THE CHILD IS THE MEANING
359
never married. What wife would take care of him like that? What
wife would
fix
her husband's socks half inside out in the morning so
that they would be easy for him to put on?"
The reason that Seymour did not get married was doubtful and
complex. It was true that he had never had enough money to get
married properly, but for a time it was suggested by family friends
that he ought to marry some rich widow, and this seemed to show
that it was not merely a question of not making a living, since a
• marriage for money might have been arranged. And when Sarah
asked him once whether he had thought of getting married, he said:
"I never saw anyone I liked well enough who would want to
marry me." This un-understood answer had to do with a plump and
handsome girl who had lived in the same apartment house and
whom Seymour had admired very much from a distance, asking
Jasper once if Jasper thought that Thelma did much necking, and
becoming pale, as he spoke, so that his nephew saw that he had a
crush on Thelma, and observed thenceforward how Seymour avoided
Thelma or made believe that he did not know who she was when
he passed her on the apartment house stairs.
When Ruth Hart was near her seventy-fifth birthday, Rebecca
decided to give her a surprise party. All the friends who had known
her and loved her so many years were excited by the idea of the
party, though some said that it might not be wise to make it a sur–
prise, for she was s'uch a nervous person. But Rebecca wanted to
make it a surprise party because she liked surprises.
It was the first celebration of a birthday which had occurred
for Ruth Hart since she was nineteen years of age, the year that she
was married. Even Rebecca, who knew her mother was loved, was
surprised by the spontaneous delight the idea of the party evoked in
all who were invited, and she was astonished outside of her own view
of the limitations of human goodness by the queries about what kind
of gift her mother would like and the desire to give her a gift which
was not inexpensive, so that the cost of the present would demonstrate
the feeling about her.
As
the preparations for the party went forward
there was a competition among the prosperous friends to be the one
who gave the most handsome gift. And the poor and the old, being
without sufficient funds, wanted to bake the cakes they baked best for
the party.
Seymour consented to be present at the party, even though for
years he had hidden in the bedroom to avoid the friends of the
