"I'd like to know what," said Myrtie, jerking at her hair.
He waited; funny she didn't think of it herself. "Why--a father," said he.
"Oh," said Myrtie--the way you do when you don't know _what_ to say. And then, "_Well_,----"
Again he waited--then laughed; waited again, then turned away.
Somebody gave Mrs. Cadara a fireless cooker. Mrs. Doane had no fireless cooker. So she had to stand all day over her hot stove--and this she spoke of often. "My supper's in the fireless cooker," Mrs. Cadara would say, and stay out in the cool yard, weeding her flowerbed bed. "It certainly would be nice to have one of those fireless cookers," Mrs. Doane would say, as she put a meal on the table and wiped her brow with her apron.
"Well, why don't you kill your husband?" Joe Doane would retort. "Now, if only you didn't have a _husband_--you could have a fireless cooker."
Jovially he would put the question, "Which would you rather have, a husband or a fireless cooker?" He would argue it out--and he would sometimes get them all to laughing, only the argument was never a very long one. One day it occurred to him that the debates were short because the others didn't hold up their end. He was talking for the fireless cooker--if it was going to be a real debate, they ought to speak up for the husband. But there seemed to be so much less to be said for a husband than there was for a fireless cooker. This struck him as really quite funny, but it seemed it was a joke he had to enjoy by himself. Sometimes when he came home pretty tired--for you could get as tired at odd jobs as at jobs that weren't odd--and heard all about what the Cadaras were that night to eat out of their fireless cooker, he would wish that some one else would do the joking. It was kind of tiresome doing it all by yourself--and kind of lonesome.
One morning he woke up feeling particularly rested and lively. He was going out to work on the _Lillie-Bennie_, and he always felt in better spirits when he was working on a boat.
It was a cool, fresh, sunny morning. He began a song--he had a way of making up songs. It was, "I'd rather be alive than dead." He didn't think of any more lines, so while he was getting into his clothes he kept singing this one, to a tune which became more and more stirring. He went over to the window by the looking-glass. From this window you looked over to the Cadaras. And then he saw that from the Cadaras a new arrival looked at him.