With that I steps in and shows myself to the kids. They yells and makes a dash for me. Inside of two minutes I've been introduced to Grandfather and Aunt Sabina, made to do a duck before both jars, and am planted on the haircloth sofa with a kid holdin' either arm, while they puts me through the third degree. They want information.
"Did you ever see folks burned and put in jars?" says Jack.
"No," says I; "but I've seen pickled ones jugged. I hear you've got some ponies."
"Two," says Jill; "spotted ones. Would you want to be burned after you was a deader?"
"Better after than before," says I. "Where's the ponies now?"
"What do the ashes look like?" says Jack.
"Are there any clinkers?" says Jill.
Say, I was down and out in the first round. For every word I could get in about ponies they got in ten about them bloomin' jars, and when I leaves 'em they was organisin' a circus, with Grandfather and Aunt Sabina supposed to be occupyin' the reserved seats. Honest, it was enough to chill the spine of a morgue keeper. By good luck I runs across Snivens snoopin' through the hall.
"See here, you!" says I. "I want to talk to you."
"Beg pardon, sir," says he, backin' off, real stiff and dignified; "but – "
"Ah, chuck it!" says I, reachin' out and gettin' hold of his collar, playful like. "You've been listenin' at the door. Now what do you think of the way them kids is carryin' on in there?"
"It's outrageous, sir!" says he, puffin' up his cheeks, "It's scandalous! They're young imps, so they are, sir."
"Want to stop all that nonsense?" says I.
He says he does.
"Then," says I, "you take them jars down cellar and hide 'em in the coal bin."
He holds up both hands at that. "It can't be done, sir," says he. "They've been right there for twenty years without bein' so much as moved. They were very superior folks, sir, very superior."
"Couldn't you put 'em in the attic, then?" says I.
He couldn't. He says it's in the lease that the jars wa'n't to be touched.
"Snivens," says I, shovin' a twenty at him, "forget the lease."
Say, he looks at that yellowback as longin' as an East Side kid sizin' up a fruit cart. Then he gives a shiver and shakes his head. "Not for a thousand, sir," says he. "I wouldn't dare."
"You're an old billygoat, Snivens," says I.
And that's all the good I did with my little whirl at the game; but I tries to cheer Pinckney up by tellin' him the kids wa'n't doin' any harm.
"But they are," says Pinckney. "They're raising the very mischief with my plans. The maids are scared to death. They say the house is haunted. Four of them gave notice to-day. Aunt Mary is packing her trunks, and that means that I might as well give up. I'll inquire about a home to send them to this afternoon."
I guess it was about four o'clock, and I was tryin' to take a snooze in a hammock on the front porch, when I hears the twins makin' life miserable for the gard'ner that was fixin' the rose bushes.
"Lemme dig, Pat," says Jill.
"G'wan, ye young tarrier!" says Pat
"Can't I help some?" says Jack.
"Yes, if ye'll go off about a mile," says Pat.
"Why don't the roses grow any more?" asks Jill.
"It's needin' ashes on 'em they are," says Pat.
"Ashes!" says Jack.
"Ashes!" says Jill.
Then together, "Oh, we know where there's ashes – lots!"
"We'll fetch 'em!" says Jill, and with that I hears a scamperin' up the steps.
I was just gettin' up to chase after 'em, when I has another thought. "What's the use, anyway?" thinks I. "It's their last stunt." So I turns over and pretends to snooze.
When Pinckney shows up about six the twins has the pony carts out and is doin' a chariot race around the drive, as happy and innocent as a couple of pink angels. Then they eats their supper and goes to bed, with nary a mention of sayin' good-night to the jars, like they'd been in the habit of doin'. Next mornin' they gets up as frisky as colts and goes out to play wild Indians in the bushes. They was at it all the forenoon, and never a word about Grandfather and Aunt Sabina. Pinckney notices it, but he don't dare speak of it for fear he'll break the spell. About two he comes in with a telegram.
"Miss Gertie's coming on the four o'clock train," says he, lookin' wild.
"You don't act like you was much tickled," says I.
"She's sure to find out what a muss I've made of things," says he. "The moment she gets here I expect the twins will start up that confounded rigmarole about Grandfather and Aunt Sabina again. Oh, I can hear them doing it!"
I let it go at that. But while he's away at the station the kitchen talk breaks loose. The cook and two maids calls for Aunt Mary, tells her what they think of a place that has canned spooks in the parlour, and starts for the trolley. Aunt Mary gets her bonnet on and has her trunks lugged down on the front porch. That's the kind of a reception we has for Miss Gertrude and her mother when they show up.
"Anything particular the matter?" whispers Pinckney to me, as he hands the guests out of the carriage.
"Nothin' much," says I. "Me and Snivens and the twins is left. The others have gone or are goin'."
"What is the matter?" says Miss Gertie.
"Everything," says Pinckney. "I've made a flat failure. Shorty, you bring in the twins and we'll end this thing right now."
Well, I rounds up Jack and Jill, and after they've hugged Miss Gertie until her travelin' dress is fixed for a week at the cleaners', Pinckney leads us all into the front room. The urns was there on the mantel; but the kids don't even give 'em a look.
"Come on, you young rascals!" says he, as desperate as if he was pleadin' guilty to blowin' up a safe. "Tell Miss Gertrude about Grandfather and Aunt Sabina."
"Oh," says Jack, "they're out in the flower bed."
"We fed 'em to the rose bushes," says Jill.
"We didn't like to lose 'em," says Jack; "but Pat needed the ashes."
"It's straight goods," says I; "I was there."
And say, when Miss Gertrude hears the whole yarn about the urns, and the trouble they've made Pinckney, she stops laughin' and holds out one hand to him over Jill's shoulder.
"You poor boy!" says she. "Didn't you ever read Omar's —
"I sometimes think that never blows so red
The rose, as where some buried Cæsar 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 PEACOCK 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 classic 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 buttermilk 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 pass 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 buttermilk 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 shore 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 buttin' 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 buttons, 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 buttermilk 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-button 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 scraped 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, hello, 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.
"Why, made your face over and put on the Fifth-ave. gloss?" says I.
"Do I look it?" says he, grinnin'. "Would I pass?"
"Pass!" says I. "Hank, they could use you for a sign. Lookin' as you do now, you could go to any one night stand in the country and be handed the New York papers without sayin' a word. What I want to know, though, is how it happened?"
"Happen?" says he. "Shorty, such things don't come by accident. You buy 'em. You go through torture for 'em."
"Say, Hank," says I, "you don't mean to say you've been up against the skinologists?"
Well, he had. They'd kept his face in a steam box by the hour, scrubbed him with pumice stone, electrocuted his lip fringe, made him wear a sleepin' mask, and done everything but peel him alive.
"Look at that for a paw!" says he. "Ain't it lady-like?"
It was. Every fingernail showed the half moon, and the palm was as soft as a baby's.
"You must have been makin' a business of it," says I. "How long has this thing been goin' on?"
"Nearly four months," says Hank, heavin' a groan. "Part of that time I put in five hours a day; but I've got 'em scaled down to two now. It's been awful, Shorty, but it had to be done."
"How was that?" says I.
"On Reney's account," says he. "She's powerful peart at savvyin' things, Reney is. Why, when we struck town I was wearin' a leather trimmed hat and eatin' with my knife, just as polite as I knew how. We hadn't been here a day before she saw that something was wrong. 'Hank,' says she, 'this ain't where we belong. Let's go back.' – 'What for?' says I. – 'Shucks!' says she. 'Can't you see? These folks are different from us. Look at 'em!' Well, I did, and it made me mad. 'Reney,' says I,' I'll allow there is something wrong with us, but I reckon it ain't bone deep. There's such a thing as burnin' one brand over another, ain't there? Suppose we give it a whirl?' That's what we done too, and I'm beginnin' to suspicion we've made good."
"I guess you have, Hank," says I; "but ain't it expensive? You haven't gone broke to do it, have you?"
"Broke!" says he, smilin'. "Guess you ain't heard what they're takin' out of the Jayhawker these days. Why, I couldn't spend it all if I had four hands. But come on. Let's find Reney and go to a show, somewheres."
Course, seein' Hank had kind of prepared me for a change in Mrs. Merrity; so I braces myself for the shock and tries to forget the wrapper and carpet slippers. But you know the kind of birds that roost along Peacock Alley? There was a double row of 'em holdin' down the arm chairs on either side of the corridor, and lookin' like a livin' exhibit of spring millinery. I tried hard to imagine Reney in that bunch; but it was no go. The best I could do was throw up a picture of a squatty female in a Kansas City shirt waist. And then, all of a sudden, we fetches up alongside a fairy in radium silk and lace, with her hair waved to the minute, and carryin' enough sparks to light up the subway. She was the star of the collection, and I nearly loses my breath when Hank says:
"Reney, you remember Shorty McCabe, don't you?"
"Ah, rully!" says she liftin' up a pair of gold handled eye glasses and takin' a peek. "Chawmed to meet you again, Mr. McCabe."
"M-m-me too," says I. It was all the conversation I had ready to pass out.
Maybe I acted some foolish; but for the next few minutes I didn't do anything but stand there, sizin' her up and inspectin' the improvements. There hadn't been any half way business about her. If Hank was a good imitation, Mrs. Merrity was the real thing. She was it. I've often wondered where they all came from, them birds of Paradise that we see floatin' around such places; but now I've got a line on 'em. They ain't all raised in New York. It's pin spots on the map like Bedelia that keeps up the supply.
Reney hadn't stopped with takin' courses at the beauty doctors and goin' the limit on fancy clothes. She'd been plungin' on conversation lessons, voice culture, and all kind of parlour tricks. She'd been keepin' her eyes and ears open too, takin' her models from real life; and the finished product was somethin' you'd say had never been west of Broadway or east of Fourth-ave. As for her ever doin' such a thing as juggle crockery, it was almost a libel to think of it.
"Like it here in town, do you?" says I, firin' it at both of 'em.
"Like it!" says Hank. "See what it's costin' us. We got to like it."
She gives him a look that must have felt like an icicle slipped down his neck. "Certainly we enjoy New York," says she. "It's our home, don'cha know."
"Gosh!" says I. I didn't mean to let it slip out, but it got past me before I knew.
Mrs. Merrity only raises her eyebrows and smiles, as much as to say, "Oh, what can one expect?"
That numbs me so much I didn't have life enough to back out of goin' to the theatre with 'em, as Hank had planned. Course, we has a box, and it wasn't until she'd got herself placed well up in front and was lookin' the house over through the glasses that I gets a chance for a few remarks with Hank.
"Is she like that all the time now?" I whispers.
"You bet!" says he. "Don't she do it good?"
Say, there wa'n't any mistakin' how the act hit Hank. "You ought to see her with her op'ra rig on, though – tiara, and all that," says he.
"Go reg'lar?" says I.
"Tuesdays and Fridays," says he. "We leases the box for them nights."
That gets me curious to know how they puts in their time, so I has him give me an outline. It was something like this: Coffee and rolls at ten-thirty A. M.; hair dressers, manicures, and massage artists till twelve-thirty; drivin' in the brougham till two; an hour off for lunch; more drivin' and shoppin' till five; nap till six; then the maids and valets and so on to fix 'em up for dinner; theatre or op'ra till eleven; supper at some swell café; and the pillows about two A. M.
Then the curtain goes up for the second act, and I see Hank had got his eyes glued on the stage. As we'd come late, I hadn't got the hang of the piece before, but now I notices it's one of them gunless Wild West plays that's hit Broadway so hard. It was a breezy kind of a scene they showed up. To one side was an almost truly log cabin, with a tin wash basin hung on a nail just outside the front door and some real firewood stacked up under the window. Off up the middle was mountains piled up, one on top of the other, clear up into the flies.
The thing didn't strike me at first, until I hears Hank dig up a sigh that sounds as if it started from his shoes. Then I tumbles. This stage settin' was almost a dead ringer for his old ranch out north of Bedelia. In a minute in comes a bunch of stage cowboys. They was a lot cleaner lookin' than any I ever saw around Merrity's, and some of 'em was wearin' misfit whiskers; but barrin' a few little points like that they fitted into the picture well enough. Next we hears a whoop, and in bounces the leadin' lady, rigged out in beaded leggin's, knee length skirt, leather coat, and Shy Ann hat, with her red hair flyin' loose.
Say, I'm a good deal of a come-on when it comes to the ranch business, but I've seen enough to know that if any woman had showed up at Merrity's place in that costume the cow punchers would have blushed into their hats and took for the timber line. I looks at Hank, expectin' to see him wearin' a grin; but he wa'n't. He's 'most tarin' his eyes out, lookin' at them painted mountains and that four-piece log cabin. And would you believe it, Mrs. Merrity was doin' the same! I couldn't see that either of 'em moved durin' the whole act, or took their eyes off that scenery, and when the curtain goes down they just naturally reaches out and grips each other by the hand. For quite some time they didn't say a word. Then Reney breaks the spell.
"You noticed it, didn't you, Hank?" says she.
"Couldn't help it, Reney!" says he huskily.
"I expect the old place is looking awful nice, just about now," she goes on.
Hank was swallowin' hard just then, so all he could do was nod, and a big drop of brine leaks out of one of them buttermilk blue eyes. Reney saw it.
"Hank," says she, still grippin' his hand and talkin' throaty – "let's quit and go back!"
Say, maybe you never heard one of them flannel shirts call the cows home from the next county. A lot of folks who'd paid good money to listen to a weak imitation was treated to the genuine article.
"We-e-e-ough! Glory be!" yells Hank, jumpin' up and knockin' over a chair.
It was an ear splitter, that was. Inside of a minute there was a special cop and four ushers makin' a rush for the back of our box.
"Here, here now!" says one. "You'll have to leave."
"Leave!" says Hank. "Why, gol durn you white faced tenderfeet, you couldn't hold us here another minute with rawhide ropes! Come on, Reney; maybe there's a night train!"
They didn't go quite so sudden as all that. Reney got him to wait until noon next day, so she could fire a few maids and send a bale or so of Paris gowns to the second hand shop; but they made me sit up till 'most mornin' with 'em, while they planned out the kind of a ranch de luxe they was goin' to build when they got back to Bedelia. As near as I could come to it, there was goin' to be four Chinese cooks always standin' ready to fry griddle cakes for any neighbours that might drop in, a dance hall with a floor of polished mahogany, and not a bath tub on the place. What they wanted was to get back among their old friends, put on their old clothes, and enjoy themselves in their own way for the rest of their lives.