Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories Part 3

"No, no, don't touch me!" she cried. "Don't make me get off! I've got to get to Cincinnati. My man's there. He's been hurt in the foundry.

He's--maybe he's dying now."

"I can't help that, maybe it's so and maybe it ain't. You never had any money when you got on this train and you know it. Go on, step off!"

"But I did!" she cried wildly; "I did. Oh, G.o.d! don't put me off."

The train began to move, and the conductor seized the woman's arms from behind and forced her forward. A moment more and she would be pushed off the lowest step. She turned beseeching eyes on the little group of spectators, and as she did so Phelan Harrihan sprang forward and with his hand on the railing, ran along with the slow-moving train.

With a deft movement he bent forward and apparently s.n.a.t.c.hed something from the folds of her skirt.

"Get on to your luck now," he said with an encouraging smile that played havoc with the position of his features; "if here ain't your pocket-book all the time!"

The hysterical woman looked from the unfamiliar little brown purse in her hand, to the snub-nosed, grimy face of the young man running along the track, then she caught her breath.

"Why,--" she cried unsteadily, "yes--yes, it's my purse."

Phelan loosened his hold on the railing and had only time to scramble breathlessly up the bank before the down train, the train for Nashville which was to have been his, whizzed past.

He watched it regretfully as it slowed up at the station, then almost immediately pulled out again for the south, carrying his hopes with it.

"Corporal," said Phelan, to the dog, who had looked upon the whole episode as a physical-culture exercise indulged in for his special benefit, "a n.o.ble act of charity is never to be regretted, but wasn't I the original gun, not to wait for the change?"

His lack of business method seemed to weigh upon him, and he continued to apologize to Corporal:

"It was so sudden, you know, Corp. Couldn't see a lady ditched, when I had a bit of stuffed leather in my pocket. And two hundred miles to Nashville! Well I'll--be--jammed!"

He searched in his trousers pockets and found a dime in one and a hole in the other. It was an old trick of his to hide a piece of money in time of prosperity, and then discover it in the blackness of adversity.

He held the dime out ruefully: "That's punk and plaster for supper, but we'll have to depend on a hand-out for breakfast. And, Corp," he added apologetically, "you know I told you we was going to ride regular like gentlemen? Well, I've been compelled to change my plans. We are going to turf it twelve miles down to the watering tank, and sit out a couple of dances till the midnight freight comes along. If a side door Pullman ain't convenient, I'll have to go on the b.u.mpers, then what'll become of you, Mr. Corporal Harrihan?"

The coming ordeal cast no shadow over Corporal. He was declaring his pa.s.sionate devotion, by wild tense springs at Phelan's face, seeking in vain to overcome the cruel limitation of a physiognomy that made kissing well-nigh impossible.

Phelan picked up his small bundle and started down the track with the easy, regular swing of one who has long since gaged the distance of railroad ties. But his step lacked its usual buoyancy, and he forgot to whistle, Mr. Harrihan was undergoing the novel experience of being worried. Of course he would get to Nashville,--if the train went, _he_ could go,--but the prospect of arriving without decent clothes and with no money to pay for a lodging, did not in the least appeal to him. He thought with regret of his well-laid plans: an early arrival, a Turkish bath, the purchase of a new outfit, instalment at a good hotel, then--presentation at the fraternity headquarters of Mr. Phelan Harrihan, Gentleman for a Night. He could picture it all, the dramatic effect of his entrance, the yell of welcome, the buzz of questions, and the evasive, curiosity-enkindling answers which he meant to give. Then the banquet, with its innumerable courses of well-served food, the speeches and toasts, and the personal ovation that always followed Mr.

Harrihan's unique contribution.

Oh! he couldn't miss it! Providence would interfere in his behalf, he knew it would, it always did. "Give me my luck, and keep your lucre!"

was a saying of Phelan's, quoted by brother hoboes from Maine to the Gulf.

All the long afternoon he tramped the ties, with Corporal at his heels.

As dusk came on the clouds that had been doing picket duty, joined the regiment on the horizon which slowly wheeled and charged across the sky.

Phelan scanned the heavens with an experienced weather eye, then began to look for a possible shelter from the coming shower. On either side, the fields stretched away in undulating lines, with no sign of a habitation in sight. A dejected old scarecrow, and a tumble-down shed in the distance were the only objects that presented themselves.

Turning up his coat-collar Phelan made a dash for the shed, but the shower overtook him half-way. It was not one of your gentle little summer showers, that patter on the shingles waking echoes underneath; it was a large and instantaneous breakage in the celestial plumbing that let gallons of water down Phelan's back, filling his pockets, hat brim, and shoes and sending a dashing cascade down Corporal's oblique profile.

"Float on your back, Corp, and pull for the sh.o.r.e!" laughed Phelan as he landed with a spring under the dilapidated shed. "Cheer up, old pard; you look as if all your past misdeeds had come before you in your drowning hour."

Corporal, shivering and unhappy, crept under cover, and dumbly demanded of Phelan what he intended to do about it.

"Light a blaze, sure," said Phelan, "and linger here in the air of the tropics till the midnight freight comes along."

Sc.r.a.ping together the old wood and debris in the rear of the shed, and extricating with some difficulty a small tin match-box from his saturated clothes, he knelt before the pile and used all of his persuasive powers to induce it to ignite.

At the first feeble blaze Corporal's spirits rose so promptly that he had to be restrained.

"Easy there! Corp," cautioned Phelan. "A fire's like a woman, you can't be sure of it too soon. And, dog alive, stop wagging your tail, don't you see it makes a draft?"

The fire capriciously would, then it wouldn't. A tiny flame played tantalizingly along the top of a stick only to go sullenly out when it reached the end. Match after match was sacrificed to the cause, but at last, down deep under the surface, there was a steady, rea.s.suring, cheerful crackle that made Phelan sit back on his heels, and remark complacently:

"They most generally come around, in the end!"

In five minutes the fire was burning bright, Corporal was dreaming of meaty bones in far fence corners, and Phelan, less free from the inc.u.mbrances of civilization, was divesting himself of his rain-soaked garments.

From one of the innumerable pockets of his old cutaway coat he took a comb and brush and clothes-brush, and carefully deposited them before the fire. Then from around his neck he removed a small leather case, hung by a string and holding a razor. His treasured toilet articles thus being cared for, he turned his attention to the contents of his dripping bundle. A suit of underwear and a battered old copy of Eli Perkins were ruefully examined, and spread out to dry.

The fire, while it lasted, was doing admirable service, but the wood supply was limited, and Phelan saw that he must take immediate advantage of the heat. How to dry the underwear which he wore was the question which puzzled him, and he wrestled with it for several moments before an inspiration came.

"I'll borrow some duds from the scarecrow!" he said half aloud, and went forth immediately to execute his idea.

The rain had ceased, but the fields were still afloat, and Phelan waded ankle deep through the slush gra.s.s, to where the scarecrow raised his threatening arms against the twilight sky.

"Beggars and borrowers shouldn't be choosers," said Phelan, as he divested the figure of its ragged trousers and coat, "but I have a strong feeling in my mind that these habiliments ain't going to become me. Who's your tailor, friend?"

The scarecrow, reduced now to an old straw hat and a necktie, maintained a dignified and oppressive silence.

"Well, he ain't on to the latest cut," continued Phelan, wringing the water out of the coat. "But maybe these here is your pajamas? Don't tell me I disturbed you after you'd retired for the night? Very well then, aurevoy."

With the clothes under his arm he made his way back to the shed, and divesting himself of his own raiment he got into his borrowed property.

By this time the fire had died down, and the place was in semi-darkness. Phelan threw on a handful of sticks and, as the blaze flared up, he caught his first clear sight of his newly acquired clothes. They were ragged and weather-stained, and circled about with broad, unmistakable stripes.

"Well, I'll be spiked!" said Phelan, vastly amused. "I wouldn't 'a'

thought it of a nice, friendly scarecrow like that! Buncoed me, didn't he? Well, feathers don't always make the jail-bird. Wonder what poor devil wore 'em last? Peeled out of 'em in this very shed, like as not.

Well, they'll serve my purpose all right, all right."

He took off his shoes, placed them under his head for a pillow, lit a short cob pipe, threw on fresh wood, and prepared to wait for his clothes to dry.

Meanwhile the question of the banquet revolved itself continually in his mind. This time to-morrow night, the preparations would be in full swing. Instead of being hungry, half naked, and chilled, he might be in a luxurious club-house dallying with caviar, stuffed olives, and Benedictine. All that lay between him and bliss were two hundred miles of railroad ties and a decent suit of clothes!

"Wake up, Corp; for the love of Mike be sociable!" cried Phelan when the situation became too gloomy to contemplate. "Ain't that like a dog now?

Hold your tongue when I'm longing for a word of kindly sympathy an'

encouragement, and barking your fool head off once we get on the freight. Much good it'll be doing us to get to Nashville in this fix, but we'll take our blessings as they come, Corp, and just trust to luck that somebody will forget to turn 'em off. I know when I get to the banquet there'll be one other man absent. That's Bell of Terre Haute.

Him and me is always in the same boat, he gets ten thousand a year and ain't got the nerve to spend it, and I get fifteen a month, and ain't got the nerve to keep it! Poor old Bell."

Corporal, roused from his slumbers, sniffed inquiringly at the many garments spread about the fire, yawned, turned around several times in dog fashion, then curled up beside Phelan, signifying by his bored expression that he hadn't the slightest interest in the matter under discussion.

Gradually the darkness closed in, and the fire died to embers. It would be four hours before the night freight slowed up at the water tank, and Phelan, tired from his long tramp, and drowsy from the heat and the vapor rising from the drying clothes, shifted the shoe-b.u.t.tons from under his left ear, and drifted into dreamland.

How long he slept undisturbed, only the scarecrow outside knew. He was dimly aware, in his dreams, of subdued sounds and, by and by, the sounds formed themselves into whispered words and, still half asleep, he listened.