"Well, he's being handed out a choice bunch of Mason-Dixon attentions.
They are giving him the cheer-up all day long. When I left, Mrs. Shelby
was up there talking to him, and Mrs. Cherry Lawrence and Tom had just
come in. Mrs. Cherry had brought him several fresh eggs. She had got them
from Phoebe! I sent them to her from the farm this morning. Rode out and
coaxed the hens for them myself. Now, isn't a brainstorm up to me?"
"Well, I don't know," answered the major in a judicial tone of voice.
"You wouldn't have them neglect him, would you?"
"Well, what about me?" demanded David dolefully. "I haven't any green
eyes, 'cause I'm trusting Andy, _not_ Phoebe; but neglect is just
withering my leaves. I haven't seen her alone for two weeks. She is
always over there with Mrs. Matilda and the rest 'soothing the fevered
brow.' Say, Major, give Mrs. Matilda the hint. The chump isn't really
sick any more. Hint that a little less--"
"David, sir," interrupted the major, "it takes more than a hint to stop a
woman when she takes a notion to nurse an attractive man, a sick lion one
at that. And depend upon it, it is the poetry that makes them hover him,
not the ribs."
"Well, you just stop her and that'll stop them," said David wrathfully.
"David Kildare," answered the major dryly, "I've been married to her
nearly forty years and I've never stopped her doing anything yet.
Stopping a wife is one of the bride-notions a man had better give up
early in the matrimonial state--if he expects to hold the bride. And
bride-holding ought to be the life-job of a man who is rash enough to
undertake one."
"Do you think Phoebe and bride will ever rhyme together, Major?" asked
David in a tone of deepest depression. "I can't seem to hear them ever
jingle."
"Yes, Dave, the Almighty will meter it out to her some day, and I hope He
will help you when He does. I can't manage my wife. She's a modern woman.
Now, what are we going to do about them?" and the major smiled
quizzically at the perturbed young man standing on the rug in front of
the fire.
"Well," answered Kildare with a spark in his eyes, as he flecked a bit of
mud from his boots which were splashed from his morning ride, "when I get
Phoebe Donelson, I'm going to whip her!" And very broad and tall and
strong was young David but not in the least formidable as to expression.
"Dave, my boy," answered the major in a tone of the deepest respect, "I
hope you will do it, if you get the chance; but you won't! Thirty-eight
years ago last summer I felt the same way, but I've had a long time to
make up my mind to it; and I haven't done it yet."