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It sometimes seemed to me in those days unjust that the Peterses were able on the whole to keep out of criminal difficulties, in which I was more or less continuously involved: for it did not strike me that their sins were not those of the imagination. The method of Tom's father was the slipper. He and Tom understood each other, while between my father and myself was a great gulf fixed.
It seemed to me that she was always at Susan's, lunching or playing with the children, who grew devoted to her; or with Susan, choosing carpets and clothes; while more and more frequently we dined with the Peterses and the Blackwoods, or they with us. With Perry's wife Maude was scarcely less intimate than with Susan.
"At the same time," I replied, "I have other friends. I'm fond of the Blackwoods and the Peterses, I'm not advocating seeing less of them, but their point of view, if taken without any antidote, is rather narrowing. We ought to see all kinds," I suggested, with a fine restraint. "You mean more worldly people," she said with her disconcerting directness. "Not necessarily worldly," I struggled on.
The Peterses, when assembled, were a clan, led by Julia and in matters of controversy, moved as one. How was I to tell them that in answer to my prayers for twenty-five cents, God had deemed five all that was good for me? "Some somebody dropped it there for me." "Who?" demanded the chorus. "Say, that's a good one!" Tears suddenly blinded me.
"Oh, Joe, you didn't stop to play?" asked Polly, from her perch where she sat sewing, giving him a reproachful glance. "Stop to play!" retorted Joe, indignantly; "no, I guess I didn't! I've been to Old Peterses." "Not all this time!" exclaimed Mrs. Pepper. "Yes, I have too," replied Joel, sturdily marching up to her.
High up in a tenement-house between Second Avenue and the river lived the Peterses in a back room so gloomy that the landlord blushed to take the rent for it. Mrs. Peters worked at sundry times, doing odd jobs of scrubbing and washing. Mr. Peters had a pure, unbroken record of five years without having earned a penny.
Atwood had supposed we were the Peterses, whom he had sent for the day we arrived, not having received this telegram." "Oh, I see, I see!" said Mrs. Peterkin; "and we did get into a muddle at the station!" Mr. Atwood met them at the porch. "I beg pardon," he said. "I hope you have found it comfortable here, and shall be glad to have you stay till Mr. Peters' family comes."
Pepper, as the most decisive thing; "and we must have it; and then wait for it." "Tisn't pleasant up at the Peterses," grumbled Joel, taking the parcel and moving slowly off. "No, no, Polly," said Mrs.
I don't mean to imply that our existence, outside of our continued intimacy with the Peterses and the Blackwoods, was socially isolated. We gave little dinners that Maude carried out with skill and taste; but it was I who suggested them; we went out to other dinners, sometimes to Nancy's though we saw less and less of her sometimes to other houses.
To be sure, she had found my intimacy with the Peterses and Blackwoods already formed; but it was an intimacy from which I was growing away. I should not have quarrelled with her if she had not discriminated: Nancy made overtures, and Maude drew back; Susan presented herself, and with annoying perversity and in an extraordinarily brief time Maude had become her intimate.
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