Object, Matrimony

Author of “The Hall of Mirth,” “The Curious Mr. Canfield,” Etc.

Women are all right—if yuh keep far enough away from them. It’s when yuh take down your rope and commence to widen your loop for one that trouble generally begins; or else when yuh get one, she runs on the rope and keeps yuh guessing other ways.

The time I was working for old Shooting-star Wilson, I sure got an object-lesson that I won’t forget in a week or two. We was living happy and content, and meaning harm to nobody that winter. It was the winter after Shooting-star had got his wad—ten thousand dollars—from the old country, and had blowed it all in on a house to give a Washington’s Birthday ball in. He sure done himself proud; and spent every blame cent on the house and dance. So the next day he told Ellis and me to roll our beds and move into the mansion—which same domicile we called the Hall of Mirth, for various reasons that would uh stood in court, all right.

It sure was a woozy proposition, for a real house. We got kinda accustomed to the red, white, and blue diamonds painted on the floors, and to the stars and stripes on the ceilings, and the red and green and blue chairs; but they sure got on our nerves at first.

Folks used to come miles to see that house, which I will say was worth the trip, all right. But, seeing it was built for a dance, it never did get so it fit us, like some shacks do. We’d pull the biggest plush chairs in the house up to the big fireplace in the back parlor, and shut all the sliding-doors, and roll us a cigarette apiece, and stick out our legs as far as nature’d allow, toward the fire. And even then we felt like we’d been shut into a razzle-dazzle hall somewheres, and the crowd had all gone off and left us; they were unmerciful big rooms.

Ellis and me used to make a sneak down to the old bunk-house once in awhile, and make a fire in the old stove, and snatch a little comfort. But it always hurt Shooting-star’s feelings; and besides, he was such an economical old cuss—in some ways. He said it ground him to have all that good money into a house, and then not get any good out of it. So we had to stick to the Hall of Mirth, whether we wanted to or not. But honest, them rooms was so big they echoed like thunder; and the walls and floors and ceilings was that gaudy we came near having to put on brown goggles. Even the books was all red and blue and green bindings. Shooting-star sure liked to have things match.

That winter all the kids in the country got to mixing things with measles and whooping-cough, and the like, so there wasn’t any dances or anything. Everybody stayed at home so they wouldn’t catch nothing, and then wondered where the dickens they’d caught it at. So times was dull, and there wasn’t nothing doing in the shape of amusement. One of us would ride into Bent Willow, once in a week or so, and glom all the papers and magazines we could. We’d just about finished the red and blue and green books—what hadn’t just about finished us, that is.

So one day I rode in and brought out a bundle uh magazines—the kind that’s thirty cents a year, or only twenty if yuh get up a club uh four. Yuh know the brand all right, I guess. They have stories told in shifts, and every shift saws off short just when you’re plumb wild with desire to know how he rescued the beautiful Lady Floribel from the up-stairs of the burning manor-house, with the staircase just commencing to crackle up good; or some such a lay as that. And there’s pages in it that tells yuh how to be beautiful, and others that hands out wisdom on the momentous question of what it’s polite for a girl to say to the gazabo she’s been dancing with, after he’s tromped on her toes and took a chunk out of her dress; should she say, “Don’t mention it,” or shall she bawl him out before the crowd the way she’d like to?

Ellis and I was playing pitch that night, and old Shooting-star had the bunch uh magazines, going through them methodical and serious. Shooting-star swallows everything he sees in print, like them writer sharps didn’t know enough to lie. And once in awhile he’d read a piece out to us. He went through the cooking page, licking his chops over the salads and truck, and wishing we wasn’t such a bone-headed bunch, so we could frame up some uh the things.

“A woman could sure do it,” he says, kinda thoughtful. “But it’s no use either uh you tackling this here coffee frappy; but I’ll gamble it’s out uh sight. There’s times,” he says, “when a woman is about the best investment a man can make.”

“If he don’t go and invest in ’em too heavy,” puts in Ellis.

Shooting-star didn’t say no more then. But pretty soon he read out a little short piece that they stuck in between the advertisements. It said:

A loveless life is a life barren of all joy, all contentment, all hope. Marriage broadens the life as nothing else can do; it rounds out character, makes for generosity and true sympathy. The man who is blessed with a true, loving helpmate need never fear the barren years of a lonely old age.

Or if them ain’t just the words, they’re mighty near it.

Shooting-star looks at us over his glasses. “Boys,” he says, “blamed if I don’t believe that’s about so! An old bach like me sure does live a kinda barren existence; and there ain’t enough joy in the life I’m leading to talk about. I believe the men that’s broke to work double has got all the best uh the deal. Anyway,” he says, pointed, “they can git something to eat besides sour-dough bread and fried bacon and stewed apricots. They git cake once in awhile; cake that’s fit to eat.”

Ellis kinda brustled up at that. He’d been doing the cooking that week, and he’d tackled a cake—a fruit-cake, with prunes in it for the fruit—and he’d been short uh lard, and had used bacon grease for short’ning, which give it a taste that didn’t harmonize none too well with the prunes. It was sure hot stuff; we fed some of it to an old pinto of Shooting-star’s that was a biscuit fiend; and the pinto turned his lip up till he couldn’t hardly see over it, and went around all day looking at us reproachful; it was giving him the double-cross, all right, to hand out such a mess for him to swallow. So Ellis took Shooting-star’s remark personal.

“Why don’t yuh get married, then?” he says. “Why don’t yuh cast your loop over that widow in Bent Willow? The chances is she savvies building a cake out uh nothing but bad flour and hope.”

That was a come-back at Shooting-star, who wasn’t a bit too liberal in buying stuff to cook with.

“I wouldn’t take er as a gift,” says Shooting-star. And he goes back to his magazine.

We played for awhile, and kinda forgot the subject, when the Old Man breaks out in a new spot.

“Boys,” he says, “listen to this once:

“A bright, loving, sensible young lady, with some means, would like to correspond with affectionate, honorable gentleman; one with some country property preferred. Must be sober, honest, and willing to make a good and loving husband. No trifler need answer this, or widower. Object, matrimony.

“L. A.”

He looked at us expectant, and waited for somebody to say something.

“Three,” said Ellis, looking at me.

“Pitch it,” said I; and he played the deuce uh spades.

Shooting-star grunted. “Anyway, I ain’t no trifler, and I ain’t a widower,” he said, like we’d been arguing the point with him, and had raised doubts of his being able to qualify.

“Which it’s a cinch you’ll wish yuh was,” remarked Ellis, without looking up.

“And I’m there with the goods when it comes to country property,” said Shooting-star, looking at us both kinda anxious. I seen him out uh the tail uh my eye.

“And you’re shore affectionate and honorable,” put in Ellis, sarcastic. Ellis hadn’t forgot the slur on his cake. “And you’re some sober—by spells.”

Shooting-star rose up and looked fighty. “There’s times, young feller, when punching would do yuh good,” he snarls, malignant.

“Yes, sir, punching would do yuh good; and if yuh don’t calm down and have some manners about yuh, it’s apt to happen. If you can lay your finger on a time when I was too full to walk straight, I’d sure admire to have yuh. She says sober, which means walking straight and being able to find the door. She don’t say I’ve got to be a darned pro’bitionist, does she? Hey? And I guess I could be some affectionate—if I had any call to be. And I ain’t no trifler. If I answered her ad I’d mean business. And I ain’t a widower. She’s bright, and lovin’, and sensible—and them brands sure look good to me. I’d sure love to have somebody in the house with sense!”

“Well,” grins Ellis, “go after it, old-timer. But while Bud and me mayn’t have much sense, yuh want to bear in mind that we’re sure bright and loving.”

“Loving!” snorts Shooting-star, and went to spelling out the ad again in a whisper.

Next morning Shooting-star saddled up and rode off to Bent Willow mysterious. He wasn’t gone long, and he didn’t bring nothing back—not even a jag; so Ellis and me frames it up between us that he’s up and wrote to that bright, loving, sensible young lady that’s hankering for a loving husband. Still, we don’t know nothing for sure, because Shooting-star gets plumb silent on the subject, and all the hints we throw out don’t bring results of any kind.

Ellis and me kinda worried over it, only we wouldn’t let on. But one thing looked bad, and that was, Shooting-star would set by the hour humped up in front uh the fireplace, reading over that advertisement, and kinda dreaming and letting his pipe go cold. And then he’d come alive and cast his eyes around that big razzle-dazzle room, and at the ten-by-twelve foot picture uh George Washington—only it looked like a Cree squaw with her hair braided down her back—on the wall, and he’d rub his knees and nod his head, like somebody had just passed out a bunch uh hot air about his good taste in fixing up a house. It all looked plumb dubious to Ellis and me.

Next deal Ellis brought out a letter for Shooting-star, and showed me where it was postmarked “Plumville, Illinois,” and was in a woman’s handwriting. “It’s from her, all right,” he says. “L. A.—Lonesome Ann. Shall I ditch it, for the good of old Shooting-star’s soul, Bud, or shall I hand it over and let ’er slide?”

Honest, I come blame near telling him to ditch it, and say nothing. But when yuh come to think uh the way they come down on yuh with both feet if yuh go monkeying with the mails, even the good of the Old Man wouldn’t hardly be worth playing the game out. So I told Ellis he better give up the letter, and not butt into no romance—if romance it was to be. Ellis took the letter in and handed it over to Shooting-star, and Shooting-star kinda breathed long and easy, and turned it over and over in his hands, like it assayed pure gold.

I nudged Ellis, and we went out into the kitchen and shut the door.

“So help me, Ellis!” I says, “if she does him up, or plays crooked, or ain’t straight goods, you watch me be righteous vengeance. He’s going to take the whole blame business serious.”