio, the women get a lot of enjoyment from it, too. Some farm 
women have formed the habit of watching the programs until an especially 
good one comes along and then inviting the neighbors to drink a cup of 
tea while they listen to the lecture, music or speech. Meetings of the 
sewing circle, too, are often enlivened by outside “talent” broadcast from 
some distant point. “Radio parties” have infinite possibilities at whatever 
time of day the favorite feature may come over the air. 
But I told him to shut his trap, and I 
beat it. That fellow gives me a severe 
pain. 
“Pa was gone quite a little while, but 
I went to a picture show so I didn’t mind. 
When he got back he seemed awful 
tickled with himself. He strutted around 
like he’d just been elected president, or 
something. He got the groceries and 
things Ma ordered and put them in the 
car. ‘Sammy,’ says he, just as we were 
ready to start home, ‘I think I’ll get me a 
new tie. My old ones don’t look very 
fresh. If a man wants to be anybody 
these days he must be up to snuff in his 
appearance; and what do you think about 
one of those new style collars—one that 
comes up real snug under the chin. They 
make a man more distinguished looking.’ 
‘“Oh, the tie would be all right,’ I told 
him. ‘But I wouldn’t get one of them 
clioaker collars. You’re too fat.’ 
hand like, but he looked Shep when he’s 
been stealin’ eggs. Ma looked like sharp 
at him and then at me, but my face didn’t 
tell nothin.’ I could well believe it. A 
blank wall has nothing on Sammy when 
he wants his face to be expressionless. 
“Ma didn’t say anything more but all 
evening she kept looking at Pa kind of 
questioning, like she was trying to make 
out something. Long towards evening 
on Sunday, Pa began actin’ kinda nerv¬ 
ous. He washed the car all up, and then 
he went off up-stairs. When he came 
down he was all dressed up—had his 
new tie on and had put so much of Ma’s 
perfume on he smelled to glory. Gosh, I 
wouldn't have any of that stuff on me. 
“‘I think,’ says Pa, speaking in a 
hurry, ‘ I’ll run over to the garage and fill 
the car up with gas. It’s about empty 
and we don’t want to run out of gas again 
vvhen we are half-way home, do we, old 
lady?’ and he chucked Ma under the chin, 
kinda playful, and beat it before she had 
time to say anything. She started to 
follow him out but before she got to the 
door he had the car cranked and was 
climbin’ in. 
“‘Sammy,’ says Ma, pretty sharp, 
* where is your father going ? ’ 
“‘Why,’ I says, ‘he said he was goin’ 
to get gas.’ She looked at me pretty 
straight for a minit and then she said: 
“‘Samuel,’ and when she calls me 
‘ Samuel ’ I know it’s time to answer pretty 
straight. ‘Samuel,’ she says, ‘did your 
father tell you not to tell me where he was 
going?’ 
H ONEST, Ma, he never said a thing 
to me. All I know is what he 
said to you just now.’ and I was mighty 
glad he hadn’t, for when Ma starts to 
find out anything you might just as well 
tell her, for she is going to know it before 
she gets through with you, whether you 
know you’ve told it or not. Of course, I 
could have made a pretty good guess—• 
but I wasn’t guessin’. But I could see 
trouble headin’ in Pa’s direction all 
right/ 
“He got home a little before milking 
time. ‘Where have you been?’ says 
Ma, awful icy. 
“‘Why,’ says Pa, trying to bluster, ‘I 
told you where I was going.’ 
“‘Yes,’ answered Ma, awfully sar¬ 
castic. ‘You said you were going to the 
garage to get gas, when you knew per¬ 
fectly well, and so did I, that you had gas 
enough in the car to take you to town and 
back. What I asked you was, Where 
have you been ? ’ Pa was gettin’ mad too. 
“‘I told you,’ he snapped. ‘I guess a 
man can go to the garage and back with¬ 
out being quizzed to death.’ Just then 
Ma spied something in the back of the 
car. That fool girl had left one of her 
books, and it had her name in it. 
“‘Where did you get this?’ Ma’s 
voice made you feel like little chunks 
of ice was bein’ dropped down your 
back. 
“‘Why that — why, ’er — that — -Oh yes, 
Ed, over at the garage, loaned it to me. 
Thought I might like to read it, you 
know. ' 
“‘Since when, William, have you 
taken to reading Third Grade Arith¬ 
metic as a pastime?’ asked Ma. Pa, he 
got red and stammered and didn’t know 
what to say. ‘I think,’ says Ma, ‘it’s 
about time you were telling me the truth. 
How does it happen that one of Mae 
Davis’s books is in your car?’ 
“Pa, he started in brave enough to 
explain, but the more he talked the 
worse it sounded. I couldn’t see any¬ 
thing to make such a fuss about myself. 
If he’d ’a’ told Ma in the first place it 
would have been all right, and if Pa 
hadn’t been so rattled he’d ’a’ seen Ma was 
laughin’ at him all the time. She wasn’t 
half as mad as she pretended to be. I 
don’t know how they settled it, for Ma 
sent me out to milk, but the next day 
Ma bought the new dining-room carpet 
she’d been wantin’ for a long time, \yhen 
I asked Ma why she pretended to be so 
mad, she laughed and said, ‘For the sake 
of the future Mrs. Samuel, I am not 
going to tell you.’ She needn’t worry 
about any future wife for me. I’ve got 
some sense.” 
Sammy got lazily to his feet and strolled 
toward home; but he left me wondering. 
Years ago, when Minnie and I hadn’t 
been married very long, there was a 
slight misunderstanding. I thought Min¬ 
nie was a little unreasonable about it. 
Just a little harmless flirtation—nothing 
at all serious, you understand — but 
Minnie got a certain kitchen cabinet she 
had been wanting. I considered it a sort 
of peace offering. At the time, and 
many times since, to be honest, I have 
been, a little puffed up to think that 
Minnie cared enough to be jealous of me. 
But I wonder—maybe all the time she 
was laughing—Oh, drat that boy and 
„ his silly story. ' 
