Kitabı oku: «Side-stepping with Shorty», sayfa 10

XIV
A HUNCH FOR LANGDON

Say, the longer I knocks around and the more kinds I meet, the slower I am about sizin' folks up on a first view. I used to think there was only two classes, them that was my kind and them that wa'n't; but I've got over that. I don't try to grade 'em up any more; for they're built on so many different plans it would take a card index the size of a flat buildin' to keep 'em all on file. All I can make out is that there's some good points about the worst of 'em, and some of the best has their streak of yellow.

Anyway, I'm glad I ain't called on to write a tag for Langdon. First news I had of him was what I took for inside information, bein' as it was handed me by his maw. When I gets the note askin' me to call up in the 70's between five and six I don't know whether it's a bid to a tea fest or a bait for an auction. The stationery was real swell, though, and the writin' was this up and down kind that goes with the gilt crest. What I could puzzle out of the name, though, wa'n't familiar. But I follows up the invite and takes a chance.

So about five-thirty I'm standin' outside the glass doors pushin' the bell. A butler with boiled egg eyes looks me over real frosty from behind the lace curtains; but the minute I says I'm Shorty McCabe he takes off the tramp chain and says, "Yes, sir. This way, sir." I'm towed in over the Persian hall runner to the back parlour, where there's a lady and gent sittin' on opposite sides of the coal grate, with a tea tray between 'em.

"I'll be drinkin' that stuff yet, if I ain't careful," thinks I.

But I didn't even have to duck. The lady was so anxious to get to talkin' that she forgot to shove the cups at me, and the gent didn't act like it was his say. It was hard to tell, the way she has the lights fixed, whether she was twenty-five or fifty. Anyway, she hadn't got past the kittenish stage. Some of 'em never does. She don't overdo the thing, but just gushes natural; usin' her eyes, and eyebrows, and the end of her nose, and the tip of her chin when she spoke, as well as throwin' in a few shoulder lifts once in awhile.

"It's so good of you to come up, professor!" says she. "Isn't it, Pembroke?"

Pembroke – he's the gent on the other side of the tray – starts to say that it was, but she don't give him a chance. She blazes right ahead, tellin' how she's heard of me and my Studio through friends, and the minute she hears of it, she knows that nothing would suit Langdon better. "Langdon's my son, you know," says she.

"Honest?" says I.

"Te-he!" says she. "How sweet of you! Hardly anyone believes it at first, though. But he's a dear boy; isn't he, Pembroke?"

This was Pembroke's cue for fair. It's up to him to do the boost act. But all he produces is a double barrelled blink from behind the glasses. He's one of these chubby chaps, Pembroke is, especially around the belt. He has pink cheeks, and a nice white forehead that almost meets the back of his collar. But he knows when to let things slide with a blink.

"I guess some one's been givin' you the wrong steer," says I. "I ain't started any kindergarten class yet. The Y. M. C. A. does that sort of – "

"Oh, dear! but Langdon isn't a child, you know," says the lady. "He's a great big fellow, almost twenty-two. Yes, really. And I know you'll get to be awfully fond of him. Won't he, Pembroke?"

"We-e-e-ell – " says Pembroke.

"Oh, he's bound to," says she. "Of course, Langdon doesn't always make friends easily. He is so apt to be misunderstood. Why, they treated him perfectly horrid at prep. school, and even worse at college. A lot of the fellows, and, actually, some of the professors, were so rude to him that Langdon said he just wouldn't stay another day! I told him I didn't blame him a bit. So he came home. But it's awfully dull for a young man like Langdon here in New York, you know."

"Crippled, or blind or something, is he?" says I.

"Who, Langdon? Why, he's perfect – absolutely perfect!" says she.

"Oh, that accounts for it," says I, and Pembroke went through some motions with his cheeks like he was tryin' to blow soap bubbles up in the air.

Well, it seems that mother has been worryin' a lot over keepin' Langdon amused. Think of it, in a town like this!

"He detests business," says she, "and he doesn't care for theatres, or going to clubs, or reading, or society. But his poor dear father didn't care for any of those things either, except business. And Langdon hasn't any head for that. All he takes an interest in is his machine."

"Singer or Remington?" says I.

"Why, his auto, of course. He's perfectly devoted to that," says she; "but the police are so dreadfully particular. Oh, they make such lots of trouble for Langdon, and get him into such stupid scrapes. Don't they, Pembroke?"

Pembroke didn't blink at that. He nods twice.

"It just keeps me worried all the time," she goes on. "It isn't that I mind paying the absurd fines, of course; but – well, you can understand. No one knows what those horrid officers will do next, they're so unreasonable. Just think, that is the poor boy's only pleasure! So I thought that if we could only get Langdon interested in something of an athletic nature – he's a splendid boxer, you know – oh, splendid!"

"That's different," says I. "You might send him down a few times and – "

"Oh, but I want you to meet him first," says she, "and arouse his enthusiasm. He would never go if you didn't. I expect he will be in soon, and then – Why, that must be Langdon now!"

It might have been an axe brigade from the district attorney's office, or a hook and ladder company, by the sound. I didn't know whether he was comin' through the doors or bringin' 'em in with him. As I squints around I sees the egg eyed butler get shouldered into the hall rack; so I judges that Langdon must be in something of a hurry.

He gets over it, though, for he stamps into the middle of the room, plants his feet wide apart, throws his leather cap with the goggles on into a chair, and chucks one of them greasy bootleg gloves into the middle of the tea tray.

"Hello, maw!" he growls. "Hello, Fatty! You here again?"

Playful little cuss, Langdon was. He's about five feet nine, short necked, and broad across the chest. But he's got a nice face – for a masked ball – eyes the colour of purple writin' ink, hair of a lovely ripe tomato shade growin' down to a peak in front and standin' up stiff and bristly; a corrugated brow, like a washboard; and an undershot jaw, same's a bull terrier. Oh, yes, he was a dear boy, all right. In his leggin's and leather coat he looks too cute for any use.

"Who's this?" says he, gettin' sight of me sittin' sideways on the stuffed chair.

"Why, Langdon dear," says maw, "this is Professor McCabe. I was speaking to you of him, you know."

He looks me over as friendly as if I was some yegg man that had been hauled out of the coal cellar. "Huh!" says he. I've heard freight engines coughin' up a grade make a noise a good deal like that.

Say, as a rule I ain't anxious to take on new people, and it's gettin' so lately that we turn away two or three a week; but it didn't take me long to make up my mind that I could find time for a session with Langdon, if he wanted it.

"Your maw says you do a little boxin'?" says I, smooth and soothin'.

"What of it?" says he.

"Well," says I, "down to my Studio we juggle the kid pillows once in awhile ourselves, when we ain't doin' the wand drill, or playin' bean bag."

"Huh!" says he once more.

For a parlour conversationalist, Langdon was a frost, and he has manners that would turn a subway guard green. But maw jumps in with enough buttered talk for both, and pretty soon she tells me that Langdon's perfectly delighted and will be down next day.

"Me and Mr. Gallagher'll be on the spot," says I. "Good evenin', ma'am."

At that Pembroke jumps up, makes a quick break away, and trails along too, so we does a promenade together down West End-ave.

"Charming young fellow, eh?" says Pembroke.

"Sure!" says I. "But he hides it well."

"You think Langdon needs exercise?" says he.

"Never saw anyone that needed it much worse," says I.

"Just my notion," says he. "In fact I am so interested in seeing that Langdon gets it that I am quite willing to pay something extra for – "

"You don't have to," says I. "I'm almost willin' to do the payin' myself."

That pleases Pembroke so much he has to stop right in his tracks and shake hands. Funny, ain't it, how you can get to be such good friends with anyone so sudden? We walks thirty blocks, chinnin' like brothers, and when we stops on the corner of 42d I've got the whole story of maw and Langdon, with some of Pembroke's hist'ry thrown in.

It was just a plain case of mother bein' used as a doormat by her dear, darling boy. She was more or less broke in to it, for it seems that the late departed had been a good deal of a rough houser in his day, havin' been about as gentle in his ways as a 'Leventh-ave. bartender entertainin' the Gas House Gang. He hadn't much more'n quit the game, though, before Langdon got big enough to carry out the program, and he'd been at it ever since.

As near as I could figure, Pembroke was a boyhood friend of maw's. He'd missed his chance of bein' anything nearer, years ago, but was still anxious to try again. But it didn't look like there'd be any weddin' bells for him until Langdon either got his neck broke or was put away for life. Pemby wa'n't soured, though. He talked real nice about it. He said he could see how much maw thought of Langdon, and it showed what good stuff she was made of, her stickin' to the boy until he'd settled on something, or something had settled on him. Course, he thought it was about time she had a let up and was treated white for awhile.

Accordin' to the hints he dropped, I suspicions that Pembroke would have ranked her A-1 in the queen class, and I gathers that the size of her bank account don't cut any ice in this deal, him havin' more or less of a surplus himself. I guess he'd been a patient waiter; but he'd set his hopes hard on engagin' the bridal state room for a spring trip to Europe.

It all comes back, though, to what could be done with Langdon, and that was where the form sheet wa'n't any help. There's a million or so left in trust for him; but he don't get it until he's twenty-five. Meantime, it was a question of how you're goin' to handle a youngster that's inherited the instincts of a truck driver and the income of a bank president.

"It's a pity, too," says Pembroke. "He hasn't any vicious habits, he's rather bright, and if he could be started right he would make quite a man, even now. He needs to be caged up somewhere long enough to' have some of the bully knocked out of him. I'm hoping you can do a little along that line."

"Too big a contract," says I. "All I want is to make his ears buzz a little, just as a comeback for a few of them grunts he chucked at me."

And who do you suppose showed up at the Studio next forenoon? Him and maw; she smilin' all over and tickled to death to think she'd got him there; Langdon actin' like a bear with a sore ear.

"Maybe you hadn't better wait," says I to her.

"Oh, yes," says she. "I am going to stay and watch dear Langdon box, you know."

Well, unless I ruled her out flat, there was no way of changin' her mind; so I had to let her stay. And she saw Langdon box. Oh, yes! For an amateur, he puts up a fairly good exhibition, and as I didn't have the heart to throw the hook into him with her sittin' there lookin' so cheerful, about all I does is step around and block his swings and jabs. And say, with him carryin' his guard high, and leavin' the way to his meat safe open half the time, it was all I could do to hold myself back.

The only fun I gets is watchin' Swifty Joe's face out of the corner of my eye. He was pipin' us off from the start. First his mouth comes open a foot or so as he sees me let a chance slide, and when I misses more openin's he takes on a look like some one had fed him a ripe egg.

Langdon is havin' the time of his life. He can hit as hard as he likes, and he don't get hit back. Must have seemed real homelike to him. Anyway, soon's he dopes it out that there ain't any danger at all, he bores in like a snow plough, and between blockin' and duckin' I has my hands full.

Just how Langdon has it sized up I couldn't make out; but like as not I made somethin' of a hit with him. I put it down that way when he shows up one afternoon with his bubble, and offers to take me for a spin. It was so unexpected to find him tryin' to do somethin' agreeable that I don't feel like I ought to throw him down. So I pulls on a sweater and climbs in next to the steerin' wheel.

There wa'n't anything fancy about Langdon's oil waggon. He'd had the tonneau stripped off, and left just the front seat – no varnished wood, only a coat of primin' paint and a layer of mud splashed over that. But we hadn't gone a dozen blocks before I am wise to the fact that nothin' was the matter with the cog wheels underneath.

"Kind of a high powered cart, ain't it?" says I.

"Only ninety horse," says Langdon, jerkin' us around a Broadway car so fast that we grazed both ends at once.

"You needn't hit 'er up on my account," says I, as we scoots across the Plaza, makin' a cab horse stand on his hind legs to give us room.

"I'm only on the second speed," says he. "Wait," and he does some monkeyin' with the lever.

Maybe it was Central Park; but it seemed to me like bein' shot through a Christmas wreath, and the next thing I knows we're tearin' up Amsterdam-ave. Say, I can see 'em yet, them folks and waggons and things we missed – women holdin' kids by the hand, old ladies steppin' out of cars, little girls runnin' across the street with their arms full of bundles, white wings with their dust cans, and boys with delivery carts. Sometimes I'd just shut my eyes and listen for the squashy sound, and when it didn't come I'd open 'em and figure on what would happen if I should reach out and get Langdon's neck in the crook of my arm.

And it wa'n't my first fast ride in town, either. But I'd never been behind the lamps when a two-ton machine was bein' sent at a fifty-mile clip up a street crowded with folks that had almost as much right to be livin' as we did.

It was a game that suited Langdon all right, though. He's squattin' behind the wheel bareheaded, with his ketchup tinted hair plastered back by the wind, them purple eyes shut to a squint, his under jaw stuck out, and a kind of half grin – if you could call it that – flickerin' on and off his thick lips. I don't wonder men shook their fists at us and women turned white and sick as we cleared 'em by the thickness of a sheet of paper. I expect we left a string of cuss words three blocks long.

I don't know how far we went, or where. It was all a nightmare to me, just a string of gasps and visions of what would be in the papers next day, after the coroner's jury got busy. But somehow we got through without any red on the tires, and pulls up in front of the Studio. I didn't jump out in a hurry, like I wanted to. I needed a minute to think, for it seemed to me something was due some one.

"Nice little plaything you've got here," says I. "And that was a great ride. But sittin' still so long has kind of cramped my legs. Don't feel like limberin' up a bit with the mitts, do you?"

"I'd just as soon," says Langdon.

I was tryin' not to look the way I felt; but when we'd sent Swifty down to sit in the machine, and I'd got Langdon peeled off and standin' on the mat, with the spring lock snapped between him and the outside door, it seemed too good to be true. I'd picked out an old set of gloves that had the hair worked away from the knuckles some, for I wa'n't plannin' on any push ball picnic this time.

Just to stir his fightin' blood, and partly so I could be sure I had a good grip on my own temper, I let him get in a few facers on me. Then I opens up with the side remarks I'd been thinkin' over.

"Say, Langy," says I, sidesteppin' one of his swings for my jaw, "s'posin' you'd hit some of them people, eh? S'posin' that car of yours had caught one of them old women – biff! – like that?" and I lets go a jolt that fetches him on the cheek bone.

"Ugh!" says Langdon, real surprised. But he shakes his head and comes back at me.

"Ever stop to think," says I, "how one of them kids would look after you'd got him – so?" and I shoots the left into that bull neck of his.

"S-s-s-say!" sputters Langdon. "What do you think you're doing, anyway?"

"Me?" says I. "I'm tryin' to get a few points on the bubble business. Is it more fun to smash 'em in the ribs – bang! – like that? Or to slug 'em in the head – biff! – so? That's right, son; come in for more. It's waitin'. There! Jarred your nut a bit, that one did, eh? Yes, here's the mate to it. There's plenty more on tap. Oh, never mind the nose claret. It'll wipe off. Keep your guard up. Careful, now! You're swingin' wide. And, as I was sayin' – there, you ran into that one – this bubble scorchin' must be great sport. When you don't – biff! – get 'em – biff! you can scare 'em to death, eh? Wabbly on your feet, are you? That's the stuff! Keep it up. That eye's all right. One's all you need to see with. Gosh! Now you've got a pair of 'em."

If it hadn't been for his comin' in so ugly and strong I never could have done it. I'd have weakened and let up on him long before he'd got half what was owin'. But he was bound to have it all, and there's no sayin' he wa'n't game about it. At the last I tried to tell him he'd had enough; but as long as he could keep on his pins he kept hopin' to get in just one on me; so I finally has to drop him with a stiff one behind the ear.

Course, if we'd had ring gloves on he'd looked like he'd been on the choppin' block; but with the pillows you can't get hurt bad. Inside of ten minutes I has him all washed off and up in a chair, lookin' not much worse than before, except for the eye swellin's. And what do you guess is the first thing he does?

"Say, McCabe," says he, shovin' out his paw, "you're all right, you are."

"So?" says I. "If I thought you was any judge that might carry weight."

"I know," says he. "Nobody likes me."

"Oh, well," says I, "I ain't rubbin' it in. I guess there's white spots in you, after all; even if you do keep 'em covered."

He pricks up his ears at that, and wants to know how and why. Almost before I knows it we've drifted into a heart to heart talk that a half hour before I would have said couldn't have happened. Langdon ain't turned cherub; but he's a whole lot milder, and he takes in what I've got to say as if it was a bulletin from headquarters.

"That's all so," says he. "But I've got to do something. Do you know what I'd like best?"

I couldn't guess.

"I'd like to be in the navy and handle one of those big thirteen-inch guns," says he.

"Why not, then?" says I.

"I don't know how to get in," says he. "I'd go in a minute, if I did."

"You're as good as there now, then," says I. "There's a recruitin' office around on Sixth-ave., not five blocks from here, and the Lieutenant's somethin' of a friend of mine. Is it a go?"

"It is," says Langdon.

Hanged if he didn't mean it too, and before he can change his mind we've had the papers all made out.

In the mornin' I 'phones Pembroke, and he comes around to lug me up while he breaks the news to maw; for he says she'll need a lot of calmin' down. I was lookin' for nothin' less than cat fits, too. But say, she don't even turn on the sprayer.

"The navy!" says she. "Why, how sweet! Oh, I'm so glad! Won't Langdon make a lovely officer?"

I don't know how it's goin' to work out; but there's one sure thing: it'll be some time before Langdon'll be pestered any more by the traffic cops.

And, now that the state room's engaged, you ought to see how well Pembroke is standin' the blow.

XV
SHORTY'S GO WITH ART

When me and art gets into the ring together, you might as well burn the form sheet and slip the band back on your bettin' roll, for there's no tellin' who'll take the count.

It was Cornelia Ann that got me closer to art than I'd ever been before, or am like to get again. Now, I didn't hunt her up, nor she didn't come gunnin' for me. It was a case of runnin' down signals and collidin' on the stair landin'; me makin' a grand rush out of the Studio for a cross town car, and she just gettin' her wind 'fore she tackled the next flight.

Not that I hit her so hard; but it was enough to spill the paper bundles she has piled up on one arm, and start 'em bouncin' down the iron steps. First comes a loaf of bread; next a bottle of pickles, that goes to the bad the third hop; and exhibit C was one of these ten-cent dishes of baked beans – the pale kind, that look like they'd floated in with the tide. Course, that dinky tin pan they was in don't land flat. It slips out of the bag as slick as if it was greased, stands up on edge, and rolls all the way down, distributin' the mess from top to bottom, as even as if it was laid on with a brush.

"My luncheon!" says she, in a reg'lar me-che-e-ild voice.

"Lunch!" says I. "That's what I'd call a spread. This one's on the house, but the next one will be on me. Will to-morrow do?"

"Ye-es," says she.

"Sorry," says I, "but I'm runnin' behind sched. now. What's the name, miss?"

"C. A. Belter, top floor," says she; "but don't mind about – "

"That'll be all right, too," says I, skippin' down over the broken glass and puntin' the five-cent white through the door for a goal.

It's little things like that, though, that keeps a man from forgettin' how he was brought up. I'm ready enough with some cheap jolly, but when it comes to throwin' in a "beg pardon" at the right place I'm a late comer. I thinks of 'em sometime next day.

Course, I tries to get even by orderin' a four-pound steak, with mushroom trimmin's, sent around from the hotel on the corner; but I couldn't get over thinkin' how disappointed she looked when she saw that pan of beans doin' the pinwheel act. I know I've seen the time when a plate of pork-and in my fist would have been worth all the turkey futures you could stack in a barn, and maybe it was that way with her.

Anyway, she didn't die of it, for a couple of days later she knocks easy on the Studio door and gets her head in far enough to say how nice it was of me to send her that lovely steak.

"Forget it," says I.

"Never," says she. "I'm going to do a bas relief of you, in memory of it."

"A barrel which?" says I.

Honest, I wa'n't within a mile of bein' next. It comes out that she does sculpturing and wants to make a kind of embossed picture of me in plaster of paris, like what the peddlers sell around on vacant stoops.

"I'd look fine on a panel, wouldn't I?" says I. "Much obliged, miss, but sittin' for my halftone is where I draws the line. I'll lend you Swifty Joe, though."

She ain't acquainted with the only registered assistant professor of physical culture in the country, but she says if he don't mind she'll try her hand on him first, and then maybe I'll let her do one of me. Now, you'd thought Swifty, with that before-takin' mug of his, would have hid in the cellar 'fore he'd let anybody make a cast of it; but when the proposition is sprung, he's as pleased as if it was for the front page of Fox's pink.

That was what fetched me up to that seven by nine joint of hers, next the roof, to have a look at what she'd done to Swifty Joe. He tows me up there. And say, blamed if she hadn't got him to the life, broken nose, ingrowin' forehead, whopper jaw, and all!

"How about it?" says Joe, grinnin' at me as proud as if he'd broke into the Fordham Heights Hall of Fame.

"I never see anything handsomer – of the kind," says I.

Then I got to askin' questions about the sculpturin' business, and how the market was; so Miss Belter and me gets more or less acquainted. She was a meek, slimpsy little thing, with big, hungry lookin' eyes, and a double hank of cinnamon coloured hair that I should have thought would have made her neck ache to carry around.

Judgin' by the outfit in her ranch, the sculp-game ain't one that brings in sable lined coats and such knickknacks. There was a bed couch in one corner, a single burner gas stove on an upended trunk in another, and chunks of clay all over the place. Light housekeepin' and art don't seem to mix very well. Maybe they're just as tasty, but I'd as soon have my eggs cooked in a fryin' pan that hadn't been used for a mortar bed.

We passed the time of day reg'lar after that, and now and then she'd drop into the front office to show me some piece she'd made. I finds out that the C. A. in her name stands for Cornelia Ann; so I drops the Miss Belter and calls her that.

"Father always calls me that, too," says she.

"Yes?" says I.

That leads up to the story of how the old folks out in Minnekeegan have been backin' her for a two years' stab at art in a big city. Seems it has been an awful drain on the fam'ly gold reserve, and none of 'em took any stock in such foolishness anyway, but she'd jollied 'em into lettin' her have a show to make good, and now the time was about up.

"Well," says I, "you ain't all in, are you?"

Her under lip starts to pucker up at that, and them hungry eyes gets foggy; but she takes a new grip on herself, makes a bluff at grinnin', and says, throaty like, "It's no use pretending any longer, I – I'm a failure!"

Say, that makes me feel like an ice cream sign in a blizzard. I hadn't been lookin' to dig up any private heart throbs like that. But there it was; so I starts in to cheer her up the best I knew how.

"Course," says I, "it's a line I couldn't shake a nickel out of in a year; but if it suited me, and I thought I was onto my job, I'd make it yield the coin, or go good and hungry tryin'."

"Perhaps I have gone hungry," says she, quiet like.

"Honest?" says I.

"That steak lasted me for a week," says she.

There was more particulars followed that throws Cornelia Ann on the screen in a new way for me. Grit! Why, she had enough to sand a tarred roof. She'd lived on ham knuckles and limed eggs and Swiss cheese for months. She'd turned her dresses inside out and upside down, lined her shoes with paper when it was wet, and wore a long sleeved shirt waist when there wa'n't another bein' used this side of the prairies. And you can judge what that means by watchin' the women size each other up in a street car.

"If they'd only given me half a chance to show what I could do!" says she. "But I didn't get the chance, and perhaps it was my fault. So what's the use? I'll just pack up and go back to Minnekeegan."

"Minnekeegan!" says I. "That sounds tough. What then?"

"Oh," says she, "my brother is foreman in a broom factory. He will get me a job at pasting labels."

"Say," says I, gettin' a quick rush of blood to the head, "s'posen I should contract for a full length of Swifty Joe to hang here in – "

"No you don't!" says she, edgin' off. "It's good of you, but charity work isn't what I want."

Say, it wa'n't any of my funeral, but that broom fact'ry proposition stayed with me quite some time. The thoughts of anyone havin' to go back to a place with a name like Minnekeegan was bilious enough; but for a girl that had laid out to give Macmonnies a run for the gold medal, the label pastin' prospect must have loomed up like a bad dream.

There's one good thing about other folks's troubles though – they're easy put on the shelf. Soon's I gets to work I forgets all about Cornelia Ann. I has to run out to Rockywold that afternoon, to put Mr. Purdy Pell through his reg'lar course of stunts that he's been takin' since some one told him he was gettin' to be a forty-fat. There was a whole bunch of swells on hand; for it's gettin' so, now they can go and come in their own tourin' cars, that winter house parties are just as common as in summer.

"Thank heaven you've come!" says Mr. Pell. "It gives me a chance to get away from cards for an hour or so."

"Guess you need it," says I. "You look like the trey of spades."

Then Pinckney shows up in the gym., and he no sooner sees us at work with the basket ball than he begins to peel off. "I say there!" says he. "Count me in on some of that, or I'll be pulled into another rubber."

About an hour later, after they'd jollied me into stayin' all night, I puts on a sweater and starts out for some hoof exercise in the young blizzard that was makin' things white outside. Sadie holds me up at the door. Her cheeks was blazin', and I could see she was holdin' the Sullivan temper down with both hands.

"Hello!" says I. "What's been stirrin' you up?"

"Bridge!" snaps she. "I guess if you'd been glared at for two hours, and called stupid when you lost, and worse names when you won, you'd feel like throwing the cards at some one."

"Well, why didn't you?" says I.

"I did," says she, "and there's an awful row on; but I don't care! And if you don't stop that grinnin', I'll – "

Well, she does it. That's the way with Sadie, words is always too slow for her. Inside of a minute she's out chasin' me around the front yard and peltin' me with snow balls.

"See here," says I, diggin' a hunk of snow out of one ear, "that kind of sport's all to the merry; but if I was you I'd dress for the part. Snowballin' in slippers and silk stockin's and a lace dress is a pneumonia bid, even if you are such a warm one on top."

"Who's a red head?" says she. "You just wait a minute, Shorty McCabe, and I'll make you sorry for that!"

It wa'n't a minute, it was nearer fifteen; but when Sadie shows up again she's wearin' the slickest Canuck costume you ever see, all blanket stripes and red tassels, like a girl on a gift calendar.

"Whe-e-e!" says she, and the snow begins to fly in chunks. It was the damp, packy kind that used to make us go out and soak the tall hats when we was kids. And Sadie hasn't forgot how to lam 'em in, either. We was havin' it hot and lively, all over the lawn, when the first thing I knows out comes Mrs. Purdy Pell and Pinckney and a lot of others, to join in the muss. They'd dragged out a whole raft of toboggan outfits from the attic, and the minute they gets 'em on they begins to act as coltish as two-year-olds.