O. Henry

by O. Henry

  Later I, feigning sleep, heard the following:

  “Mees Adams, I was almos’ to perish—die—of monotony w’en your fair and beautiful face appear in thees mee-­ser-­rhable house.” I opened my starboard eye. The beard was being curled furiously around a finger, the Svengali eye was rolling, the chair was being hunched closer to the school-­teacher’s. “I am French—you see—temperamental—nervous! I cannot endure thees dull hours in thees ranch house; but—a woman comes! Ah!” The shoulders gave nine ’rahs and a tiger. “What a difference! All is light and gay; ever’ting smile w’en you smile. You have ’eart, beauty, grace. My ’eart comes back to me w’en I feel your ’eart. So!” He laid his hand upon his vest pocket. From this vantage point he suddenly snatched at the school-­teacher’s own hand. “Ah! Mees Adams, if I could only tell you how I ad——”

  “Dinner—” remarked George. He was standing just behind the Frenchman’s ear. His eyes looked straight into the school-­teacher’s eyes. After thirty seconds of survey, his lips moved, deep in the flinty frozen maelstrom of his face: “Dinner,” he concluded, “will be ready in two minutes.”

  Miss Adams jumped to her feet, relieved. “I must get ready for dinner,” she said brightly, and went into her room.

  Ross came in fifteen minutes late. After the dishes had been cleaned away, I waited until a propitious time when the room was temporarily ours alone, and told him what had happened.

  He became so excited that he lit a stogy without thinking. “Yeller-­hided, unwashed, palm-­readin’ skunk,” he said under his breath. “I’ll shoot him full o’ holes if he don’t watch out—talkin’ that way to my wife!”

  I gave a jump that set my collarbone back another week. “Your wife!” I gasped.

  “Well, I mean to make her that,” he announced.

  The air in the ranch house the rest of that day was tense with pent-­up emotions, oh best buyers of best sellers.

  Ross watched Miss Adams as a hawk does a hen; he watched Étienne as a hawk does a scarecrow. Étienne watched Miss Adams as a weasel does a henhouse. He paid no attention to Ross.

  The condition of Miss Adams, in the rôle of sought-­after, was feverish. Lately escaped from the agony and long torture of the white cold, where for hours Nature had kept the little school-­teacher’s vision locked in and turned upon herself, nobody knows through what profound, feminine introspections she had gone. Now, suddenly cast among men, instead of finding relief and security, she beheld herself plunged anew into other discomforts. Even in her own room she could hear the loud voices of her imposed suitors. “I’ll blow you full o’ holes!” shouted Ross. “Witnesses,” shrieked Étienne, waving his hand at the cook and me. She could not have known the previous harassed condition of the men, fretting under indoor conditions. All she knew was, that where she had expected the frank freemasonry of the West, she found the subtle tangle of two men’s minds, bent upon exacting whatever romance there might be in her situation.

  She tried to dodge Ross and the Frenchman by spells of nursing me. They also came over to help nurse. This combination aroused such a natural state of invalid cussedness on my part that they all were forced to retire. Once she did manage to whisper: “I am so worried here. I don’t know what to do.”

  To which I replied, gently, hitching up my shoulder, that I was a hunch-­savant and that the Eighth House under this sign, the Moon being in Virgo, showed that everything would turn out all right.

  But twenty minutes later I saw Étienne reading her palm and felt that perhaps I might have to recast her horoscope, and try for a dark man coming with a bundle.

  Toward sunset, Étienne left the house for a few moments and Ross, who had been sitting taciturn and morose, having unlocked Mark Twain, made another dash. It was typical Ross talk.

  He stood in front of her and looked down majestically at that cool and perfect spot where Miss Adams’ forehead met the neat part in her fragrant hair. First, however, he cast a desperate glance at me. I was in a profound slumber.

  “Little woman,” he began, “it’s certainly tough for a man like me to see you bothered this way. You”—gulp—“you have been alone in this world too long. You need a protector. I might say that at a time like this you need a protector the worst kind—a protector who would take a three-­ring delight in smashing the saffron-­colored kisser off of any yeller-­skinned skunk that made himself obnoxious to you. Hem. Hem. I am a lonely man, Miss Adams. I have so far had to carry on my life without the”—gulp—“sweet radiance”—gulp—“of a woman around the house. I feel especially doggoned lonely at a time like this, when I am pretty near locoed from havin’ to stall indoors, and hence it was with delight I welcomed your first appearance in this here shack. Since then I have been packed jam full of more different kinds of feelings, ornery, mean, dizzy, and superb, than has fallen my way in years.” Miss Adams made a useless movement toward escape. The Ross chin stuck firm. “I don’t want to annoy you, Miss Adams, but, by heck, if it comes to that you’ll have to be annoyed. And I’ll have to have my say. This palm-­ticklin’ slob of a Frenchman ought to be kicked off the place and if you’ll say the word, off he goes. But I don’t want to do the wrong thing. You’ve got to show a preference. I’m gettin’ around to the point, Miss—Miss Willie, in my own brick fashion. I’ve stood about all I can stand these last two days and somethin’s got to happen. The suspense hereabouts is enough to hang a sheepherder. Miss Willie”—he lassoed her hand by main force—“just say the word. You need somebody to take your part all your life long. Will you mar——”

  “Supper,” remarked George, tersely, from the kitchen door.

  Miss Adams hurried away.

  Ross turned angrily. “You——”

  “I have been revolving it in my head,” said George.

  He brought the coffeepot forward heavily. Then gravely the big platter of pork and beans. Then somberly the potatoes. Then profoundly the biscuits. “I been revolving it in my mind. There ain’t no use waitin’ any longer for Swengalley. Might as well eat now.”

  From my excellent vantage-­point on the couch I watched the progress of that meal. Ross muddled, glowering, disappointed; Étienne, eternally blandishing, attentive, ogling; Miss Adams nervous, picking at her food, hesitant about answering questions, almost hysterical; now and then the solid, flitting shadow of the cook, passing behind their backs like a Dreadnought in a fog.

  I used to own a clock which gurgled in its throat three minutes before it struck the hour. I know, therefore, the slow freight of Anticipation. For I have awakened at three in the morning, heard the clock gurgle and waited those three minutes for the three strokes I knew were to come. Alors. In Ross’s ranch house that night the slow freight of Climax whistled in the distance.

  Étienne began it after supper. Miss Adams had suddenly displayed a lively interest in the kitchen layout and I could see her in there, chatting brightly at George—not with him—the while he ducked his head and rattled his pans.

  “My fren,” said Étienne, exhaling a large cloud from his cigarette and patting Ross lightly on the shoulder with a be­diamonded hand which hung limp from a yard or more of bony arm, “I see I mus’ be frank with you. Firs’, because we are rivals; second, because you take these matters so serious. I—I am Franchman. I love the women”—he threw back his curls, bared his yellow teeth, and blew an unsavory kiss toward the kitchen. “It is, I suppose, a trait of my nation. All Franchmen love the women—pretty women. Now, look: Here I am!” He spread out his arms. “Cold outside! I detes’ the col-­l-­l’! Snow! I abominate the mees-­ser-­rhable snow! Two men! This”—pointing to me—“an’ this!” Pointing to Ross. “I am distracted! For two whole days I stan’ at the window an’ tear my ’air! I am nervous, upset, pr-­r-­ro-­foun’ly distress inside my ’ead! An’ suddenly—be’old! A woman—a nice, pretty, charming innocen’ young woman! I, naturally, rejoice. I become myself again—gay, light-­’
earted, ’appy. I address myself to mademoiselle; it passes the time. That, m’sieu’, is wot the women are for—pass the time! Entertainment—like the music, like the wine!

  “They appeal to the mood, the caprice, the temperamen’. To play with thees woman, follow her through her humor, pursue her—ah! that is the mos’ delightful way to sen’ the hours about their business.”

  Ross banged the table. “Shut up, you miserable yeller pup!” he roared. “I object to your pursuin’ anything or anybody in my house. Now, you listen to me, you—” He picked up the box of stogies and used it on the table as an emphasizer. The noise of it awoke the attention of the girl in the kitchen. Unheeded, she crept into the room. “I don’t know anything about your French ways of lovemakin’, an’ I don’t care. In my section of the country, it’s the best man wins. And I’m the best man here, and don’t you forget it! This girl’s goin’ to be mine. There ain’t going to be any playing, or philandering, or palm reading about it. I’ve made up my mind I’ll have this girl, and that settles it. My word is law in this neck o’ the woods. She’s mine and as soon as she says she’s mine, you pull out.” The box made one final, tremendous punctuation point.

  Étienne’s bravado was unruffled. “Ah! that is no way to win a woman,” he smiled, easily. “I make prophecy you will never win ’er that way. No. Not thees woman. She mus’ be played along an’ then keessed, this charming, delicious little creature. One keess! An’ then you ’ave her.” Again he displayed his unpleasant teeth. “I make you a bet I will keess her——”

  As a cheerful chronicler of deeds done well, it joys me to relate that the hand which fell upon Étienne’s amorous lips was not his own. There was one sudden sound, as of a mule kicking a lath fence, and then—through the swinging doors of oblivion for Étienne.

  I had seen this blow delivered. It was an aloof, unstudied, almost absent-­minded affair. I had thought the cook was rehearsing the proper method of turning a flapjack.

  Silently, lost in thought, he stood there scratching his head. Then he began rolling down his sleeves.

  “You’d better get your things on, Miss, and we’ll get out of here,” he decided. “Wrap up warm.”

  I heard her heave a little sigh of relief as she went to get her cloak, sweater, and hat.

  Ross jumped to his feet, and said: “George, what are you goin’ to do?”

  George, who had been headed in my direction, slowly swiveled around and faced his employer. “Bein’ a camp cook, I ain’t overburdened with hosses,” George enlightened us. “Therefore, I am going to try to borrow this feller’s here.”

  For the first time in four days my soul gave a genuine cheer. “If it’s for Lochinvar purposes, go as far as you like,” I said grandly.

  The cook studied me a moment, as if trying to find an insult in my words. “No,” he replied. “It’s for mine and the young lady’s purposes, and we’ll go only three miles—to Hicksville. Now let me tell you somethin’, Ross.” Suddenly I was confronted with the cook’s chunky back and I heard a low, curt, carrying voice shoot through the room at my host. George had wheeled just as Ross started to speak. “You’re nutty. That’s what’s the matter with you. You can’t stand the snow. You’re gettin’ nervouser and nuttier every day. That and this Dago”—he jerked a thumb at the half-­dead Frenchman in the corner—“has got you to the point where I thought I better horn in. I got to revolvin’ it around in my mind and I seen if somethin’ wasn’t done, and done soon, there’d be murder around here and maybe”—his head gave an imperceptible list toward the girl’s room—“worse.”

  He stopped, but he held up a stubby finger to keep any one else from speaking. Then he plowed slowly through the drift of his ideas. “About this here woman. I know you, Ross, and I know what you reely think about women. If she hadn’t happened in here durin’ this here snow, you’d never have given two thoughts to the whole woman question. Likewise, when the storm clears, and you and the boys go hustlin’ out, this here whole business’ll clear out of your head and you won’t think of a skirt again until Kingdom Come. Just because o’ this snow here, don’t forget you’re livin’ in the selfsame world you was in four days ago. And you’re the same man, too. Now, what’s the use o’ gettin’ all snarled up over four days of stickin’ in the house? That there’s what I been revolvin’ in my mind and this here’s the decision I’ve come to.”

  He plodded to the door and shouted to one of the ranch heads to saddle my horse.

  Ross lit a stogy and stood thoughtful in the middle of the room. Then he began: “I’ve a durn good notion, George, to knock your confounded head off and throw you into that snowbank; if——”

  “You’re wrong, mister. That ain’t a durned good notion you’ve got. It’s durned bad. Look here!” He pointed steadily out of doors until we were both forced to follow his finger. “You’re in here for more’n a week yet.” After allowing this fact to sink in, he barked out at Ross: “Can you cook?” Then at me: “Can you cook?” Then he looked at the wreck of Étienne and sniffed.

  There was an embarrassing silence as Ross and I thought solemnly of a foodless week.

  “If you just use hoss sense,” concluded George, “and don’t go for to hurt my feelin’s, all I want to do is to take this young gal down to Hicksville; and then I’ll head back here and cook fer you.”

  The horse and Miss Adams arrived simultaneously, both of them very serious and quiet. The horse because he knew what he had before him in that weather; the girl because of what she had left behind.

  Then all at once I awoke to a realization of what the cook was doing. “My God, man!” I cried, “aren’t you afraid to go out in that snow?”

  Behind my back I heard Ross mutter, “Not him.”

  George lifted the girl daintily up behind the saddle, drew on his gloves, put his foot in the stirrup and turned to inspect me leisurely.

  As I passed slowly in his review, I saw in my mind’s eye the algebraic equation of Snow, the equals sign, and the answer in the man before me.

  “Snow is my last name,” said George. He swung into the saddle and they started cautiously out into the darkening swirl of fresh new currency just issuing from the Snowdrop Mint. The girl, to keep her place, clung happily to the sturdy figure of the camp cook.

  I brought three things away from Ross Curtis’s ranch house—yea, four. One was the appreciation of snow, which I have so humbly tried here to render; (2) was a collarbone, of which I am extra careful; (3) was a memory of what it is to eat very, extremely, terribly bad food for a week; and (4) was the cause of (3)—a little note delivered at the end of the week and hand-­painted in blue pencil on a sheet of meat paper.

  “I cannot come back there to that there job. Mrs. Snow say no, George. I been revolvin’ it in my mind; considerin’ circumstances she’s right.”

  The Dream

  * * *

  MURRAY DREAMED a dream.

  Both psychology and science grope when they would explain to us the strange adventures of our immaterial selves when wandering in the realm of “Death’s twin brother, Sleep.” This story will not attempt to be illuminative; it is no more than a record of Murray’s dream. One of the most puzzling phases of that strange waking sleep is that dreams which seem to cover months or even years may take place within a few seconds or minutes.

  Murray was waiting in his cell in the ward of the condemned. An electric arc light in the ceiling of the corridor shone brightly upon his table. On a sheet of white paper an ant crawled wildly here and there as Murray blocked his way with an envelope. The electrocution was set for eight o’clock in the evening. Murray smiled at the antics of the wisest of insects.

  There were seven other condemned men in the chamber. Since he had been there Murray had seen three taken out to their fate: one gone mad and fighting like a wolf caught in a trap; one, no less mad, offering up a sanctimonious lip-­service to Heaven; the third, a weakling,
collapsed and strapped to a board. He wondered with what credit to himself his own heart, foot, and face would meet his punishment; for this was his evening. He thought it must be nearly eight o’clock.

  Opposite his own in the two rows of cells was the cage of Bonifacio, the Sicilian slayer of his betrothed and of two officers who came to arrest him. With him Murray had played checkers many a long hour, each calling his move to his unseen opponent across the corridor.

  Bonifacio’s great booming voice with its indestructible singing quality called out,

  “Eh, Meestro Murray; how you feel—all-­a right—yes?”

  “All right, Bonifacio,” said Murray steadily, as he allowed the ant to crawl upon the envelope and then dumped it gently on the stone floor.

  “Dat’s good-­a, Meestro Murray. Men like us, we must-­a die like-­a men. My time come nex’-­a week. All-­a right. Remember, Meestro Murray, I beat-­a you dat las’ game of da check. Maybe we play again some-­a time. I don’-­a know. Maybe we have to call-­a de move damn-­a loud to play de check where dey goin’ send us.”

  Bonifacio’s hardened philosophy, followed closely by his deafening, musical peal of laughter, warmed rather than chilled Murray’s numbed heart. Yet, Bonifacio had until next week to live.

  The cell-­dwellers heard the familiar, loud click of the steel bolts as the door at the end of the corridor was opened. Three men came to Murray’s cell and unlocked it. Two were prison guards; the other was “Len”—no; that was in the old days; now the Reverend Leonard Winston, a friend and neighbor from their barefoot days.

  “I got them to let me take the prison chaplain’s place,” he said, as he gave Murray’s hand one short, strong grip. In his left hand he held a small Bible, with his forefinger marking a page.