Somewhere in Red Gap Part 17

"The ride home, at least on the part of the Non Plush Ultra cut-ups, was like they had laid a loved one to final rest out there on the lone mountainside. The handsome stranger and Hetty brought up the rear, conversing eagerly about themselves and other serious topics. I believe he give her to understand that he'd been pretty wild at one time in his life and wasn't any too darned well over it yet, but that some good womanly woman who would study his ways could still take him and make a man of him; and her answering that she knew he must have suffered beyond human endurance in that horrible conflict with his lower nature. He said he had.

"Of course the rabid young hoydens up ahead made a feeble effort now and then to carry it off lightly, and from time to time sang 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,' or 'Merrily We Roll Along,' with the high, squeaky tenor of Roth Hyde sounding above the others very pretty in the moonlight, but it was poor work as far as these enraged vestals was concerned. If I'd been Hetty and had got a strange box of candy through the mail the next week, directed in a disguised woman's hand, I'd of rushed right off to the police with it, not waiting for any a.n.a.lysis.

And she, poor thing, would get so frightened at bad spots, with the fierce old horse bobbing about so dangerous, that she just has to be held on. And once she wrenched her ankle against a horrid old tree on the trail--she hadn't been able to resist a little one--and bit her under lip as the spasm of pain pa.s.sed over her refined features. But she was all right in a minute and begged Mr. D. not to think of bathing it in cold water because it was nothing--nothing at all, really now--and he would embarra.s.s her frightfully if he said one more word about it. And Mr. D. again remarked that she was feminine to her finger tips, a brave, game little woman, one of the gamest he ever knew. And pretty soon--what was she thinking about now? Why, she was merely wondering if horses think in the true sense of the word or only have animal instinct, as it is called. And wasn't she a strange, puzzling creature to be thinking on deep subjects like that at such a time! Yes, she had been called puzzling as a child, but she didn't like it one bit. She wanted to be like other girls, if he knew what she meant. He seemed to.

"They took Hetty home first on account of her poor little ankle and sung 'Good Night, Ladies,' at the gate. And so ended a day that was wreck and ruin for most of our s.e.x there present.

"And to show you what a good, deep, scientific cause I had discovered, the next night at Hetty's who shows up one by one but these four men about town, each with a pound of mixed from the Bon Ton Handy Kitchen, and there they're all setting at the feet of Hetty, as it were, in her new light summer gown with the blue bows, when Mr. D. blows in with a two-pound box and the novel in which love conquered all. So excited she was when she tells me about it next day. The luck of that girl! But after all it wasn't luck, because she'd laid her foundations the day before, hadn't she? Always look a little bit back of anything that seems to be luck, say I.

"And Hetty with shining eyes entertained one and all with the wit and sparkle a woman can show only when there's four or five men at her at once--it's the only time we ever rise to our best. But she got a chance for a few words alone with Mr. D., who took his hat finally when he sees the other four was going to set him out; enough words to confide to him how she loathed this continual social racket to which she was constantly subjected, with never a let-up so one could get to one's books and to one's real thoughts. But perhaps he would venture up again some time next week or the week after--not getting coa.r.s.e in her work, understand, even with him flopping around there out on the bank--and he give her one long, meaning look and said why not to-morrow night, and she carelessly said that would be charming, she was sure--she didn't think of any engagement at this minute--and it was ever so nice of him to think of poor little me.

"Then she went back and gave the social evening of their life to them four boys that had stayed. She said she couldn't thank them enough for coming this evening--which is probably the only time she had told the truth in thirty-six hours--and they all made merry. Roth Hyde sang 'Sally in Our Alley' so good on the high notes that the Duttons was all out in the hall listening; and Riley Hardin singing 'Down, Diver, Down, 'Neath the Deep Blue Waves!' and Mac Gordon singing his everlasting German songs in their native language, and Charlie d.i.c.kman singing a new sentimental one called 'Ain't There at Least One Gentleman Here?' about a fair young lady dancer being insulted in a gilded cafe in some large city; and one and all voted it was a jolly evening and said how about coming back to-morrow night, but Hetty said no, it was her one evening for study and she couldn't be bothered with them, which was a plain, downright so-and-so and well she knew it, because that girl's study was over for good and all.

"Well, why string it out? I've give you the facts. And my lands! Will you look at that clock now? Here's the morning gone and this room still looking like the inside of a sheep-herder's wagon! Oh, yes, and when Hetty was up here this time that she wouldn't wear my riding pants down, she says. 'Not only that, but I'm scrupulously careful in all ways. Why, I never even allow dear Burch.e.l.l to observe me in one of those lace boudoir caps that so many women cover up their hair with when it's their best feature but they won't take time to do it.'

"Now was that spoken like a wise woman or like the two-horned Galumpsis Caladensis of East India, whose habits are little known to man? My Lord!

Won't I ever learn to stop? Where did I put that dusting cloth?"

VI

COUSIN EGBERT INTERVENES

"It takes all kinds of foreigners to make a world," said Ma Pettengill--irrelevantly I thought, because the remark seemed to be inspired merely by the announcement of Sandy Sawtelle that the mule Jerry's hip had been laid open by a kick from the mule Alice, and that the bearer of the news had found fourteen st.i.tches needed to mend the rent.

Sandy brought his news to the owner of the Arrowhead as she relaxed in my company on the west veranda of the ranch house and scented the golden dusk with burning tobacco of an inferior but popular brand. I listened but idly to the minute details of the catastrophe, discovering more entertainment in the solemn wake of light a dulled sun was leaving as it slipped over the sagging rim of Arrowhead Pa.s.s. And yet, through my absorption with the shadows that now played far off among the folded hills, there did come sharply the impression that this Sawtelle person was dwelling too insistently upon the precise number of st.i.tches required by the breach in Jerry's hide.

"Fourteen--yes, ma'am; fourteen st.i.tches. That there Alice mule sure needs handling. Fourteen regular ones. I'd certainly show her where to head in at, like now she was my personal property. Me, I'd abuse her shamefully. Only eleven I took last time in poor old Jerry; and here now it's plumb fourteen--yes, ma'am; fourteen good ones. Say, you get fourteen of them st.i.tches in your hide, and I bet--thought, at first, I could make twelve do, but it takes full fourteen, with old Jerry nearly tearing the chute down while I was taking these fourteen--"

I began to see numbers black against that glowing panorama in the west.

A monstrous 14 repeated itself stubbornly along the gorgeous reach of it.

"Yes, ma'am--fourteen; you can go out right now and count 'em yourself.

And like mebbe I'll have to go down to town to-morrow for some more of that King of Pain Liniment, on account of Lazarus and Bryan getting good and lamed in this same mix-up, and me letting fall the last bottle we had on the place and busting her wide open--"

"Don't you bother to bust any more!" broke in his employer in a tone that I found crisp with warning. "There's a whole new case of King of Pain in the storeroom."

"Huh!" exclaimed the surgeon, ably conveying disappointment thereby.

"And like now if I did go down I could get the new parts for that there mower--"

"That's something for me to worry about exclusively. I'll begin when we got something to mow." There was finished coldness in this.

"Huh!" The primitive vocable now conveyed a lively resentment, but there was the pleading of a patient sufferer in what followed. "And like at the same time, having to make the trip anyway for these here supplies and things, I could stop just a minute at Doc Martingale's and have this old tooth of mine took out, that's been achin' like a knife stuck in me fur the last fourteen--well, fur about a week now--achin' night and day--no sleep at all now fur seven, eight nights; so painful I get regular delirious, let me tell you. And, of course, all wore out the way I am, I won't be any good on the place till my agony's relieved. Why, what with me suffering so horrible, I just wouldn't hardly know my own name sometimes if you was to come up and ask me!"

The woman's tone became more than ever repellent.

"Never you mind about not knowing your own name. I got it on the pay roll, and it'll still be there to-morrow if you're helping Buck get out the rest of them fence posts like I told you. If you happen to get stuck for your name when I ain't round, and the inquiring parties won't wait, just ask the Chinaman; he never forgets anything he's learned once. Or I'll write it out on a card, so you can show it to anybody who rides up and wants to know it in a hurry!"

"Huh!"

The powers of this brief utterance had not yet been exhausted. It now conveyed despair. With bowed head the speaker dully turned and withdrew from our presence. As he went I distinctly heard him mutter:

"Huh! Four-teen! Four-teen! And seven! And twenty-eight!"

"Say, there!" his callous employer called after him. "Why don't you get Boogles to embroider that name of yours on the front of your shirt? He'd adore to do it. And you can still read, can't you, in the midst of your agonies?"

There was no response to this taunt. The suffering one faded slowly down the path to the bunk house and was lost in its blackness. A light shone out and presently came sombre chords from a guitar, followed by the voice of Sandy in gloomy song: "There's a broken heart for every light on Broadway--"

I was not a little pained to discover this unsuspected vein of cruelty in a woman I had long admired. And the woman merely became irrelevant with her apothegm about foreigners. I ignored it.

"What about that sufferer down there in the bunk house?" I demanded.

"Didn't you ever have toothache?"

"No; neither did Sandy Sawtelle. He ain't a sufferer; he's just a liar."

"Why?"

"So I'll let him go to town and play the number of them st.i.tches on the wheel. Sure! He'd run a horse to death getting there, make for the back room of the Turf Club Saloon, where they run games whenever the town ain't lidded too tight, and play roulette till either him or the game had to close down. Yes, sir; he'd string his bets along on fourteen and seven and twenty-eight and thirty-five, and if he didn't make a killing he'd believe all his life that the wheel was crooked. St.i.tches in a mule's hide is his bug. He could st.i.tch up any horse on the place and never have the least hunch; but let it be a mule--Say! Down there right now he's thinking about the thousand dollars or so I'm keeping him out of. I judge from his song that he'd figured on a trip East to New York City or Denver. At that, I don't know as I blame him. Yes, sir; that's what reminded me of foreigners and bazaars and vice, and so on--and poor Egbert Floud."

My hostess drew about her impressive shoulders a blanket of Indian weave that dulled the splendours of the western sky, and rolled a slender cigarette from the tobacco and papers at her side. By the ensuing flame of a match I saw that her eyes gleamed with the light of pure narration.

"Foreigners, bazaars, vice, and Egbert Floud?" I murmured, wishing these to be related more plausibly one to another.

"I'm coming to it," said the lady; and, after two sustaining inhalations from the new cigarette, forthwith she did:

It was late last winter, while I was still in Red Gap. The talk went round that we'd ought to have another something for the Belgians. We'd had a concert, the proceeds of which run up into two figures after all expenses was paid; but it was felt something more could be done--something in the nature of a bazaar, where all could get together.

The Mes-dames Henrietta Templeton Price and Judge Ballard were appointed a committee to do some advance scouting.

That was where Egbert Floud come in, though after it was all over any one could see that he was more to be pitied than censured. These well-known leaders consulted him among others, and Cousin Egbert says right off that, sure, he'll help 'em get up something if they'll agree to spend a third of the loot for tobacco for the poor soldiers, because a Belgian or any one else don't worry so much about going hungry if they can have a smoke from time to time, and he's been reading about where tobacco is sorely needed in the trenches. He felt strong about it, because one time out on the trail he lost all his own and had to smoke poplar bark or something for two weeks, nearly burning his flues out.

The two Mes-dames agreed to this, knowing from their menfolk that tobacco is one of the great human needs, both in war and in peace, and knowing that Cousin Egbert will be sure to donate handsomely himself, he always having been the easiest mark in town; so they said they was much obliged for his timely suggestion and would he think up some novel feature for the bazaar; and he said he would if he could, and they went on to other men of influence.

Henrietta's husband, when he heard the money wouldn't all be spent for mere food, said he'd put up a choice lot in Price's Addition to be raffled off--a lot that would at some future date be worth five thousand dollars of anybody's money, and that was all right; and some of the merchants come through liberal with articles of use and adornment to be took chances on.

Even old Proctor Knapp, the richest man in town, actually give up something after they pestered him for an hour. He owns the People's Traction Company and he turned over a dollar's worth of street-car tickets to be raffled for, though saying he regarded gambling as a very objectionable and uncertain vice, and a person shouldn't go into anything without being sure they was dead certain to make something out of it, war or no war, he knowing all about it. Why wouldn't he, having started life as a poor, ragged boy and working his way up to where parties that know him is always very careful indeed when they do any business with him?

Some of the ladies they consulted was hostile about the tobacco end of it. Mrs. Tracy Bangs said that no victim of the weed could keep up his mentality, and that she, for one, would rather see her Tracy lying in his casket than smoking vile tobacco that would destroy his intellect and make him a loathsome object in the home. She said she knew perfectly well that if the countries at war had picked their soldiers from non-smokers it would have been all over in just a few days--and didn't that show you that the tobacco demon was as bad as the rum demon?

Mrs. Leonard Wales was not only bitter about tobacco but about any help at all. She said our hard storms of that winter had been caused by the general hatred in Europe which created evil waves of malignity; so let 'em shoot each other till they got sense enough to dwell together in love and amity--only we shouldn't prolong the war by sending 'em soup and cigarettes, and so on. Her idea seemed to be that if Red Gap would just stand firm in the matter the war would die a natural death. Still, if a bazaar was really going to be held, she would consent to pose in a tableau if they insisted on it, and mebbe she could thus inject into the evil atmosphere of Europe some of the peace and good will that sets the United States apart from other nations.

Trust Cora Wales not to overlook a bet like that. She's a tall, sandy-haired party, with very extravagant contours, and the thing she loves best on earth is to get under a pasteboard crown, with gilt stars on it, and drape herself in the flag of her country, with one fat arm bare, while Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Ma.s.sachusetts, and the rest is gathered about and looking up to her for protection. Mebbe she don't look so bad as the G.o.ddess of Liberty on a float in the middle of one of our wide streets when the Chamber of Commerce is giving a Greater Red Gap pageant; but take her in a hall, where you set close up to the platform, and she looks more like our boasted liberty has degenerated into license, or something like that. Anyway, the committee had to promise her she could do something in her flag and crown and talc.u.m powder, because they knew she'd knock the show if they didn't.

This reminded 'em they had to have a program of entertainment; so they got me on the committee with the other Mes-dames to think up things, me always being an easy mark. I find out right off that we're a lot of foreigners and you got to be darned careful not to hurt anybody's feelings. Little Bertha Lehman's pa would let her be a state--Colorado or Nebraska, or something--but he wouldn't let her sing unless it would be a German song in the original; and Hobbs, the English baker, said his Tillie would have to sing "Britannia Rules the Waves," or nothing; and two or three others said what they would and wouldn't do, and it looked like Red Gap itself was going to be dug up into trenches. I had to get little Magnesia Waterman, daughter of the c.o.o.ns that work in the U.S.

Grill, to do the main singing. She seemed to be about the only American child soprano we had. She sings right well for a kid, mostly these sad songs about heaven; but we picked out a good live one for her that seemed to be neutral.