The Golden Honeymoon | Page 8

went home and I said I hoped we was through with
the Hartsells as I was sick and tired of them, but it seemed like she had
promised we would go over to their house that evening for another

game of their everlasting cards.
Well, my thumb was giving me considerable pain and I felt kind of out
of sorts and I guess maybe I forgot myself, but anyway, when we was
about through playing Hartsell made the remark that he wouldn't never
lose a game of cards if he could always have Mother for a partner.
So I said:
"Well, you had a chance fifty years ago to always have her for a partner,
but you wasn't man enough to keep her."
I was sorry the minute I had said it and Hartsell didn't know what to say
and for once his wife couldn't say nothing. Mother tried to smooth
things over by making the remark that I must of had something stronger
than tea or I wouldn't talk so silly. But Mrs. Hartsell had froze up like
an iceberg and hardly said good night to us and I bet her and Frank put
in a pleasant hour after we was gone.
As we was leaving, Mother said to him: "Never mind Charley's
nonsense, Frank. He is just mad because you beat him all hollow
pitching horseshoes and playing cards."
She said that to make up for my slip, but at the same time she certainly
riled me. I tried to keep ahold of myself, but as soon as we was out of
the house she had to open up the subject and begun to scold me for the
break I had made.
Well, I wasn't in no mood to be scolded. So I said:
"I guess he is such a wonderful pitcher and card player that you wished
you had married him."
"Well," she said, "at least he ain't a baby to give up pitching because his
thumb has got a few scratches."
"And how about you," I said, "making a fool of yourself on the roque
court and then pretemiding your back is lame and you can't play no

more!"
"Yes," she said, "but when you hurt your thumb I didn't laugh at you,
and why did you laugh at me when I sprained my back?"
"Who could help from laughing!" I said.
"Well," she said, "Frank Hartsell didn't laugh."
"Well," I said, "why didn't you marry him?"
"Well," said Mother, "I almost wished I had!"
"And I wished so, too!" I said.
"I'll remember that!" said Mother, and that's the last word she said to
me for two days.
We seen the Hartsells the next day in the Park and I was willing to
apologize, but they just nodded to us. And a couple days later we heard
they had left for Orlando, where they have got relatives.
I wished they had went there in the first place.
Mother and I made it up setting on a bench.
"Listen, Charley," she said. "This is our Golden Honeymoon and we
don't want the whole thing spoilt with a silly old quarrel."
"Well," I said, "did you mean that about wishing you had married
Hartsell?"
"Of course not," she said, "that is, if you didn't mean that you wished I
had, too." So I said:
"I was just tired and all wrought up. I thank God you chose me instead
of him as they's no other woman in the world who I could of lived with
all these years."

"How about Mrs. Hartsell?" says Mother.
"Good gracious!" I said. "Imagine being married to a woman that plays
five hundred like she does and drops her teeth on the roque court!"
"Well," said Mother, "it wouldn't be no worse than being married to a
man that expectorates towards ladies and is such a fool in a checker
game."
So I put my arm around her shoulder and she stroked my hand and I
guess we got kind of spoony.
They was two days left of our stay in St. Petersburg and the next to the
last day Mother introduced me to a Mrs. Kendall from Kingston, Rhode
Island, who she had met at the chiropodist's.
Mrs. Kendall made us acquainted with her husband, who is in the
grocery business. They have got two sons and five grandchildren and
one great-grandchild. One of their sons lives in Providence and is way
up in the Elks as well as a Rotarian.
We found them very congenial people and we played cards with them
the last two nights we was there. They was both experts and I only
wished we had met them sooner instead of running into the Hartsells.
But the Kendalls will be there again next winter and we will see more
of