CHAPTER XI

HENRY HOOGHTYLING, WHILE CONTINUING TO VINDICATE HIS RIGHT TO BE CLASSED WITH THE ULTRA-MODERNISTS, GETS RID OF SOME PHILOSOPHY ON COWS VS. HEIFERS-AND ETHEL CAMOUFLAGES ANOTHER STRAY

THE next afternoon, at three o'clock, Mr. Henry Hooghtyling inaugurated that series of close communions with Clotilde which she, as his daughter, had felt and declared to be her right. He got going under a spanking breeze, thanks to the fact that Clotilde had been wakened from a sound sleep to greet him:

"I've brung you a pound of butter and a pie from Ethel; there are folks that says Ethel's butter is about the best they ever put into their mouths, but as for me I don't think it holds a candle to her pie. Not but what it ain't prime butter, neither."

"Sit down," Clotilde invited him, depositing the basket on the living-room table, near the open fire. She and Henry had the Klings' main room to themselves. Edna was madly reading up on rats, out in the coolish kitchen, and Artie was upstairs in his studio, painting for dear life; they had decided, on second consideration, that he ought to finish up a few things before volunteering; he might never come back, and he modestly suggested that, if he were killed in the trenches, his pictures might become valuable, at least valuable enough to warrant finishing what he had on hand for Edna's sake.

Henry continued, eyeing the basket: "If I was to make a suggestion, I wouldn't put that butter so near the fire-unless, of course, you like your butter soft. Myself, I like it purty solid, purty solid; even in summer Ethel keeps it in the cellar, so's it won't get mussy. We got a tol❜ble fine cellar, though we been bothered a little with rats. Rats'll get in anywhere, it do beat all what a nose they got for vittals. Every fall, after butcherin', I go round pluggin' up all the holes, puttin' pizen round for 'em-what a nose them animals has got for fresh meat! I've knowed 'em to eat—”

"Oh, let's not talk about rats!" protested Clotilde faintly. She looked up from depositing the basket on the floor near the front window. She was bilious-looking, washed-out, and she hadn't taken time to do her hair neatly.

"Sure not! Excuse me-of course they ain't fit to talk about—and yet I always did say a person'd better not be too feist about what he talks about—a healthy person can talk about nearly anything—that is, if he's real hearty. "Twas a hearty man that et the toad,' we say up our way; not that I'd hanker after such vittals, but just showin' what a hearty person can stand-the healthier a person is, the less he'll worry about such things. Maybe you ain't feelin' quite so peart this afternoon?"

Clotilde made an effort to seem pearter. "You're perfectly right, Mr. Hooghtlying; I am the last person to object to perfect frankness"

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Sure, that's what I thought-She's the soul of frankness, you don't want to misjudge her just because she ain't afraid to use words in their right meanin's,'

I says to Ethel. Times has changed among the young folks,' I said, since you and I was young-and we never had much chances at an eddication, anyway.' Why, only one day in school for Ethel-for all she's so wellread—and me, I never went to school more'n a couple winters, and was raisin' the devil so hard than I didn't learn much. What a boy won't do! Seems like they had the very devil in 'em! I tell you, I've learned a lot, just talkin' to you-about bein' frank, not trying to hide things, y'know. You been an eye-opener to me along them lines-I'd never a-believed it!"

He shook his head, blinking at her; Clotilde said nothing. She hoped he might run down, soon, and go away. Her yearning to get real well acquainted with him, to pursue Modernistic themes under his fatherly direction, had mostly evaporated.

But Henry was full of conversation, full and running over; seldom had such stimulation for oral activity come his way. He had thought of a thousand things based on remembered sentiments delivered by Clotilde, that he wanted to say, a thousand things had happened that he wanted to tell her about.

He forged ahead: "Honest, when Ethel hove in sight last night-well, maybe I looked calm, but I says to myself, Now the beans is spilled-God help us all!' Why, sir-I mean Miss-that's exactly what I said, under my breath like-what breath I had left. I wouldn't a-been s'prised if Ethel'd lit right into both of us-began to throw things-stones, sticks-begun to claw and scream. She forgets herself, Ethel does, once every so often-but she's improvin'. I think it was all bein' dressed up in her new bonnet and cloak kep' her restrained last night—

I told her that, and she said she guessed I was right. Wonderful what clothes will do-make you feel like a diff'rent person, a'most. In her old kitchen apron, I've knowed Ethel to throw stove-lids-not but what I admit I give her some cause-yes, some cause. But look how

she took it-just like you said!

"I was wrong, you was right," said Henry; " you said she'd oughter be glad to find out you was my daughter and, once she got her head goin', by tarnation she was! Yes you was right! She said it seemed such a long way off, and I'd been so stiddy for so long she could forget it, if they was any wrong done between me and your ma—and, says she, considerin' what a fine-lookin' girl you are, and seein's your ma looked like you—I told her your ma looked a little like you, and so she did, girl, so she did! Well,' says Ethel, late last night, after we'd had a long talk, me takin' your part, 'well,' she says, 'Hen, I can't say's I blame you. Any other young man'd a-done the same thing if he'd a-got the chance— probably she tempted you,' says Ethel. I told her, for the sake of the honest truth, it was all my fault, but Ethel, she wouldn't believe me. 'Women's got more ways of temptin' a man than any man, even if he's wise as you, Hen-' She thinks I'm purty keen, Ethel does, I guess I got 'er fooled there, but I never let on. 'Well,' says Ethel, 'I guess it was her fault as much as yournand I respect you for not blowin' round about it,' says Ethel.

"I guess it's somethin',' says Ethel, 'for an old farmer couple like us to have a daughter's fine and slick as that.' You know, Ethel, she says, as a matter of plain truth and nothin' but the truth, she's kinda your step

mother, y' know." Henry thoughtfully rubbed his chin; Clotilde thoughtfully rubbed her forehead. "I've thought about it, and maybe, you know, she's right. She showed me in the dictionary where it said 'Stepmother: a woman who is the wife of a child's father, but not its mother.' Looks to me like it was the truth; and Ethel said, since you had such strong feelin's for the truth, you might like to think of her as your stepmother. She said she wouldn't have no objections, if you wouldn't?" Clotilde, answering his upward inflection, admitted: "Yes-it does seem that she's right—"

Henry proceeded: "I don't see no way o' gettin' 'round that, though I must say I can't agree with her sayin' she's really more your mother'n anybody else, seein's she regular married to your real father, while your other mother,-Ah-you know-wasn't-exactly -not exactly. I told Ethel marriage wasn't everything -she couldn't go claimin' to be your most important mother-just because of marriage vows. When you get right down to it, I says, marriage ain't near so important as some other things."

He was a little doubtful about this Radicalism; at least his waiting suggested a desire for a stamp of approval from a real Radical.

"You're perfectly right," Clotilde told him.

"I thought I was-and I'll bring her around," said Henry. "She was all for bringin' you right up and havin' you settle down with us-leastwise, till you got married, as the other children did. Ethel's-well, she's what you might call conventional-minded, you know, spite of how well she's took all this. She says that other woman-your real ma, you know-Ethel, she says she's