"Miss Tish means this," I put in, "you are to have only one wife, Tufik.
We are not sending you back to start a harem. We--we disapprove strongly
of--er--anything like that."
"Tufik takes but one wife," he said. "Our people--we have but one wife.
My first child--it is called Tish; my next, Lizzie; and my next, Aggie
Pilk. All for my so kind friends. And one I call Charlie Sands; and one
shall be Hannah. So that Tufik never forget America."
Aggie was rather put out when we told her what we had done; but after
eating one of the cakes made of pounded beans and sugar, under Tufik's
triumphant eyes, she admitted that it was probably for the best. That
evening, while Tufik took his shrunken and wrinkled clothing to be
pressed by a little tailor in the neighborhood who did Tish's repairing,
the three of us went back to the kitchen and tried to put it in order.
It was frightful--flour and burned grease over everything, every pan
dirty, dishes all over the place and a half-burned cigarette in the
sugar bin. But--it touched us all deeply--he had found an old photograph
of the three of us and had made a sort of shrine of the clock-shelf--the
picture in front of the clock and in front of the picture a bunch of red
geraniums.
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