She seemed to know that I was far different from that barbarous race of men who would hunt her and her babies with dogs and guns. Her composure was so perfect, her intuition so swift, and her wink so suggestive of amiable deviltry, that I at once named her “Hoop-La,” which is an Indian word signifying lady-like mischief, and so she remains in my annals to this day.
We knew where each other lived, and we were friends—so much was already established. I felt sure now that Hoop-La would visit me when she knew I was at home, perhaps bringing her little ones with her, but the question quickly arose in my mind: how should I dispose of Uncle Antonio?
That night, as delicately as I could, I told him that I had enjoyed his brief stay with me very much and that I was sorry he must go.
“Mus’ go?” repeated Uncle, pricking up his ears, “for w’y you say zis? I haf no mentions made of ze departure—it is wis me you haf someone else maka da confuse.”
“Perhaps,” I answered, with rare tact. “My dreams are sometimes very vivid.”
“I see,” said Uncle Antonio, with a child-like smile upon his calm, high-bred face; “you hitta da pipe.”
I did not enlighten him, for it is bad manners to contradict a guest. You must never insult people in your own house—always go to theirs.
“I have come, dear Uncle,” I continued, “to study Unnatural History. It is an absorbing pursuit, and I fear you will find me poor company.”
“No,” returned Uncle Antonio, in his gentle, foreign way, “zat no maka da dif to me. I lika you mucha da bet when you say nossing—nossing ’t all. Ze more you keepa da still, ze more your Oncle lofe you.”
With his fine comprehension, he had instantly penetrated to the heart of things. “Staya da here,” he said, with touching dignity, “until Jocko maka da return trip. Jocko always bringa cent when he coma da back.”
In some way, it reminded me of those stories of New England, so plentiful in our day and generation, and always so beautifully written, where somebody is always waiting for somebody else, who never comes. In those rare instances where the long wait is rewarded, the emotion of the lost one’s arrival has always been attenuated into nothingness. In a reminiscent mood, also, I mused upon an epigram my sister made, on the tenth anniversary of her wedding day. “Before marriage,” she said, with a little choke in her voice, “woman spends all her life waiting for her husband. After marriage, she spends three quarters of it in the same way.” My brother-in-law, I may say, in explanation, was one of those people who make it the chief business of their lives to be late to everything.