Page:Booth Tarkington - Alice Adams.djvu/439

 "But, papa, I'm afraid you won't find it, and you'll be disappointed."

"Well, I want to hunt around and see, anyhow."

Alice patted his hand. "You must just be contented, papa. Everything's going to be all right, and you mustn't get to worrying about doing anything. We own this house—it's all clear—and you've taken care of mama and me all our lives; now it's our turn."

"No, sir!" he said, querulously. "I don't like the idea of being the landlady's husband around a boarding-house; it goes against my gizzard. I know: makes out the bills for his wife Sunday mornings—works with a screw-driver on somebody's bureau drawer sometimes—'tends the furnace maybe—one the boarders gives him a cigar now and then. That's a fine life to look forward to! No, sir; I don't want to finish as a landlady's husband!"

Alice looked grave; for she knew the sketch was but too accurately prophetic in every probability. "But, papa," she said, to console him, "don't you think maybe there isn't such a thing as a 'finish,' after all! You say perhaps we don't learn to live till we die—but maybe that's how it is after we die, too—just learning some more, the way we do here, and maybe through trouble again, even after that."