But she never came with grandma to help red up.
2
Grandma often told me that now I was getting pretty nearly old enough to
be married, or would be when I was twenty-one, which would be in
July--"Though," she always said, "I don't believe in folks's being
married under the spell of puppy love. Thirty is soon enough; but yet,
you might do well to marry when you are a little younger, because you
need a wife to keep you clean and tidy, and you can support a wife." She
began bringing girls with her to help fix my house up; and she would
always show them the castor and my other things.
"Dat bane for Christina," said Magnus one time, when she was showing my
castor and a nice white china dinner set, to Kittie Fleming or Dose
Roebuck, both of whom were among her samples of girls shown me. "An' dat
patent churn--dat bane for Christina, too, eh, Yake?"
"Christina who?" asked Grandma Thorndyke sharply.
"Christina Quale," said Magnus, "my cousin in Norvay."
This was nuts and apples for Grandma Thorndyke and the girls who came.
Magnus showed them Christina's picture, and told them that I had a copy
of it, and all about what a nice girl Christina was. Now grandma made a
serious thing of this and soon I had the reputation of being engaged to
Magnus's cousin, who was the daughter of a rich farmer, and could write
English; and even that I had received a letter from her. This seemed
unjust to me, though I was a little mite proud of it; for the letter was
only one page written in English in one of Magnus's.
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