:

"Never mind, Myrtie, we can't all go into mourning."

"Well, I don't care," said Myrtie, sniffling, "it's not fair."

He had to laugh again and as she didn't see what there was to laugh at,
he had to try to console again. "Never mind, Myrt," said he, "you've got
_one_ thing Agnes Cadara's not got."

"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