O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 33

"I'll handle this covey for Mr. Swygert," said La.r.s.en to the judges, his voice smooth and plausible, on his face a smile.

And thus it happened that Comet faced his supreme ordeal without the steadying voice of his G.o.d.

He only knew that ahead of him were birds, and that behind him a man was coming through the straw, and that behind the man a crowd of people on horseback were watching him. He had become used to that, but when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the face of the advancing man, his soul began to tremble.

"Call your dog in, Mr. La.r.s.en," directed the judge. "Make him back stand."

Only a moment was lost, while Peerless, a young dog himself, came running in and at a command from La.r.s.en stopped in his tracks behind Comet, and pointed. La.r.s.en's dogs always obeyed, quickly, mechanically. Without ever gaining their confidence, La.r.s.en had a way of turning them into finished field-trial dogs. They obeyed, because they were afraid not to.

According to the rules the man handling the dog has to shoot as the birds rise. This is done in order to test the dog's steadiness when a gun is fired over him. No specification is made as to the size of the shotgun to be used. Usually, however, small-gauge guns are carried.

The one in La.r.s.en's hands was a twelve gauge, and consequently large.

All morning he had been using it over his own dog. n.o.body had paid any attention to it, because he shot smokeless powder. But now, as he advanced, he reached into the left-hand pocket of his hunting coat, where six sh.e.l.ls rattled as he hurried along. Two of these he took out and rammed into the barrels.

As for Comet, still standing rigid, statuesque, he heard, as has been said, the brush of steps through the straw, glimpsed a face, and trembled. But only for a moment. Then he steadied, head high, tail straight out. The birds rose with a whir--and then was repeated that horror of his youth. Above his ears, ears that would always be tender, broke a great roar. Either because of his excitement, or because of a sudden wave of revenge, or of a determination to make sure of the dog's flight, La.r.s.en had pulled both triggers at once. The combined report shattered through the dog's eardrums, it shivered through his nerves, he sank in agony into the straw.

Then the old impulse to flee was upon him, and he sprang to his feet, and looked about wildly. But from somewhere in that crowd behind him came to his tingling ears a voice--clear, ringing, deep, the voice of a woman--a woman he knew--pleading as his master used to plead, calling on him not to run, but to stand.

"Steady," it said. "Steady, Comet!"

It called him to himself, it soothed him, it calmed him, and he turned and looked toward the crowd. With the roar of the shotgun the usual order observed in field trials was broken up. All rules seemed to have been suspended. Ordinarily, no one belonging to "the field" is allowed to speak to a dog. Yet the girl had spoken to him. Ordinarily, the spectators must remain in the rear of the judges. Yet one of the judges had himself wheeled his horse about and was galloping off, and Marian Devant had pushed through the crowd and was riding toward the bewildered dog.

He stood staunch where he was, though in his ears was still a throbbing pain, and though all about him was this growing confusion he could not understand. The man he feared was running across the field yonder, in the direction taken by the judge. He was blowing his whistle as he ran. Through the crowd, his face terrible to see, his own master was coming. Both the old man and the girl had dismounted now, and were running toward him.

"I heard," old Swygert was saying to her. "I heard it! I might 'a'

known! I might 'a' known!"

"He stood," she panted, "like a rock--oh, the brave, beautiful thing!"

"Where is that----" Swygert suddenly checked himself and looked around.

A man in the crowd (they had all gathered about now), laughed.

"He's gone after his dog," he said. "Peerless has run away!"

FIFTY-TWO WEEKS FOR FLORETTE

By ELIZABETH ALEXANDER HEERMANN [ELIZABETH ALEXANDER in _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, August 13,1921.]

It had been over two months since Freddy Le Fay's bill had been paid, and Miss Nellie Blair was worried. She had written to Freddy's mother repeatedly, but there had been no answer.

"It's all your own fault, sister. You should never have taken Freddy,"

Miss Eva said sharply. "I told you so at the time, when I saw his mother's hair. And of course Le Fay is not her real name. It looks to me like a clear case of desertion."

"I can't believe it. She seemed so devoted," faltered Miss Nellie.

"Oh, a girl like that!" Miss Eva sniffed. "You should never have consented."

"Well, the poor thing was so worried, and if it meant saving a child from a dreadful life----"

"There are other schools more suitable."

"But, sister, she seemed to have her heart set on ours. She begged me to make a little gentleman out of him."

"As if you could ever do that!"

"Why not?" asked Mary, their niece.

"That dreadful child!"

"Freddy isn't dreadful!" cried Mary hotly.

"With that atrocious slang! Won't eat his oatmeal! And he's such a queer child--queer! So pale, never laughs, doesn't like any one. Why should you take up for him? He doesn't even like you. Hates me, I suppose."

"It's because we are so different from the women he has known," said Mary.

"I should hope so! Well, sister, what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know what to do," sighed Miss Nellie. "He hasn't any other relatives as far as I know. And the summer coming on, what shall we do?"

"Nothing for it but to send him to an orphanage if she doesn't write soon," said Miss Eva.

"Oh, auntie, you wouldn't!"

"Why not? How can we afford to give children free board and education?"

"It's only one child."

"It would be a dozen, if we once started it."

"I'll wait another month," said Miss Nellie, "and then, really, something will have to be done."

The girl looked out of the window.

"There he is now," she said, "sitting on the stone wall at the end of the garden. It's his favourite spot."

"What on earth he wants to sit there for--away from all the other children! He never plays. Look at him! Just sitting there--not moving.

How stupid!" exclaimed Miss Eva impatiently.

"I do declare, I believe he's fallen asleep," said Miss Nellie.

Freddy was not asleep. He had only to close his eyes and it would all come back to him. Memories that he could not put into words, sensations without definite thought, crowded in upon him. The smell--the thick smell of grease paint, choking powder, dust, gas, old walls, bodies, and breath, and sharp perfume; the sickening, delicious, stale, enchanting, never-to-be-forgotten odour of the theatre; the nerves' sudden tension at the cry of "Ov-a-chure"; their tingling as the jaded music blares; the lift of the heart as the curtain rises; the catch in the throat as Florette runs on to do her turn.

Florette was a performer on the trapeze in vaudeville. Her figure was perfect from the strenuous daily exercise. She was small, young, and a shade too blonde. First she appeared in a sort of blue evening dress, except that it was shorter even than a d butante's. She ran out quickly from the wings, bowed excessively, smiled appealingly, and, skipping over to the trapeze, seized the two iron rings that hung from ropes. Lifting her own weight by the strength in her slender wrists, she flung her legs upward and hooked her knees into the rings. Then hanging head downward she swung back and forth; flung herself upright again, sat and swung; climbed to the topmost bar of the trapeze and hung down again. Her partner ran on and repeated her monkeylike manoeuvres. Then Florette held his hands while he swung upside down, he held Florette while she swung upside down. They turned head over heels, over and over each other, up and down, catching and slipping, and adjusting their balance, in time to gay tunes.

Sometimes the audience clapped. Sometimes they were too familiar with their kind of flirtation with death to clap. Then Florette and her partner would invent something a little more daring. They would learn to balance themselves on chairs tilted on two legs on the trapeze, or Florette would hang by only one hand, or she would support her partner by a strap held in her teeth. Sometimes Florette's risks were great enough to thrill the audience with the thought of death.