andsomer than his own son if she
did say so.

He fed on it, hungrily. The third day she was flashing meaning glances
at him across the luncheon table. The fourth she pressed his foot
beneath the table. The fifth, during Nettie's afternoon absence, she got
up, ostensibly to look for a bit of cloth which she needed for sewing,
and, passing him, laid a caressing hand on his shoulder. Laid it there
and pressed his shoulder ever so little. He looked up, startled. The
glances across the luncheon had largely passed over his head; the foot
beneath the table might have been an accident. But this--this was
unmistakable. He stood up, a little shakily. She caught his hand. The
hawk-like face was close to his.

"You need somebody to love you," she said. "Somebody to do for you, and
love you." The hawk face came nearer. He leaned a little toward it. But
between it and his face was Ma Minick's face, plump, patient, quizzical,
kindly. His head came back sharply. He threw the woman's hot hand from
him.

"Woman!" he cried. "Jezebel!"

The front door slammed. Nettie. The woman flew to her sewing. Old man
Minick, shaking, went into his kitchen bedroom.

"Well," said Nettie, depositing her bundles on the dining room table,
"did you finish that faggoting? Why, you haven't done so very much, have
you!"

"I ain't feeling so good," said the woman. "That lunch didn't agree with
me."

"Why, it was a good plain lunch. I don't see----"

"Oh, it was plain enough, all right."

Next day she did not come to finish her work. Sick, she telephoned.
Nettie called it an outrage. She finished the sewing herself, though she
hated sewing. Pa Minick said nothing, but there was a light in his eye.
Now and then he chuckled, to Nettie's infinite annoyance, though she
said nothing.

"Wanted to marry me!" he said to himself, chuckling. "Wanted to marry
me! The old rip!"

At the end of April, Pa Minick discovered Washington Park, and the Club,
and his whole life was from that day transformed.

He had taken advantage of the early spring sunshine to take a walk, at
Nettie's suggestion.

"Why don't you go into the Park, Father? It's really warm out. And the
sun's lovely. Do you good."

He had put on his heaviest shirt, and a muffler, and George's old red
sweater with the great white "C" on its front, emblem of George's
athletic prowess at the University of Chicago; and over all, his
greatcoat. He had taken warm mittens and his cane with the greyhound