V
NON PLUSH ULTRA
Sunday and a driving rain had combined to keep Ma Pettengill within theArrowhead ranch house. Neither could have done this alone. The rainwould merely have added a slicker to her business costume of khakiriding breeches, laced boots, and flannel shirt as she rode abroad;while a clement Sabbath would have seen her "resting," as she would putit, in and round the various outbuildings, feeding-pens, blacksmithshop, harness-room, branding-chute, or what not, issuing orders toattentive henchmen from time to time; diagnosing the gray mule'sbarbed-wire cut; compounding a tonic for Adolph, the big milk-strainDurham bull, who has been ailing; wishing to be told why in somethingthe water hadn't been turned into that south ditch; and, like acompetent general, disposing her forces and munitions for the campaignof the coming week. But Sunday--and a wildly rainy Sunday--had housedher utterly.
Being one who can idle with no grace whatever she was engaged in whatshe called putting the place to rights. This meant taking out thecontents of bureau drawers and wardrobes and putting them back again,massing the litter on the big table in the living-room into an involvedgeometry of neat piles that would endure for all of an hour,straightening pictures on the walls, eliminating the home-circles ofspiders long unmolested, loudly calling upon Lew Wee, the Chinaman, whoaffrightedly fled farther and farther after each call, and ever andagain booming pained surmises through the house as to what fearful stateit would get to be in if she didn't fight it to a clean finish once in adog's age.
The woman dumped a wastebasket of varied rubbish into the open fire,leaned a broom against the mantel, readjusted the towel that protectedher gray hair from the dust--hair on week days exposed with never aqualm to all manner of dust--cursed all Chinamen on land or sea with anespecial and piquant blight invoked upon the one now in hiding, thentook from the back of a chair where she had hung it the moment before ariding skirt come to feebleness and decrepitude. She held it up beforecritical eyes as one scanning the morning paper for headlines ofsignificance.
"Ruined!" she murmured. Even her murmur must have reached Lew Wee, howremote soever his isle of safety. "Worn one time and all ruined up!That's what happens for trying to get something for nothing. You'd thinkwomen would learn. You would if you didn't know a few. Hetty Daggett,her that was Hetty Tipton, orders this by catalogue, No. 3456 orsomething, from the mail-order house in Chicago. I was down in Red Gapwhen it come. 'Isn't it simply wonderful what you can get for threethirty-eight!' says she with gleaming eyes, laying this thing out beforeme. 'I don't see how they can ever do it for the money.' She found outthe next day when she rode up here in it with me and Mr. BurchellDaggett, her husband. Nothing but ruin! Seams all busted, sleazy clothwore through. But Hetty just looks it over cheerfully and says: 'Oh,well, what can you expect for three thirty-eight?' Is that like a womanor is it like something science has not yet discovered?
"That Hetty child is sure one woman. This skirt would never have heldtogether to ride back in, so she goes down as far as the narrow gauge inthe wagon with Buck Devine, wearing a charming afternoon frock of paleblue charmeuse rather than get into a pair of my khakis and ride backwith her own lawful-wedded husband; yes, sir; married to him safe asanything, but wouldn't forget her womanhood. Only once did she ever comenear it. I saved her then because she hadn't snared Mr. Burchell Daggettyet, and of course a girl has to be a little careful. And she took mycounsels so much to heart she's been careful ever since. 'Why, I shouldsimply die of mortification if my dear mate were to witness me inthose,' says she when I'm telling her to take a chance for once and getinto these here riding pants of mine because it would be uncomfortablegoing down in that wagon. 'But what is my comfort compared to dearBurchell's peace of mind?' says she.
"Ain't we the goods, though, when we do once learn a thing? Of coursemost of us don't have to learn stuff like this. Born in us. I shouldn'twonder if they was something in the talk of this man Shaw or Shavian--Isee the name spelled both ways in the papers. I can't read his piecesmyself because he rasps me, being not only a smarty but a vegetarian. Idon't know. I might stand one or the other purebred, but the cross seemsto bring out the worst strain in both. I once got a line on his beliefsand customs though--like it appears he don't believe anything ought tobe done for its own sake but only for some good purpose. It was one dayI got caught at a meeting of the Onward and Upward Club in Red Gap andMrs. Alonzo Price read a paper about his meaning. I hope she didn'twrong him. I hope she was justified in all she said he really means inhis secret heart. No one ought to talk that way about any one if theyain't got the goods on 'em. One thing I might have listened to with somepatience if the man et steaks and talked more like some one you'd careto have in your own home. In fact, I listened to it anyway. Maybe hetook it from some book he read--about woman and her true nature.According to Henrietta Templeton Price, as near as I could get her, thisShaw or Shavian believes that women is merely a flock of men-hawkscircling above the herd till they see a nice fat little lamb of a man,then one fell swoop and all is over but the screams of the victim dyingout horribly. They bear him off to their nest in a blasted pine and pickthe meat from his bones at leisure. Of course that ain't the way ladieswas spoken of in the Aunt Patty Little Helper Series I got out of thePresbyterian Sabbath-school library back in Fredonia, New York, when Iwas thirteen--and yet--and yet--as they say on the stage in these playsof high or English life."
It sounded promising enough, and the dust had now settled so that Icould dimly make out the noble lines of my hostess. I begged for more.
"Well, go on--Mrs. Burchell Daggett once nearly forgot her womanhood.Certainly, go on, if it's anything that would be told outside of asmoking-car."
The lady grinned.
"Many of us has forgot our womanhood in the dear, dead past," sheconfessed. "Me? Sure! Where's that photo album. Where did I put thatalbum anyway? That's the way in this house. Get things straightened uponce, you can't find a single one you want. Look where I put it now!"She demolished an obelisk of books on the table, one she had latelyconstructed with some pains, and brought the album that had been itspedestal. "Get me there, do you?"
It was the photograph of a handsome young woman in the voluminous ridingskirt of years gone by, before the side-saddle became extinct. She helda crop and wore an astoundingly plumed bonnet. Despite the offensivedisguise, one saw provocation for the course adopted by the lateLysander John Pettengill at about that period.
"Very well--now get me here, after I'd been on the ranch only a month."It was the same young woman in the not too foppish garb of a cowboy. Inwide-brimmed hat, flannel shirt, woolly chaps, quirt in hand, shebestrode a horse that looked capable and daring.
"Yes, sir, I hadn't been here only a month when I forgot my womanhoodlike that. Gee! How good it felt to get into 'em and banish thatsideshow tent of a skirt. I'd never known a free moment before and Iblessed Lysander John for putting me up to it. Then, proud as Punch,what do I do but send one of these photos back to dear old AuntWaitstill, in Fredonia, thinking she would rejoice at the wild, freelife I was now leading in the Far West. And what do I get for it but atear-spotted letter of eighteen pages, with a side-kick from her pastor,the Reverend Abner Hemingway, saying he wishes to indorse every word ofSister Baxter's appeal to me--asking why do I parade myself shamelesslyin this garb of a fallen woman, and can nothing be said to recall me tothe true nobility that must still be in my nature but which I amforgetting in these licentious habiliments, and so on! The picture hadbeen burned after giving the Reverend his own horrified flash of it, andthey would both pray daily that I might get up out of this degradationand be once more a good, true woman that some pure little child wouldnot be ashamed to call the sacred name of mother.
"Such was Aunt Waitstill--what names them poor old girls had to standfor! I had another aunt named Obedience, only she proved to be a regularcinch-binder. Her name was never mentioned in the family after she sliddown a rainspout one night and eloped to marry a depraved scoundrel whodrove through there on a red wagon w
ith tinware inside that he wouldtrade for old rags. I'm just telling you how times have changed in spiteof the best efforts of a sanctified ministry. I cried over that letterat first. Then I showed it to Lysander John, who said 'Oh, hell!' beinga man of few words, so I felt better and went right on forgetting mywomanhood in that shameless garb of a so-and-so--though where aunty hadgot her ideas of such I never could make out--and it got to be so much amatter of course and I had so many things to think of besides mywomanhood that I plumb forgot the whole thing until this social upheavalin Red Gap a few years ago.
"I got to tell you that the wild and lawless West, in all mattersrelating to proper dress for ladies, is the most conservative andhidebound section of our great land of the free and home of thebrave--if you can get by with it. Out here the women see by the Sundaypapers that it's being wore that way publicly in New York and no onearrested for it, but they don't hardly believe it at that, and theywouldn't show themselves in one, not if you begged them to on yourbended knees, and what is society coming to anyway? You might as welldress like one of them barefooted dancers, only calling 'em barefootedmust be meant like sarcasm--and they'd die before they'd let a daughterof theirs make a show of herself like that for odious beasts of men toleer at, and so on--until a couple years later Mrs. Henrietta TempletonPrice gets a regular one and wears it down Main Street, and nothingobjectionable happens; so then they all hustle to get one--not quite soextreme, of course, but after all, why not, since only the evil-mindedcould criticise? Pretty soon they're all wearing it exactly like NewYork did two years ago, with mebbe the limit raised a bit here and thereby some one who makes her own. But again they're saying that the latestone New York is wearing is so bad that it must be confined to a certainclass of women, even if they do get taken from left to right at AsburyPark and Newport and other colonies of wealth and fashion, because thevilest dregs can go there if they have the price, which they often do.
"Red Gap is like that. With me out here on the ranch it didn't matterwhat I wore because it was mostly only men that saw me; but I can wellremember the social upheaval when our smartest young matrons andwell-known society belles flung modesty to the chinook wind and took todivided skirts for horseback riding. My, the brazen hussies! It ain't somany years ago. Up to that time any female over the age of nine caughtriding a horse cross-saddle would have lost her character good andquick. And these pioneers lost any of theirs that wasn't cemented goodand hard with proved respectability. I remember hearing Jeff Tuttle tellwhat he'd do to any of his womenfolks that so far forgot the sacrednames of home and mother. It was startling enough, but Jeff somehownever done it. And if he was to hear Addie or one of the girls talkingabout a side-saddle to-day he'd think she was nutty or mebbe wanting onefor the state museum. So it goes with us. My hunch is that so it willever go.
"The years passed, and that thrill of viciousness at wearing dividedskirts in public got all rubbed off--that thrill that every last one ofus adores to feel if only it don't get her talked about--too much--byevil-minded gossips. Then comes this here next upheaval over ridingpants for ladies--or them that set themselves up to be such. Of coursewe'd long known that the things were worn in New York and even in suchmodern Babylons as Spokane and Seattle; but no woman in Red Gap had everforgot she had a position to keep up, until summer before last, when wesaw just how low one of our sex could fall, right out on the publicstreet.
"She was the wife of a botanist from some Eastern college and him andher rode a good bit and dressed just alike in khaki things. My, theinfamies that was intimated about that poor creature! She was bony andhad plainly seen forty, very severe-featured, with scraggly hair and asharp nose and spectacles, and looked as if she had never had a momentof the most innocent pleasure in all her life; but them riding pantsfixed her good in the minds of our lady porch-knockers. And the men justas bad, though they could hardly bear to look twice at her, she was thatdiscouraging to the eye; they agreed with their wives that she must beone of that sort.
"But things seem to pile up all at once in our town. That very summerthe fashion magazines was handed round with pages turned down at themore daring spots where ladies were shown in such things. It wasn't feltthat they were anything for the little ones to see. But still, afterall, wasn't it sensible, now really, when you come right down to it? andas a matter of fact isn't a modest woman modest in anything?--it isn'twhat she wears but how she conducts herself in public, or don't youthink so, Mrs. Ballard?--and you might as well be dead as out of style,and would Lehman, the Square Tailor, be able to make up anything likethat one there?--but no, because how would he get your measure?--andsurely no modest woman could give him hers even if she did take itherself--anyway, you'd be insulted by all the street rowdies as you rodeby, to say nothing of being ogled by men without a particle of finenessin their natures--but there's always something to be said on both sides,and it's time woman came into her own, anyway, if she is ever to beanything but man's toy for his idle moments--still it would never do togo to extremes in a narrow little town like this with every one justlooking for an excuse to talk--but it would be different if all the bestpeople got together and agreed to do it, only most of them wouldprobably back out at the last moment and that smarty on the _Recorder_would try to be funny about it--now that one with the long coat doesn'tlook so terrible, does it? or do you think so?--of course it's almostthe same as a skirt except when you climb on or something--a woman hasto think of those things--wouldn't Daisy Estelle look rather stunning inthat?--she has just the figure for it. Here's this No. 9872 with theNorfolk jacket in this mail-order catalogue--do you think that looks tootheatrical, or don't you? Of course for some figures, but I've alwaysbeen able to wear--And so forth, for a month or so.
"Late in the fall Henrietta Templeton Price done it. You may not knowwhat that meant to Alonzo Price, Choice Villa Sites and Price's Additionto Red Gap. Alonzo is this kind: I met him the day Gussie Himebaugh hadher accident when the mules she was driving to the mowing machine runaway out on Himebaugh's east forty. Alonzo had took Doc Maybury out andpasses me coming back. 'How bad was she hurt?' I asks. The poor thinglooks down greatly embarrassed and mumbles: 'She has broken a limb.''Leg or arm?' I blurts out, forgetting all delicacy. You'd think I hadhim pinned down, wouldn't you? Not Lon, though. 'A lower limb,' says he,coughing and looking away.
"You see how men are till we put a spike collar and chain on 'em. WhenHenrietta declared herself Alonzo read the riot act and declared maritallaw. But there was Henrietta with the collar and chain and pretty soonLon was saying: 'You're quite right, Pettikins, and you ought to havethe thanks of the community for showing our ladies how to dressrationally on horseback. It's not only sensible and safe but it'smodest--a plain pair of riding breeches, no coquetry, no frills, nothingbut stern utility--of course I agree.'
"'I hoped you would, darling,' says Henrietta. She went to MissGunslaugh and had her make the costume, being one who rarely does thingsby halves. It was of blue velvet corduroy, with a fetching little bolerojacket, and the things themselves were fitted, if you know what I mean.And stern utility! That suit with its rosettes and bows and frogs andbraid had about the same stern utility as those pretty little tin tongsthat come on top of a box of candy--ever see anybody use one of those?When Henrietta got dressed for her first ride and had put on the CubanPink Face Balm she looked like one of the gypsy chorus in the BohemianGirl opera.
"Alonzo gulped several times in rapid succession when he saw her, butthe little man never starts anything he don't aim to finish, and it wastoo late to start it then. Henrietta brazened her way through MainStreet and out to the country club and back, and next day she put themon again so Otto Hirsch, of the E-light Studio, could come up and takeher standing by the horse out in front of the Price mansion. Then theywas laid away until the Grand Annual Masquerade Ball of the Order of theEastern Star, which is a kind of hen Masons, when she again gave us aflash of what New York society ladies was riding their horse in. As amatter of fact, Henrietta hates a horse like a rattlesnake, bu
t she haddone her pioneer work for once and all.
"Every one was now laughing and sneering at the old-fashioned dividedskirt with which woman had endangered her life on a horse, and wonderinghow they had endured the clumsy things so long; and come spring all theprominent young society buds and younger matrons of the most exclusiveset who could stay on a horse at all was getting theirs ready for theapproaching season, Red Gap being like London in having its gayestseason in the summer, when people can get out more. Even Mis' JudgeBallard fell for it, though hers was made of severe black with a longcoat. She looked exactly like that Methodist minister, the old one, thatwe had three years ago.
"Most of the younger set used the mail-order catalogue, their figuresstill permitting it. And maybe there wasn't a lot of trying on behinddrawn blinds pretty soon, and delighted giggles and innocent girlishwonderings about whether the lowest type of man really ogles as muchunder certain circumstances as he's said to. And the minute the roadsgot good the telephone of Pierce's Livery, Feed, and Sale Stable waskept on the ring. Then the social upheaval was on. Of course any of 'emlooked quiet after Henrietta's costume, for none of the girls but BerylMae Macomber, a prominent young society bud, aged seventeen, had doneanything like that. But it was the idea of the thing.
"A certain element on the South Side made a lot of talk and stirredthings up and wrote letters to the president of the Civic Purity League,who was Mis' Judge Ballard herself, asking where this unspeakabledisrobing business was going to end and calling her attention to thefate that befell Sodom and Gomorrah. But Mis' Ballard she's mixed onnames and gets the idea these parties mean Samson and Delilah instead ofa couple of twin cities, like St. Paul and Minneapolis, and she writesback saying what have these Bible characters got to do with a ladyriding on horseback--in trousers, it is true, but with a coat fallingmodestly to the knee on each side, and certain people had better be alittle more fussy about things that really matter in life before theybegin to talk. She knew who she was hitting at all right, too. TrustMis' Ballard!
"It was found that there was almost the expected amount of ogling fromsidewalk loafers, at first. As Daisy Estelle Maybury said, it seemed asif a girl couldn't show herself on the public thoroughfare without beingsubjected to insult. Poor Daisy Estelle! She had been a very popularyoung society belle, and was considered one of the most attractive girlsin Red Gap until this happened. No one had ever suspected it of her inthe least degree up to that time. Of course it was too late after shewas once seen off her horse. Them that didn't see was told in fulldetail by them that did. Most of the others was luckier. Beryl MaeMacomber in her sport shirt and trouserettes complained constantly aboutthe odious wretches along Main Street and Fourth, where the post officewas. She couldn't stop even twenty minutes in front of the post office,minding her own business and waiting for some one she knew to come alongand get her mail for her, without having dozens of men stop and ogleher. That, of course, was during the first two weeks after she took togoing for the mail, though the eternal feminine in Beryl Mae probablythought the insulting glances was going to keep up forever.
"I watched the poor child one day along in the third week, waiting therein front of the post office after the four o'clock mail, and no onehardly ogled her at all except some rude children out from school. Whatmade it more pitiful, leaning right there against the post office frontwas Jack Shiels, Sammie Hamilton, and little old Elmer Cox, Red Gap'sthree town rowdies that ain't done a stroke of work since the canningfactory closed down the fall before, creatures that by rights shouldhave been leering at the poor child In all her striking beauty. But, no;the brutes stand there looking at nothing much until Jack Shiels staresa minute at this horse Beryl Mae is on and pipes up: 'Why, say, Ithought Pierce let that little bay runt go to the guy that was in hereafter polo ponies last Thursday. I sure did.' And Sam Hamilton wakes upand says: 'No, sir; not this one. He got rid of a little mare that hadshoulders like this, but she was a roan with kind of mule ears and onefroze off.' And little old Elmer Cox, ignoring this defenceless younggirl with his impudent eyes, he says: 'Yes, Sam's right for once. Piercetried to let this one go, too, but ain't you took a look at his hocks!'Then along comes Dean Duke, the ratty old foreman in Pierce's stable,and he don't ogle a bit, either, like you'd expect one of his debasedcalibre to, but just stops and talks this horse over with 'em and saysyes, it was his bad hocks that lost the sale, and he tells 'em how hehad told Pierce just what to do to get him shaped up for a quick sale,but Pierce wouldn't listen to him, thinking he knew it all himself; andthere the four stood and gassed about this horse without even seeingBeryl Mae, let alone leering at her. I bet she was close to sheddingtears of girlish mortification as she rode off without ever waiting forthe mail. Things was getting to a pretty pass. If low creatures lost toall decent instincts, like these four, wouldn't ogle a girl when she wasout for it, what could be expected of the better element of the town?Still, of course, now and then one or the other of the girls would havea bit of luck to tell of.
"Well, now we come to the crookedest bit of work I ever been guilty of,though first telling you about Mr. Burchell Daggett, an Eastern societyman from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that had come to Red Gap that spring to beassistant cashier in the First National, through his uncle having stockin the thing. He was a very pleasant kind of youngish gentleman, aboutthirty-four, I reckon, with dark, parted whiskers and gold eyeglassesand very good habits. He took his place among our very best people rightoff, teaching the Bible class in the M.E. Sabbath-school and belongingto the Chamber of Commerce and the City Beautiful Association, of whichhe was made vice-president, and being prominent at all functions held inour best homes. He wasn't at all one of them that lead a double life bystopping in at the Family Liquor Store for a gin fizz or two after workhours, or going downtown after supper to play Kelly pool at theTemperance Billiard Parlours and drink steam beer, or getting in withthe bunch that gathers in the back room of the Owl Cigar Store of anevening and tells these here suggestive stories. Not that he washide-bound. If he felt the need for a shot of something he'd go into theUnited States Grill and have a glass of sherry and bitters brought tohim at a table and eat a cracker with it, and he'd take in every show,even the Dizzy Belles of Gotham Big Blonde Beauty Show. He was refinedand even moral in the best sense of the word, but still human.
"Our prominent young society buds took the keenest notice of him atonce, as would naturally happen, he being a society bachelor of meansand by long odds the best catch in Red Gap since old Potter Knapp, ofthe Loan and Trust Company, had broke his period of mourning for histhird wife by marrying Myrtle Wade that waited on table at theOccidental Hotel, with the black band still on his left coat sleeve.It's no exaggeration to say that Mr. Burchell Daggett became the mostsought-after social favourite among Reg Gap's hoot mondy in less than aweek after he unpacked his trunk. But it was very soon discovered by thebright-eyed little gangsters of the best circles that he wasn't going tobe an easy one to disable. Naturally when a man has fought 'em off tohis age he has learned much of woodcraft and the hunter's cunning wiles,and this one had sure developed timber sense. He beat 'em at their owngame for three months by the simple old device of not playing anyfavourite for one single minute, and very, very seldom getting alonewith one where the foul stroke can be dealt by the frailest hand withmuscular precision. If he took Daisy Estelle Maybury to the chicken piesupper to get a new carpet for the Presbyterian parsonage, he'd up andtake Beryl Mae and her aunt, or Gussie Himebaugh, or Luella Stultz, tothe lawn feet at Judge Ballard's for new uniforms for the band boys. Atthe Bazaar of All Nations he bought as many chances of one girl as hedid of another, and if he hadn't any more luck than a rabbit and wonsomething--a hanging lamp or a celluloid manicure set in a plush-linedbox--he'd simply put it up to be raffled off again for the good of thecause. And none of that moonlight loitering along shaded streets forhim, where the dirk is so often drove stealthily between a man's ribs,and him thinking all the time he's only indulging in a little playfulnonsense. Often as not he'd take
two girls at once, where all could bemerry without danger of anything happening.
"It was no time at all till this was found out on him. It was seen thatunder a pleasing exterior, looking all too easy to overcome by any girlin her right mind, he had powers of resistance and evasion that was likesteel. Of course this only stirred the proud beauties on to renewed andcrookeder efforts. Every darned one of 'em felt that her innocent younggirlhood was challenged, and would she let it go at that? Not so. Mylands! What snares and deadfalls was set for this wise old timber wolfthat didn't look it, with his smiling ways and seemingly carelessresponse to merry banter, and so forth!
"And of course every one of these shrinking little scoundrels thought atonce of her new riding costume, so no time at all was lost in organizingthe North Side Riding and Sports Club, which Mr. Burchell Daggett gladlyjoined, having, as he said, an eye for a horse and liking to get outafter banking hours to where all Nature seems to smile and you can letyour mount out a bit over the firm, smooth road. Them that had held offuntil now, on account of the gossip and leering, hurried up and got intoline with No. 9872 in the mail-order catalogue, or went to MissGunslaugh, who by this time had a female wax dummy in her window in aneat brown suit and puttees, with a coat just opening and one footadvanced carelessly, with gauntlets and a riding crop, and a fetchinglittle cap over the wind-blown hair and the clear, wonderful blue eyes.Oh, you can bet every last girl of the bunch was seeing herself sendback picture postals to her rivals telling what a royal time they washaving at Palm or Rockaway Beach or some place, and seeing the engravedcards--'Mr. and Mrs. Burchell Daggett, at Home After the Tenth, OphirAvenue, Red Gap, Wash.'
"Ain't we good when you really get us, if you ever do--because somedon't. Many, indeed! I reckon there never was a woman yet outside of afeeb' home that didn't believe she could be an A. No. 1 siren if she onlyhad the nerve to dress the part; never one that didn't just ache to swaymen to her lightest whim, and believe she could--not for any evilpurpose, mind you, but just to show her power. Think of the tenderhearts that must have shuddered over the damage they could and actuallymight do in one of them French bathing suits like you are said towitness in Paris and Atlantic City and other sinks of iniquity. And herewas these well-known society favourites wrought up by this legibleparty, as the French say, till each one was ready to go just as far asthe Civic Purity League would let her in order to sweep him off his feetin one mad moment. Quite right, too. It all depends on what the objectis, don't it; and wasn't theirs honourable matrimony with anestablishment and a lawn in front of it with a couple of cast-ironmoose, mebbe?
"And amid all this quaint girlish enterprise and secret infamy was theproblem of Hetty Tipton. Hetty had been a friend and a problem of minefor seven years, or ever since she come back from normal to teach in thethird-grade grammar school; a fine, clean, honest, true-blue girl, mebbenot as pretty you'd say at first as some others, but you like her betterafter you look a few times more, and with not the slightest nonsenseabout her. That last was Hetty's one curse. I ask you, what chance has agirl got with no nonsense about her? Hetty won my sympathy right at thestart by this infirmity of hers, which was easily detected, and forseven years I'd been trying to cure her of it, but no use. Oh, she wasalways took out regular enough and well liked, but the gilded youth ofRed Gap never fought for her smiles. They'd take her to parties anddances, turn and turn about, but they always respected her, which is thegreatest blight a man can put on one of us, if you know what I mean.Every man at a party was always careful to dance a decent number oftimes with Hetty and see that she got back to her seat; and wasn't itwarm in here this evening, yes, it was; and wouldn't she have a glass ofthe punch--No, thank you--then he'd gallop off to have some fun with amere shallow-pated fool that had known how from the cradle. It wasalways a puzzle to me, because Hetty dressed a lot better than most ofthem, knowing what to wear and how, and could take a joke if it comeslow, and laid herself out to be amiable to one and all. I kind of thinkit must be something about her mentality. Maybe it is too mental. Ican't put her to you any plainer than to say that every single girl intown, young and old, just loved her, and not one of them up to this timehad ever said an unkind or feminine thing about her. I guess you knowwhat that would mean of any woman.
"Hetty was now coming twenty-nine--we never spoke of this, but I couldcount back--and it's my firm belief that no man had ever proposedmarriage or anything else on earth to her. Wilbur Todd had onceendeavoured to hold her hand out on the porch at a country-club danceand she had repulsed him in all kindness but firmly. She told him shecouldn't bring herself to permit a familiarity of that sort except tothe man who would one day lead her to the altar, which is something Ibelieve she got from writing to a magazine about a young girl'sperplexities. And here, in spite of her record, this poor thing haddared to raise her eyes to none other than this Mr. Burchell Daggett.There was something kind of grand and despairing about the impudence ofit when you remember these here trained efficiency experts she wascompeting with. Yet so it was. She would drop in on me after school fora cup of tea and tell me frankly how distinguished his manner was andwhat shapely features he had and what fine eyes, and how there was acertain note in his voice at times, and had I ever noticed that onestubborn lock of hair that stuck out back of his left ear? Of coursethat last item settled it. When they notice that lock of hair you knowthe ship has struck the reef and all hands are perishing.
"And it seemed that the cuss had not only shown her more than a littleattention at evening functions but had escorted her to the midspringproduction of 'Hamlet' by the Red Gap Amateur Theatrical and DramaticSociety. True, he had conducted himself like a perfect gentleman everyminute they was alone together, even when they had to go home in EddiePierce's hack because it was raining when the show let out--but would I,or would I not, suspect from all this that he was in the least degreethinking of her in a way that--you know!
"Poor child of twenty-eight, with her hungry eyes and flushed face whileshe was showing down her hand to me! I seen the scoundrel's play atonce. Hetty was the one safe bet for him in Red Gap's social whirl. Hewas wise, all right--this Mr. D. He'd known in a second he could trusthimself alone with that girl and be as safe as a babe in its mother'sarms. Of course I couldn't say this to Hetty. I just said he was a manthat seemed to know his own mind very clearly, whatever it was, andHetty blushed some more and said that something within her responded toa certain note in his voice. We let it go at that.
"So I think and ponder about poor Hetty, trying to invent someconspiracy that would fix it right, because she was the ideal mate foran assistant cashier that had a certain position to keep up. For thatmatter she was good enough for any man. Then I hear she has joined theriding club, and an all day's ride has been planned for the nextSaturday up to Stender's Spring, with a basket lunch and a romantic rideback by moonlight. Of course, I don't believe in any of thisspiritualist stuff, but you can't tell me there ain't something in it,mind-reading or something, with the hunches you get when parties is insome grave danger.
"Stella Ballard it was tells me about the picnic, calling me in as Ipassed their house to show me her natty new riding togs that had justcome from the mail-order house. She called from back of a curtain, andwhen I got into the parlour she had them on, pleased as all get-out.Pretty they was, too--riding breeches and puttees and a man's flannelshirt and a neat-fitting Norfolk jacket, and Stella being a fine,upstanding figure.
"'They may cause considerable talk,' says she, smoothing down one legwhere it wrinkled a bit, 'but really I think they look perfectlystunning on me, and wasn't it lucky they fit me so beautifully? They'recalled the Non Plush Ultra.'
"'The what?' I says.
"'The Non Plush Ultra,' she answers. 'That's the name of them sewed inthe band.'
"'What's that mean?' I wanted to know.
"'Why,' says Stella, 'that's Latin or Greek, I forget which, and itmeans they're the best, I believe. Oh, let me see! Why, it means nothingbeyond, or something like that; the farthest yo
u can go, I think. Oneforgets all that sort of thing after leaving high school.'
"'Well,' I says, 'they fit fine, and it's the only modest rig for awoman to ride a horse in, but they certainly are non plush, all right.That thin goods will never wear long against saddle leather, take myword for it.'
"But of course this made no impression on Stella--she was standing onthe centre table by now, so she could lamp herself in the glass over themantel--and then she tells me about the excursion for Saturday and howMr. Burchell Daggett is enthused about it, him being a superb horsemanhimself, and, if I know what she means, don't I think she carriesherself in the saddle almost better than any girl in her set, and won'ther style show better than ever in this duck of a costume, and she mustget her tan shoes polished, and do I think Mr. Daggett really meantanything when he said he'd expect her some day to return the masonic pinshe had lifted off his vest the other night at the dance, and so on.
"It was while she was babbling this stuff that I get the strange hunchthat Hetty Tipton is in grave danger and I ought to run to her; itseemed almost I could hear her calling on me to save her from somehorrible fate. So I tell Stella yes, she's by far the finest rider inthe whole Kulanche Valley, and she ought to get anything she wants withthat suit on, and then I beat it quick over to the Ezra Button housewhere Hetty boards.
"You can laugh all you want to, but that hunch of mine was the God'struth. Hetty was in the gravest danger she'd faced since one time inearly infancy when she got give morphine for quinine. What made it morehorrible, she hadn't the least notion of her danger. Quite the contrary.
"'Thank the stars I've come in time!' I gasps as I rushes in on her, forthere's the poor girl before her mirror in a pair of these same NonPlush Ultras and looking as pleased with herself as if she had somereason to be.
"'Back into your skirts quick!' I says. 'I'm a strong woman and allthat, but still I can be affected more than you'd think.'
"Poor Hetty stutters and turns red and her chin begins to quiver, so Igentled her down and tried to explain, though seeing quick that I musttell her everything but the truth. I reckon nothing in this world canlook funnier than a woman wearing them things that had never ought tofor one reason or another. There was more reasons than that in Hetty'scase. Dignity was the first safe bet I could think of with her, so Itried that.
"'I know all you would say,' says the poor thing in answer, 'but isn'tit true that men rather like one to be--oh, well, you know--just theleast bit daring?'
"'Truest thing in the world,' I says, 'but bless your heart, did yoususpicion riding breeches was daring on a woman? Not so. A girl wearing'em can't be any more daring after the first quick shock is overthan--well, you read the magazines, don't you? You've seen thosepictures of family life in darkest Africa that the explorers and monkeyhunters bring home, where the wives, mothers, and sweethearts, God bless'em! wear only what the scorching climate demands. Didn't it strike youthat one of them women without anything on would have a hard time if shetried to be daring--or did it? No woman can be daring without the properclothes for it,' I says firmly, 'and as for you, I tell you plain, getinto the most daring and immodest thing that was ever invented forwoman--which is the well-known skirt.'
"'Oh, Ma Pettengill,' cries the poor thing, 'I never meant anythinghorrid and primitive when I said daring. As a matter of fact, I thinkthese are quite modest to the intelligent eye.'
"'Just what I'm trying to tell you,' I says. 'Exactly that; they'remodest to any eye whatever. But here you are embarked on a difficultenterprise, with a band of flinty-hearted cutthroats trying to beat youto it, and, my dear child, you have a staunch nature and a heart ofgold, but you simply can't afford to be modest.'
"'I don't understand,' says she, looking at herself in the glass again.
"'Trust me, anyway,' I implores. 'Let others wear their Non PlushUltras which are No. 9872'--she tries to correct my pronunciation, but Iwouldn't stop for that. 'Never mind how it's pronounced,' I says,'because I know well the meaning of it in a foreign language. It meansthe limit, and it's a very desirable limit for many, but for you,' Isays plainly, 'it's different. Your Non Plush Ultra will have to be aneat, ankle-length riding skirt. You got one, haven't you?'
"'I have,' says she, 'a very pretty one of tan corduroy, almost new, butI had looked forward to these, and I don't see yet--'
"Then I thought of another way I might get to her without blurting outthe truth. 'Listen, Hetty,' I says, 'and remember not only that I'm yourfriend but that I know a heap more about this fool world than you do.I've had bitter experiences, and one of them got me at the time I firstbegun to wear riding pants myself, which must have been about the timeyou was beginning to bite dents into your silver mug that Aunt Carolinesent. I was a handsome young hellion, I don't mind telling you, and theylooked well on me, and when Lysander John urged me to be brave and wear'em outside I was afraid all the men within a day's ride was going tosneak round to stare at me. My! I was so embarrassed, also with thatsame feeling you got in your heart this minute that it was taking anunfair advantage of any man--you know! I felt like I was using all thepower of my young beauty for unworthy ends.
"'Well, do you know what I got when I first rode out on the ranch? Igot just about the once-over from every brute there, and that was all.If one of them ranch hands had ever ogled me a second time I'd haveknown it all right, but I never caught one of the scoundrels at it.First I said: "Now, ain't that fine and chivalrous?" Then I got wise. Itwasn't none of this here boasted Western chivalry, but just plain lackof interest. I admit it made me mad at first. Any man on the place wasonly too glad to look me over when I had regular clothes on, but dressme like Lysander John and they didn't look at me any oftener than theydid him. Not as often, of course, because as a plain human being andman's equal I wasn't near as interesting as he was.'
"'But then, too,' says Hetty, who had only been about half listening tomy lecture, 'I thought it might be striking a blow at the same time forthe freedom of woman.'
"Well, you know how that freedom-of-the-sex talk always gets me going. Iwas mad enough for a minute to spank her just as she stood there in themNon Plush Ultras she was so proud of. And I did let out some high talk.Mrs. Dutton told her afterward she thought sure we was having words.
"'Freedom from skirts,' I says, 'is the last thing your sex wants.Skirts is the final refuge of immodesty, to which women will cling likegrim death. They will do any possible thing to a skirt--slit it, thinit, shorten it, hike it up one side--people are setting up nights rightnow thinking up some new thing to do to it--but women won't give it upand dress modestly as men do because it's the only unfair drag they gotleft with the men. I see one of our offended sex is daily asking rightout in a newspaper: "Are women people?" I'd just like to whisper to herthat no one yet knows.
"'If they'll quit their skirts, dress as decently as a man does so theywon't have any but a legitimate pull with him, we'd have a chance tofind out if they're good for anything else. As a matter of fact, theydon't want to be people and dress modestly and wear hats you couldn'tpay over eight dollars for. I believe there was one once, but the poorthing never got any notice from either sex after she became--a people,as you might say.'
"Well, I was going on to get off a few more things I'd got madded up to,but I caught the look in poor Hetty's face, and it would have melted astone. Poor child! There she was, wanting a certain man and willing towear or not wear anything on earth that would nail him, and not knowingwhat would do it, and complicating her ignorance with meaninglessworries about modesty and daringness and the freedom of her poor sex,that ain't ever even deuce-low with one woman in a million.
"And right then, watching her distress, all at once I get my biginspiration--it just flooded me like the sun coming up. I don't know ifI'm like other folks, but things do come to me that way. And not onlywas it a great truth, but it got me out of the hole of having to tellHetty certain truths about herself that these Non Plush Ultras made alltoo glaring.
"'Listen,' I says: 'You
believe I'm your friend, don't you? And youbelieve anything I tell you is from the heart out and will probably havea grain of sense in it. Well, here is an inspired thought: Women won'tever dress modestly like men do because men don't want 'em to. I neversaw a man yet that did if he'd tell the truth, and so this here darkcity stranger won't be any exception. Now, then, what do we see onSaturday next? Why, we see this here gay throng sally forth forStender's Spring, the youth and beauty of Red Gap, including Mr. D.,with his nice refined odour of Russia leather and bank bills of largesize--from fifties up--that haven't been handled much. The crowd is ofall sexes, technically, like you might say; a lot of nice, sweet girlsalong but dressed to be mere jolly young roughnecks, and just asinteresting to the said stranger as the regular boys that will bepresent--hardly more so. And now, as for poor little meek you--you willlook wild and Western, understand me, but feminine; exactly like thecoloured cigarette picture that says under it "Rocky Mountain Cow Girl."You will be in your pretty tan skirt--be sure to have it pressed--and ablue-striped sport bloose that I just saw in the La Mode window, andyou'll get some other rough Western stuff there, too: a blue silkneckerchief and a natty little cow-girl sombrero--the La Mode is showinga good one called the La Parisienne for four fifty-eight--and thedaintiest pair of tan kid gauntlets you can find, and don't forget apair of tan silk stockings--'
"'They won't show in my riding boots,' says Hetty, looking as if she wascoming to life a little.
"'Tush for the great, coarse, commonsense riding boots,' I says firmly;'you will wear precisely that neat little pair of almost new tan pumpswith the yellow bows that you're standing in now. Do you get me?'
"'But that would be too dainty and absurd,' says Hetty.
"'Exactly!' I says, shutting my mouth hard.
"'Why, I almost believe I do get you,' says she, looking religiously upinto the future like that lady saint playing the organ in the picture.
"'Another thing,' I says: 'You are deathly afraid of a horse and washardly ever on one but once when you were a teeny girl, but you do lovethe open life, so you just nerved yourself up to come.'
"'I believe I see more clearly than ever,' says Hetty. She grew up on aranch, knows more about a horse than the horse himself does, and wouldbe a top rider most places, with the cheap help we get nowadays that canhardly set a saddle.
"'Also from time to time,' I goes on, 'you want to ask this Mr. D.little, timid, silly questions that will just tickle him to death andmake him feel superior. Ask him to tell you which legs of a horse thechaps go on, and other things like that; ask him if the sash that holdsthe horrid old saddle on isn't so tight it's hurting your horse. Afterthe lunch is et, go over to the horse all alone and stroke his nose andcall him a dear and be found by the gent when he follows you over tryingto feed the noble animal a hard-boiled egg and a couple of pickles orsomething. Take my word for it, he'll be over all right and have ahearty laugh at your confusion, and begin to wonder what it is aboutyou.
"'How about falling off and spraining my ankle on the way back?' demandsthe awakening vestal with a gleam in her eye.
"'No good,' I says; 'pretty enough for a minute, but it would maketrouble if you kept up the bluff, and if there's one thing a man hatesmore than another it's to have a woman round that makes any trouble.'
"'You have me started on a strange new train of thought,' says Hetty.
"'I think it's a good one,' I tells her, 'but remember there are risks.For one thing, you know how popular you have always been with all thegirls. Well, after this day none of 'em will hardly speak to you becauseof your low-lifed, deceitful game, and the things they'll say ofyou--such things as only woman can say of woman!'
"'I shall not count the cost,' says she firmly. 'And now I must hurrydown for that sport bloose--blue-striped, you said?'
"'Something on that order,' I says, 'that fits only too well. You cando almost anything you want to with your neck and arms, but rememberstrictly--a skirt is your one and only Non Plush Ultra.'
"So I went home all flushed and eager, thinking joyously how littlemen--the poor dubs--ever suspect how it's put over on 'em, and the nextday, which was Friday, I thought of a few more underhand things shecould do. So when she run in to see me that afternoon, the excitement ofthe chase in her eye, she wanted I should go along on this picnic. Isays yes, I will, being that excited myself and wanting to see really ifI was a double-faced genius or wasn't I? Henrietta Price couldn't go onaccount of being still lame from her ride of a week ago, so I could goas chaperone, and anyway I knew the dear girls would all be glad to haveme because I would look so different from them--like a genial old ranchforeman going out on rodeo--and the boys was always glad to see me alonganyway. 'I'll be there,' I says to Hetty. 'And here--don't forget at alltimes to-morrow to carry this little real lace handkerchief I'm givingyou.'
"I was at the meeting-place next morning at nine. None of the othergirls was on time, of course, but that was just as well, because AggieTuttle had got her father to come down to the sale yard to pack a mulewith the hampers of lunch. Jeff Tuttle is a good packer all right, buttoo inflamed in the case of a mule, which he hates. They always know upand down that street when he's packing one; ladies drag their childrenby as fast as they can. But Jeff had the hitch all throwed before any ofthe girls showed up, and all began in a lovely manner, the crowd ofabout fifteen getting off not more than an hour late; Mr. Burchell inthe lead and a bevy of these jolly young rascals in their Non PlushUltras riding herd on him.
"Every girl cast cordial glances of pity at poor Hetty when she showedup in her neat skirt and silly tan pumps with the ridiculous silkstockings and the close-fitting blue-striped thing, free at the neck,and her pretty hair all neated under the La Parisienne cow-girl hat. Oh,they felt kinder than ever before to poor old Hetty when they saw her aslittle daring as that, cheering her with a hearty uproar, slapping theirNon Plush Ultras with their caps or gloves, and then gigglingconfidentially to one another. Hetty accepted their applause with whatthey call a pretty show of confusion and gored her horse with her heelon the off side so it looked as if the vicious brute was running awayand she might fall off any minute, but somehow she didn't, and got himsoothed with frightened words and by taking the hidden heel out of hisslats--though not until Mr. D. had noticed her good and then lookedagain once or twice.
"And so the party moved on for an hour or two, with the roguish youngroughnecks cutting up merrily at all times, pretending to be cowboyscoming to town on pay day, swinging their hats, giving the long yell,and doing roughriding to cut each other away from the side of Mr. D.every now and then, with a noisy laugh of good nature to hide thepoisoned dagger. Daisy Estelle Maybury is an awful good rider, too, andgot next to the hero about every time she wanted to. Poor thing, if sheonly knew that once she gets off a horse in 'em it makes all thedifference in the world.
"The dark city stranger seemed to enjoy it fine, all this noise andcutting up and cowboy antics like they was just a lot of high-spiritedyoung men together, but I never weakened in my faith for one minute.'Laugh on, my proud beauties,' I says, 'but a time will come, just assure as you look and act like a passel of healthy boys.' And you bet itdid.
"We hadn't got halfway to Stender's Spring till Mr. D. got off totighten his cinch, and then he sort of drifted back to where Hetty and Iwas. I dropped back still farther to where a good chaperone ought to beand he rode in beside Hetty. The trail was too narrow then for the restto come back after their prey, so they had to carry on the rough workamong themselves.
"Hetty acted perfect. She had a pensive, withdrawn look--'aloof,' Iguess the word is--like she was too tender a flower, too fine for thisrough stuff, and had ought to be in the home that minute telling a fairystory to the little ones gathered at her decently clad knee. I don'tknow how she done it, but she put that impression over. And she tellsMr. D. that in spite of her quiet, studious tastes she had resolved tocome on this picnic because she loves Nature oh! so dearly, the birdsand the wild flowers and the great rugged trees that ha
ve their messagefor man if he will but listen with an understanding heart--didn't Mr. D.think so, or did he? But not too much of this dear old Nature stuff,which can be easy overdone with a healthy man; just enough to show therewas hidden depths in her nature that every one couldn't find.
"Then on to silly questions about does a horse lie down when it goes tosleep each night after its hard day's labour, and isn't her horse's sashtoo tight, and what a pretty fetlock he has, so long and thick andbrown--Oh, do you call that the mane? How absurd of poor little me! Mr.Daggett knows just everything, doesn't he? He's perfectly terrifying.And where in the world did he ever learn to ride so stunningly, like oneof those dare-devils in a Wild West entertainment? If her own naughty,naughty horse tries to throw her on the ground again where he can biteher she'll just have Mr. D. ride the nassy ole sing and teach him bettermanners, so she will. There now! He must have heard that--just see himmove his funny ears--don't tell her that horses can't understand thingsthat are said. And, seriously now, where did Mr. D. ever get his superbathletic training, because, oh! how all too rare it is to see abrain-worker of strong mentality and a splendid athlete in one and thesame man. Oh, how pathetically she had wished and wished to be a man andtake her place out in the world fighting its battles, instead of poorlittle me who could never be anything but a homebody to worship thegreat, strong, red-blooded men who did the fighting and carried on greatindustries--not even an athletic girl like those dear things upahead--and this horse is bobbing up and down like that on purpose, justto make poor little me giddy, and so forth. Holding her bridle reindaintily she was with the lace handkerchief I'd give her that cost metwelve fifty.
"Mr. D. took it all like a real man. He said her ignorance of a horsewas adorable and laughed heartily at it. And he smiled in a deeplymodest and masterful way and said 'But, really, that's nothing--nothingat all, I assure you,' when she said about how he was a corkingathlete--and then kept still to see if she was going on to say moreabout it. But she didn't, having the God-given wisdom to leave himwanting. And then he would be laughing again at her poor-little-me horsetalk.
"I never had a minute's doubt after that, for it was the eyes of onefascinated to a finish that he turned back on me half an hour later ashe says: 'Really, Mrs. Pettengill, our Miss Hester is feminine to herfinger tips, is she not?' 'She is, she is,' I answers. 'If you only knewthe trouble I had with the chit about that horrible old riding skirt ofhers when all her girl friends are wearing a sensible costume!' Hettyblushed good and proper at this, not knowing how indecent I mightbecome, and Mr. D. caught her at it. Aggie Tuttle and Stella Ballard atthis minute is pretending to be shooting up a town with the couple ofrevolvers they'd brought along in their cunning little holsters. Mr. D.turns his glazed eyes to me once more. 'The real womanly woman,' says hein a hushed voice, 'is God's best gift to man.' Just like that.
"'Landed!' I says to myself. 'Throw him up on the bank and light afire.'
"And mebbe you think this tet-a-tet had not been noticed by the merrythrong up front. Not so. The shouting and songs had died a naturaldeath, and the last three miles of that trail was covered in a gloomysilence, except for the low voices of Hetty and the male she had soneatly pronged. I could see puzzled glances cast back at them and catchmutterings of bewilderment where the trail would turn on itself. But thepoor young things didn't yet realize that their prey was hanging backthere for reasons over which he hadn't any control. They thought, ofcourse, he was just being polite or something.
"When we got to the picnic place, though, they soon saw that all was notwell. There was some resumption of the merrymaking as they dismountedand the girls put one stirrup over the saddle-horn and eased the cinchlike the boys did, and proud of their knowledge, but the glances theynow shot at Hetty wasn't bewildered any more. They was glances of purefright. Hetty, in the first place, had to be lifted off her horse, andMr. D. done it in a masterly way to show her what a mere feather shewas in his giant's grasp. Then with her feet on the ground she reeled amite, so he had to support her. She grasped his great strong arm firmlyand says: 'It's nothing--I shall be right presently--leave me please, goand help those other girls.' They had some low, heated language abouthis leaving her at such a crisis, with her gripping his arm till I betit showed for an hour. But finally they broke and he loosened herhorse's sash, as she kept quaintly calling it, and she recoveredcompletely and said it had been but a moment's giddiness anyway, andwhat strength he had in those arms, and yet could use it so gently, andhe said she was a brave, game little woman, and the picnic was served toone and all, with looks of hearty suspicion and rage now being shot atHetty from every other girl there.
"And now I see that my hunch has been even better than I thought. Notonly does the star male hover about Hetty, cutely perched on a fallenlog with her dainty, gleaming ankles crossed, and looking so fresh andnifty and feminine, but I'm darned if three or four of the other malesdon't catch the contagion of her woman's presence and hang round her,too, fetching her food of every kind there, feeding her spoonfuls ofAggie Tuttle's plum preserves, and all like that, one comical thingafter another. Yes, sir; here was Mac Gordon and Riley Hardin andCharlie Dickman and Roth Hyde, men about town of the younger dancingset, that had knowed Hetty for years and hardly ever looked ather--here they was paying attentions to her now like she was some prizebeauty, come down from Spokane for over Sunday, to say nothing ofMr. D., who hardly ever left her side except to get her another sardinesandwich or a paper cup of coffee. It was then I see the scientificexplanation of it, like these high-school professors always say thatscience is at the bottom of everything. The science of this here wasthat they was all devoting themselves to Hetty for the simple reasonthat she was the one and only woman there present.
"Of course these girls in their modest Non Plush Ultras didn't get thescientific secret of this fact. They was still too obsessed with theidea that they ought to be ogled on account of them by any male beast inhis right senses. But they knew they'd got in wrong somehow. By thistime they was kind of bunching together and telling each other things inlow tones, while not seeming to look at Hetty and her dupes, at whichall would giggle in the most venemous manner. Daisy Estelle left thebunch once and made a coy bid for the notice of Mr. D. by snatching hiscap and running merrily off with it about six feet. If there was any onein the world--except Hetty--could make a man hate the idea of ridingpants for women, she was it. I could see the cold, flinty look come intohis eyes as he turned away from her to Hetty with the pitcher oflemonade. And then Beryl Mae Macomber, she gets over close enough forMr. D. to hear it, and says conditions is made very inharmonious at homefor a girl of her temperament, and she's just liable any minute to chuckeverything and either take up literary work or go into the movies, shedon't know which and don't care--all kind of desperate so Mr. D. willfeel alarmed about a beautiful young thing like that out in the worldalone and unprotected and at the mercy of every designing scoundrel. ButI don't think Mr. D. hears a word of it, he's so intently listening toHetty who says here in this beautiful mountain glade where all is peacehow one can't scarcely believe that there is any evil in the worldanywhere, and what a difference it does make when one comes to see lifetruly. Then she crossed and recrossed her silken ankles, slightlyadjusted her daring tan skirt, and raised her eyes wistfully to thetreetops, and I bet there wasn't a man there didn't feel that shebelonged in the home circle with the little ones gathered about, telling'em an awfully exciting story about the naughty, naughty, bad littlewhite kitten and the ball of mamma's yarn.
"Yes, sir; Hetty was as much of a revelation to me in one way as shewould of been to that party in another if I hadn't saved her from it.She must have had the correct female instinct all these years, only noone had ever started her before on a track where there was no otherentries. With those other girls dressed like she was Hetty would of beenleaning over some one's shoulder to fork up her own sandwiches, and noone taking hardly any notice whether she'd had some of the hot coffee orwhether she hadn't. And the looks she got througho
ut the afternoon! Say,I wouldn't of trusted that girl at the edge of a cliff with a singlepair of those No. 9872's anywhere near.
"After the lunch things was packed up there was faint attempts at funand frolic with songs and chorus--Riley Hardin has a magnificent bassvoice at times and Mac Gordon and Charlie Dickman and Roth Hyde wouldn'tbe so bad if they'd let these Turkish cigarettes alone--and the boys gottogether and sung some of their good old business-college songs, withthe girls coming in while they murdered Hetty with their beautiful eyes.But Hetty and Mr. D. sort of withdrew from the noisy enjoyment andtalked about the serious aspects of life and how one could get alongalmost any place if only they had their favourite authors. And Mr. D.says doesn't she sing at all, and she says, Oh! in a way; that her voicehas a certain parlour charm, she has been told, and she sings at--youcan't really call it singing--two or three of the old Scotch songs ofhomely sentiment like the Scotch seem to get into their songs as noother nation can, or doesn't he think so, and he does, indeed. And he'sreading a wonderful new novel in which there is much of Nature with itslessons for each of us, but in which love conquers all at the end, andthe girl in it reminds him strongly of her, and perhaps she'll be goodenough to sing for him--just for him alone in the dusk--if he bringsthis book up to-morrow night so he can show her some good places in it.
"At first she is sure she has a horrid old engagement for to-morrownight and is so sorry, but another time, perhaps--Ain't it a marvel thecrooked tricks that girl had learned in one day! And then she remembersthat her engagement is for Tuesday night--what could she have beenthinking of!--and come by all means--only too charmed--and how rarelynowadays does one meet one on one's own level of culture, or perhapsthat is too awful a word to use--so hackneyed--but anyway he knows whatshe means, or doesn't he? He does.
"Pretty soon she gets up and goes over to her horse, picking her waydaintily in the silly little tan pumps, and seems to be offering thebeast something. The stricken man follows her the second he can withoutbeing too raw about it, and there is the adorably feminine thing with abig dill pickle, two deviled eggs, and a half of one of these Camelbertcheeses for her horse. Mr. D. has a good masterly laugh at her idea ofhorse fodder and calls her 'But, my dear child!' and she looks prettilyoffended and offers this chuck to the horse and he gulps it all down andnoses round for more of the same. It was an old horse named Croppy thatshe'd known from childhood and would eat anything on earth. She rode himup here once and he nabbed a bar of laundry soap off the back porch andchewed the whole thing down with tears of ecstasy in his eyes andfrothing at the mouth like a mad dog. Well, so Hetty gives mister man alook of dainty superiority as she flicks crumbs from her white fingerswith my real lace handkerchief, and he stops his hearty laughter andjust stares, and she says what nonsense to think the poor horses don'tlike food as well as any one. Them little moments have their effect on aman in a certain condition. He knew there probably wasn't another horsein the world would touch that truck, but he couldn't help feeling astrange new respect for her in addition to that glorious masculineprotection she'd had him wallowing in all day.
"The ride home, at least on the part of the Non Plush Ultra cut-ups, waslike they had laid a loved one to final rest out there on the lonemountainside. The handsome stranger and Hetty brought up the rear,conversing eagerly about themselves and other serious topics. I believehe give her to understand that he'd been pretty wild at one time in hislife and wasn't any too darned well over it yet, but that some goodwomanly woman who would study his ways could still take him and make aman of him; and her answering that she knew he must have suffered beyondhuman endurance in that horrible conflict with his lower nature. He saidhe had.
"Of course the rabid young hoydens up ahead made a feeble effort now andthen to carry it off lightly, and from time to time sang 'My Bonnie LiesOver the Ocean,' or 'Merrily We Roll Along,' with the high, squeakytenor of Roth Hyde sounding above the others very pretty in themoonlight, but it was poor work as far as these enraged vestals wasconcerned. If I'd been Hetty and had got a strange box of candy throughthe mail the next week, directed in a disguised woman's hand, I'd ofrushed right off to the police with it, not waiting for any analysis.And she, poor thing, would get so frightened at bad spots, with thefierce old horse bobbing about so dangerous, that she just has to beheld on. And once she wrenched her ankle against a horrid old tree onthe trail--she hadn't been able to resist a little one--and bit herunder lip as the spasm of pain passed over her refined features. But shewas all right in a minute and begged Mr. D. not to think of bathing itin cold water because it was nothing--nothing at all, really now--and hewould embarrass her frightfully if he said one more word about it. AndMr. 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--whatwas she thinking about now? Why, she was merely wondering if horsesthink in the true sense of the word or only have animal instinct, as itis called. And wasn't she a strange, puzzling creature to be thinking ondeep subjects like that at such a time! Yes, she had been calledpuzzling as a child, but she didn't like it one bit. She wanted to belike other girls, if he knew what she meant. He seemed to.
"They took Hetty home first on account of her poor little ankle andsung 'Good Night, Ladies,' at the gate. And so ended a day that waswreck and ruin for most of our sex 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 menabout 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 hernew light summer gown with the blue bows, when Mr. D. blows in with atwo-pound box and the novel in which love conquered all. So excited shewas when she tells me about it next day. The luck of that girl! Butafter all it wasn't luck, because she'd laid her foundations the daybefore, hadn't she? Always look a little bit back of anything that seemsto be luck, say I.
"And Hetty with shining eyes entertained one and all with the wit andsparkle a woman can show only when there's four or five men at her atonce--it's the only time we ever rise to our best. But she got a chancefor a few words alone with Mr. D., who took his hat finally when he seesthe other four was going to set him out; enough words to confide to himhow she loathed this continual social racket to which she was constantlysubjected, with never a let-up so one could get to one's books and toone's real thoughts. But perhaps he would venture up again some timenext week or the week after--not getting coarse in her work, understand,even with him flopping around there out on the bank--and he give her onelong, meaning look and said why not to-morrow night, and she carelesslysaid that would be charming, she was sure--she didn't think of anyengagement at this minute--and it was ever so nice of him to think ofpoor little me.
"Then she went back and gave the social evening of their life to themfour boys that had stayed. She said she couldn't thank them enough forcoming this evening--which is probably the only time she had told thetruth 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 allout in the hall listening; and Riley Hardin singing 'Down, Diver, Down,'Neath the Deep Blue Waves!' and Mac Gordon singing his everlastingGerman songs in their native language, and Charlie Dickman singing a newsentimental one called 'Ain't There at Least One Gentleman Here?' abouta fair young lady dancer being insulted in a gilded cafe in some largecity; and one and all voted it was a jolly evening and said how aboutcoming back to-morrow night, but Hetty said no, it was her one eveningfor 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 wasover for good and all.
"Well, why string it out? I've give you the facts. And my lands! Willyou look at that clock now? Here's the morning gone and this room stilllooking like the inside of a sheep-herder's wagon! Oh, yes, and whenHetty was up here this time that she wouldn't wear my riding pantsdown, she says. 'Not only that, but I'm scrupulously careful in allways. Why, I nev
er even allow dear Burchell to observe me in one ofthose lace boudoir caps that so many women cover up their hair with whenit'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 GalumpsisCaladensis 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?"
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