Side-stepping with Shorty Part 18

"I sometimes think that never blows so red The rose, as where some buried Caesar bled'?"

Say, who was this duck Omar? And what's that got to do with fertilisin' flower beds with the pulverised relations of your landladies? I give it up. All I know is that Pinckney's had them jars refilled with A-1 wood ashes, that Aunt Mary managed to 'phone up a new set of help before mornin', and that when I left Pinckney and Miss Gertie and the twins was' strollin' about, holdin' hands and lookin' to be havin' the time of their lives.

Domestic? Say, a clear Havana Punko, made in Connecticut, ain't in it with him.

IX

A LINE ON PEAc.o.c.k ALLEY

What's the use of travelin', when there's more fun stayin' home?

Scenery? Say, the scenery that suits me best is the kind they keep lit up all night. There's a lot of it between 14th-st. and the park.

Folks? Why, you stand on the corner of 42d and Broadway long enough and you won't miss seein' many of 'em. They most all get here sooner or later.

Now, look at what happens last evenin'. I was just leanin' up against the street door, real comfortable and satisfied after a good dinner, when Swifty Joe comes down from the Studio and says there's a party by the name of Merrity been callin' me up on the 'phone.

"Merrity?" says I. "That sounds kind of joyous and familiar. Didn't he give any letters for the front of it?"

"Nothin' but Hank," says Swifty.

"Oh, yes," says I, gettin' the clue. "What did Hank have to say?"

"Said he was a friend of yours, and if you didn't have nothin' better on the hook he'd like to see you around the Wisteria," says Swifty.

With that I lets loose a snicker. Honest, I couldn't help it.

"Ah, chee!" says Swifty. "Is it a string, or not? I might get a laugh out of this myself."

"Yes, and then again you mightn't," says I. "Maybe it'd bring on nothin' but a brain storm. You wait until I find out if it's safe to tell you."

With that I starts down towards 34th-st to see if it was really so about Hank Merrity; for the last glimpse I got of him he was out in Colorado, wearin' spurs and fringed buckskin pants, and lookin' to be as much of a fixture there as Pike's Peak.

It was while I was trainin' for one of my big matches, that I met up with Hank. We'd picked out Bedelia for a camp. You've heard of Bedelia? No? Then you ought to study the map. Anyway, if you'd been followin' the sportin' news reg'lar a few years back, you'd remember.

There was a few days about that time when more press despatches was filed from Bedelia than from Washington. And the pictures that was sent east; "Shorty Ropin' Steers"--"Mr. McCabe Swingin' a Bronco by the Tail," and all such truck. You know the kind of stuff them newspaper artists strains their imaginations on.

Course, I was too busy to bother about what they did to me, and didn't care, anyway. But it was different with Hank. Oh, they got him too!

You see, he had a ranch about four miles north of our camp, and one of my reg'lar forenoon stunts was to gallop up there, take a big swig of mountain spring water--better'n anything you can buy in bottles--chin a few minutes with Hank and the boys, and then dog trot it back.

That was how the boss of Merrity's ranch came to get his picture in the sportin' page alongside of a diagram of the four different ways I had of peelin' a boiled potato. Them was the times when I took my exercise with a sportin' editor hangin' to each elbow, and fellows with drawin'

pads squattin' all over the place. Just for a josh I lugged one of the papers that had a picture of Hank up to the ranch, expectin' when he saw it, he'd want to buckle on his guns and start down after the gent that did it.

You couldn't have blamed him much if he had; for Hank's features wa'n't cut on what you might call cla.s.sic lines. He looked more like a copy of an old master that had been done by a sign painter on the side of a barn. Not that he was so mortal homely, but his colour scheme was kind of surprisin'. His complexion was a shade or two lighter than a new saddle, except his neck, which was a flannel red, with lovely brown speckles on it; and his eyes was sort of b.u.t.termilk blue, with eyebrows that you had to guess at. His chief decoration though, was a lip whisker that was a marvel--one of these ginger coloured droopers that took root way down below his mouth corners and looked like it was there to stay.

But up on the ranch and down in Bedelia I never heard anyone pa.s.s remarks on Hank Merrity's looks. He wa'n't no bad man either, but as mild and gentle a beef raiser as you'd want to see. He seemed to be quite a star among the cow punchers, and after I'd got used to his peculiar style of beauty I kind of took to him, too.

The picture didn't r'ile him a bit. He sat there lookin' at it for a good five minutes without sayin' a word, them b.u.t.termilk eyes just starin', kind of blank and dazed. Then he looks up, as pleased as a kid, and says, "Wall, I'll be cussed! Mighty slick, ain't it?"

Next he hollers for Reney--that was Mrs. Merrity. She was a good sized, able bodied wild rose, Reney was; not such a bad looker, but a little shy on style. A calico wrapper with the sleeves rolled up, a lot of crinkly brown hair wavin' down her back, and an old pair of carpet slippers on her feet, was Reney's mornin' costume. I shouldn't wonder but what it did for afternoon and evenin' as well.

Mrs. Merrity was more tickled with the picture than Hank. She stared from the paper to him and back again, actin' like she thought Hank had done somethin' she ought to be proud of, but couldn't exactly place.

"Sho, Hank!" says she. "I wisht they'd waited until you'd put on your Sunday shirt and slicked up a little."

He was a real torrid proposition when he did slick up. I saw him do it once, a couple of nights before I broke trainin', when they was goin'

to have a dance up to the ranch. His idea of makin' a swell toilet was to take a hunk of sheep tallow and grease his boots clear to the tops.

Then he ducks his head into the horse trough and polishes the back of his neck with a bar of yellow soap. Next he dries himself off on a meal sack, uses half a bottle of scented hair oil on his Buffalo Bill thatch, pulls on a striped gingham shirt, ties a red silk handkerchief around his throat, and he's ready to receive comp'ny. I didn't see Mrs. Merrity after she got herself fixed for the ball; but Hank told me she was goin' to wear a shirt waist that she'd sent clear to Kansas City for.

Oh, we got real chummy before I left. He came down to see me off the day I started for Denver, and while we was waitin' for the train he told me the story of his life: How he'd been rustlin' for himself ever since he'd graduated from an orphan asylum in Illinois; the different things he'd worked at before he learned the cow business; and how, when he'd first met Reney slingin' crockery in a railroad restaurant, and married her on sight, they'd started out with a cash capital of one five-dollar bill and thirty-eight cents in change, to make their fortune. Then he told me how many steers and yearlings he owned, and how much grazin' land he'd got inside of wire.

"That's doin' middlin' well, ain't it?" says he.

Come to figure up, it was, and I told him I didn't see why he wa'n't in a fair way to find himself cuttin' into the grape some day.

"It all depends on the Jayhawker," says he. "I've got a third int'rest in that. Course, I ain't hollerin' a lot about it yet, for it ain't much more'n a hole in the ground; but if they ever strike the yellow there maybe we'll come on and take a look at New York."

"It's worth it," says I. "Hunt me up when you do."

"I sh.o.r.e will," says Hank. "Good luck!"

And the last I see of him he was standin' there in his buckskin pants, gawpin' at the steam cars.

Now, I ain't been spendin' my time ever since wonderin' what was happenin' to Hank. You know how it is. Maybe I've had him in mind two or three times. But when I gets that 'phone message I didn't have any trouble about callin' up my last view of him. So, when it come to b.u.t.tin' into a swell Fifth-ave. hotel and askin' for Hank Merrity, I has a sudden spasm of bashfulness. It didn't last long.

"If Hank was good enough for me to chum with in Bedelia," says I, "he ought to have some standin' with me here. There wa'n't anything I could have asked that he wouldn't have done for me out there, and I guess if he needs some one to show him where Broadway is, and tell him to take his pants out of his boot tops, it's up to me to do it."

Just the same, when I gets up to the desk, I whispers it confidential to the clerk. If he'd come back with a hee-haw I wouldn't have said a word. I was expectin' somethin' of the kind. But never a chuckle. He don't even grin.

"Hank Merrity?" says he, shakin' his head. "We have a guest here, though, by the name of Henry Merrity--Mr. Henry Merrity."

"That's him," says I. "All the Henrys are Hanks when you get west of Omaha. Where'll I find him?"

I was hopin' he'd be up in his room, practisin' with' the electric light b.u.t.tons, or bracin' himself for a ride down in the elevator; but there was no answer to the call on the house 'phone; so I has to wait while a boy goes out with my card on a silver tray, squeakin', "Mister Merrity! Mis-ter Merrity!" Five minutes later I was towed through the palms into the Turkish smokin' room, and the next thing I knew I was lined up in front of a perfect gent.

Say, if it hadn't been for them b.u.t.termilk eyes, you never could have made me believe it was him. Honest, them eyes was all there was left of the Hank Merrity I'd known in Bedelia. It wa'n't just the clothes, either, though he had 'em all on,--op'ra lid, four-b.u.t.ton white vest, shiny shoes, and the rest,--it was what had happened to his face that was stunnin' me.

The lip drooper had been wiped out--not just shaved off, mind you, but scrubbed clean. The russet colour was gone, too. He was as pink and white and smooth as a roastin' pig that's been sc.r.a.ped and sandpapered for a window display in a meat shop. You've noticed that electric light complexion some of our Broadway rounders gets on? Well, Hank had it. Even the neck freckles had got the magic touch.

Course, he hadn't been turned into any he Venus, at that; but as he stood, costume and all, he looked as much a part of New York as the Flatiron Buildin'. And while I'm buggin' my eyes out and holdin' my mouth open, he grabs me by the hand and slaps me on the back.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Shorty! I'm mighty glad to see you. Put 'er there!" says he.

"Gee!" says I. "Then it's true! Now I guess the thing for me to do is to own up to Maude Adams that I believe in fairies. Hank, who did it?"

"Did what?" says he.