ing
with so much work ahead of me, with so much to do and so little time to
do it in, I started doing my hair. I also started thinking about that
Frenchman who committed suicide after counting up the number of buttons
he had to button and unbutton every morning and evening of every day of
every year of his life. I tried to figure up the time I was wasting on
that mop of mine. Then the Great Idea occurred to me.

I got the scissors, and in six snips had it off, a big tangled pile of
brownish gold, rather bleached out by the sun at the ends. And the
moment I saw it there on my dresser, and saw my head in the mirror, I
was sorry. I looked like a plucked crow. I could have ditched a
freight-train. And I felt positively light-headed. But it was too late
for tears. I trimmed off the ragged edges as well as I could, and what
didn't get in my eyes got down my neck and itched so terribly that I had
to change my clothes. Then I got a nail-punch out of Dinky-Dunk's
tool-kit, and heated it over the lamp and gave a little more wave to
that two-inch shock of stubble. It didn't look so bad then, and when I
tried on Dinky-Dunk's coat in front of the glass I saw that I wouldn't
make such a bad-looking boy.

But I waited until noon with my heart in my mouth, to see what
Dinky-Dunk would say. What he really _did_ say I can't write here, for
there was a wicked swear-word mixed up in his ejaculation of startled
wonder. Then he saw the tears in my eyes, I suppose, for he came running
toward me with his arms out, and hugged me tight, and said I looked
cute, and all he'd have to do would be to get used to it. But all dinner
time he kept looking at me as though I were a strange woman, and later I
saw him standing in front of the dresser, stooping over that tragic pile
of tangled yellow-brown snakes. It reminded me of a man stooping over a
grave. I slipped away without letting him see me. But this morning I
woke him up early and asked him if he still loved his wife. And when he
vowed he did, I tried to make him tell me how much. But that stumped
him. He compromised by saying he couldn't cheapen his love by defining
it in words; it was limitless. I followed him out after breakfast, with
a hunger in my heart which bacon and eggs hadn't helped a bit, and told
him that if he really loved me he could tell me how much.

He looked right in my eyes, a little pityingly, it seemed to me, and
laughed, and grew solemn again. Then he stooped down and picke