WESTERN STUFF
Saturday proved all that his black forebodings had pictured it—a day of sordid, harassing toil; toil, moreover, for which Gashwiler, the beneficiary, showed but the scantest appreciation. Indeed, the day opened with a disagreement between the forward-looking clerk and his hide-bound reactionary. Gashwiler had reached the store at his accustomed hour of 8:30 to find Merton embellishing the bulletin board in front with legends setting forth especial bargains of the day to be had within. Chalk in hand, he had neatly written, "See our new importation of taffetas, $2.59 the yard." Below this he was in the act of putting down, "Try our choice Honey-dew spinach, 20 cts. the can." "Try our Preferred Chipped Beef, 58 cts. the pound."
He was especially liking that use of "the." It sounded modern. Yet along came Gashwiler, as if seeking an early excuse to nag, and criticized this.
"Why don't you say 'a yard,' 'a can,' 'a pound'?" he demanded harshly. "What's the sense of that there 'the' stuff? Looks to me like just putting on a few airs. You keep to plain language and our patrons'll like it a lot better."
Viciously Merton Gill rubbed out the modern "the" and substituted the desired "a."
"Very well," he assented, "if you'd rather stick to the old-fashioned way; but I can tell you that's the way city stores do it. I thought you might want to be up to date, but I see I made a great mistake."
"Humph!" said Gashwiler, unbitten by this irony. "I guess the old way's good enough, long's our prices are always right. Don't forget to put on that canned salmon. I had that in stock for nearly a year now—and say it's twenty cents 'a' can, not 'the' can. Also say it's a grand reduction from thirty-five cents."
That was always the way. You never could please the old grouch. And so began the labour that lasted until nine that night. Merton must count out eggs and weigh butter that was brought in. He must do up sugar and grind coffee and measure dress goods and match silks; he must with the suavest gentility ask if there would not be something else to-day; and he must see that babies hazardously left on counters did not roll off.
He lived in a vortex of mental confusion, performing his tasks mechanically. When drawing a gallon of kerosene or refolding the shown dress goods, or at any task not requiring him to be genially talkative, he would be saying to Miss Augusta Blivens in far-off Hollywood, "Yes, my wife is more than a wife. She is my best pal, and, I may also add, my severest critic."
There was but one break in the dreary monotony, and that was when Lowell Hardy, Simsbury's highly artistic photographer, came in to leave an order for groceries. Lowell wore a soft hat with rakish brim, and affected low collars and flowing cravats, the artistic effect of these being heightened in his studio work by a purple velvet jacket. Even in Gashwiler's he stood out as an artist. Merton received his order, and noting that Gashwiler was beyond earshot bespoke his services for the following afternoon.
"Say, Lowell, be on the lot at two sharp to-morrow, will you? I want to shoot some Western stuff—some stills."
Merton thrilled as he used these highly technical phrases. He had not read his magazines for nothing.
Lowell Hardy considered, then consented. He believed that he, too, might some day be called to Hollywood after they had seen the sort of work he could turn out. He always finished his art studies of Merton with great care, and took pains to have the artist's signature entirely legible. "All right, Mert, I'll be there. I got some new patent paper I'll try out on these."
"On the lot at two sharp to shoot Western stuff," repeated Merton with relish.
"Right-o!" assented Lowell, and returned to more prosaic studio art.
The day wore itself to a glad end. The last exigent customer had gone, the curtains were up, the lights were out, and at five minutes past nine the released slave, meeting Tessie Kearns at her front door, escorted her with a high heart to the second show at the Bijou Palace. They debated staying out until after the wretched comedy had been run, but later agreed that they should see this, as Tessie keenly wished to know why people laughed at such things. The antics of the painfully cross-eyed man distressed them both, though the mental inferiors by whom they were surrounded laughed noisily. Merton wondered how any producer could bring himself to debase so great an art, and Tessie wondered if she hadn't, in a way, been aiming over the public's head with her scenarios. After all, you had to give the public what it wanted. She began to devise comedy elements for her next drama.
But The Hazards of Hortense came mercifully to soothe their annoyance. The slim little girl with a wistful smile underwent a rich variety of hazards, each threatening a terrible death. Through them all she came unscathed, leaving behind her a trail of infuriated scoundrels whom she had thwarted. She escaped from an underworld den in a Chicago slum just in the nick of time, cleverly concealing herself in the branches of the great eucalyptus tree that grew hard by, while her maddened pursuers scattered in their search for the prize. Again she was captured, this time to be conveyed by aëroplane, a helpless prisoner and subject to the most fiendish insults by Black Steve, to the frozen North. But in the far Alaskan wilds she eluded the fiends and drove swiftly over the frozen wastes with their only dog team.
Having left her pursuers far behind, she decided to rest for the night in a deserted cabin along the way. Here a blizzard drove snow through the chinks between the logs, and a pack of fierce wolves besieged her. She tried to bar the door, but the bar was gone. At that moment she heard a call. Could it be Black Steve again? No, thank heaven! The door was pushed open and there stood Ralph Murdock, her fiancé. There was a quick embrace and words of cheer from Ralph. They must go on.
But no, the wind cut like a knife, and the wolves still prowled. The film here showed a running insert of cruel wolves exposing all their fangs. Ralph had lost his rifle. He went now to put his arm through the iron loops in place of the missing bar. The wolves sought to push open the door, but Ralph's arm foiled them.
Then the outside of the cabin was shown, with Black Steve and his three ugly companions furtively approaching. The wolves had gone, but human wolves, ten thousand times more cruel, had come in their place. Back in the cabin Ralph and Hortense discovered that the wolves had gone. It had an ugly look. Why should the wolves go? Ralph opened the door and they both peered out. There in the shadow of a eucalyptus tree stood Black Steve and his dastardly crew. They were about to storm the cabin. All was undoubtedly lost.
Not until the following week would the world learn how Hortense and her manly fiancé had escaped this trap. Again had Beulah Baxter striven and suffered to give the public something better and finer.
"A wonder girl," declared Merton when they were again in the open. "That's what I call her—a wonder girl. And she owes it all to hard, unceasing struggle and work and pains and being careful. You ought to read that new interview with her in this month's Silver Screenings."
"Yes, yes, she's wonderful," assented Tessie as they strolled to the door of her shop. "But I've been thinking about comedy. You know my new one I'm writing—of course it's a big, vital theme, all about a heartless wife with her mind wholly on society and bridge clubs and dancing and that sort of dissipation, and her husband is Hubert Glendenning, a studious young lawyer who doesn't like to go out evenings but would rather play with the kiddies a bit after their mother has gone to a party, or read over some legal documents in the library, which is very beautifully furnished; and her old school friend, Corona Bartlett, comes to stay at the house, a very voluptuous type, high coloured, with black hair and lots of turquoise jewellery, and she's a bad woman through and through, and been divorced and everything by a man whose heart she broke, and she's become a mere adventuress with a secret vice—she takes perfume in her tea, like I saw that one did—and all her evil instincts are aroused at once by Hubert, who doesn't really care deeply for her, as she has only a surface appeal of mere sensuous beauty; but he sees that his wife is neglecting him and having an affair with an Italian count—I found such a good name for him, Count Ravioli—and staying out with him until all hours; so in a moment of weakness he gives himself to Corona Bartlett, and then sees that he must break up his home and get a divorce and marry Corona to make an honest woman of her; but of course his wife is brought to her senses, so she sees that she has been in the wrong and has a big scene with Corona in which she scorns her and Corona slinks away, and she forgives Hubert his one false step because it was her fault. It's full of big situations, but what I'm wondering—I'm wondering if I couldn't risk some comedy in it by having the faithful old butler a cross-eyed man. Nothing so outrageous as that creature we just saw, but still noticeably cross-eyed. Do you think it would lighten some of the grimmer scenes, perhaps, and wouldn't it be good pathos to have the butler aware of his infirmity and knowing the greatest surgeons in the world can't help him?"
"Well," Merton considered, "if I were you I shouldn't chance it. It would be mere acrobatic humour. And why do you want any one to be funny when you have a big gripping thing of love and hate like that? I don't believe I'd have him cross-eyed. I'd have him elderly and simple and dignified. And you don't want your audience to laugh, do you, when he holds up both hands to show how shocked he is at the way things are going on in that house?"
"Well, maybe I won't then. It was just a thought. I believe you have the right instinct in those matters, Merton. I'll leave him as he is."
"Good-night, then," said Merton. "I got to be on the lot to-morrow. My camera man's coming at two. Shooting some Western stuff."
"Oh, my! Really?"
Tessie gazed after him admiringly. He let himself into the dark store, so lately the scene of his torment, and on the way to his little room stopped to reach under the grocery counter for those hidden savings. To-night he would add to them the fifteen dollars lavished upon him by Gashwiler at the close of a week's toil. The money was in a tobacco pouch. He lighted the lamp on his table, placed the three new bills beside it and drew out the hoard. He would count it to confirm his memory of the grand total.
The bills were frayed, lacking the fresh green of new ones; weary looking, with an air of being glad to rest at last after much passing from hand to hand as symbols of wealth. Their exalted present owner tenderly smoothed out several that had become crumpled, secured them in a neat pile, adding the three recently acquired five-dollar bills, and proceeded to count, moistening the ends of a thumb and finger in defiance of the best sanitary teaching. It was no time to think of malignant bacteria.
By his remembered count he should now be possessed of two hundred and twelve dollars. And there was the two-dollar bill, a limp, gray thing, abraded almost beyond identification. He placed this down first, knowing that the remaining bills should amount to two hundred and ten dollars. Slowly he counted, to finish with a look of blank, hesitating wonder. He made another count, hastily, but taking greater care. The wonder grew. Again he counted, slowly this time, so that there could be no doubt. And now he knew! He possessed thirty-three dollars more than he had thought. Knowing this was right, he counted again for the luxury of it. Two hundred and forty-five obvious dollars!
How had he lost count? He tried to recall. He could remember taking out the money he had paid Lowell Hardy for the last batch of Clifford Armytage stills—for Lowell, although making professional rates to Merton, still believed the artist to be worth his hire—and he could remember taking some more out to send to the mail-order house in Chicago for the cowboy things; but it was plain that he had twice, at least, crowded a week's salary into the pouch and forgotten it.
It was a pleasurable experience; it was like finding thirty-three dollars. And he was by that much nearer to his goal; that much sooner would he be released from bondage; thirty-three dollars sooner could he look Gashwiler in the eye and say what he thought of him and his emporium. In his nightly prayer he did not neglect to render thanks for this.
He dressed the next morning with a new elation. He must be more careful about keeping tab on his money, but also it was wonderful to find more than you expected. He left the storeroom that reeked of kerosene and passed into the emporium to replace his treasure in its hiding place. The big room was dusky behind the drawn front curtains, but all the smells were there—the smell of ground coffee and spices at the grocery counter; farther on, the smothering smell of prints and woolens and new leather.
The dummies, waiting down by the door to be put outside, regarded each other in blank solemnity. A few big flies droned lazily about their still forms. Merton eyed the dusty floor, the gleaming counters, the curtains that shielded the shelves, with a new disdain. Sooner than he had thought he would bid them a last farewell. And to-day, at least, he was free of them—free to be on the lot at two, to shoot Western stuff. Let to-morrow, with its old round of degrading tasks, take care of itself.
At 10:30 he was in church. He was not as attentive to the sermon as he should have been, for it now occurred to him that he had no stills of himself in the garb of a clergyman. This was worth considering, because he was not going to be one of those one-part actors. He would have a wide range of roles. He would be able to play anything. He wondered how the Rev. Otto Carmichael would take the request for a brief loan of one of his pulpit suits. Perhaps he was not so old as he looked; perhaps he might remember that he, too, had once been young and fired with high ideals. It would be worth trying. And the things could be returned after a brief studio session with Lowell Hardy.
He saw himself cast in such a part, the handsome young clergyman, exponent of a muscular Christianity. He comes to the toughest cattle town in all the great Southwest, determined to make honest men and good women of its sinning derelicts. He wins the hearts of these rugged but misguided souls. Though at first they treat him rough, they learn to respect him, and they call him the fighting parson. Eventually he wins the hand in marriage of the youngest of the dance-hall denizens, a sweet young girl who despite her evil surroundings has remained as pure and good as she is beautiful.
Anyway, if he had those clothes for an hour or two while the artist made a few studies of him he would have something else to show directors in search of fresh talent.
After church he ate a lonely meal served by Metta Judson at the Gashwiler residence. The Gashwilers were on their accustomed Sabbath visit to the distant farm of Mrs. Gashwiler's father. But as he ate he became conscious that the Gashwiler influence was not wholly withdrawn. From above the mantel he was sternly regarded by a tinted enlargement of his employer's face entitled Photographic Study by Lowell Hardy. Lowell never took photographs merely, He made photographic studies, and the specimen at hand was one of his most daring efforts. Merton glared at it in free hostility—a clod, with ideals as false as the artist's pink on his leathery cheeks! He hurried his meal, glad to be relieved from the inimical scrutiny.
He was glad to be free from this and from the determined recital by Metta Judson of small-town happenings. What cared he that Gus Giddings had been fined ten dollars and costs by Squire Belcher for his low escapade, or that Gus's father had sworn to lick him within an inch of his We if he ever ketched him touching stimmilints again?
He went to the barn, climbed to the hayloft, and undid the bundle containing his Buck Benson outfit. This was fresh from the mail-order house in Chicago. He took out almost reverently a pair of high-heeled boots with purple tops, a pair of spurs, a gay shirt, a gayer neckerchief, a broad-brimmed hat, a leather holster, and—most impressive of all—a pair of goatskin chaps dyed a violent maroon. All these he excitedly donned, the spurs last. Then he clambered down the ladder from the loft, somewhat impeded by the spurs, and went into the kitchen. Metta Judson, washing dishes, gave a little cry of alarm. Nothing like this had ever before invaded the Gashwiler home by front door or back.
"Why, Mert' Gill, whatever you dressed up like that for? My stars, you look like a cowboy or something! Well, I must say!"
"Say, Metta, do me a favour. I want to see how these things look in a glass. It's a cowboy outfit for when I play regular Buck Benson parts, and everything's got to be just so or the audience writes to the magazines about it and makes fun of you."
"Go ahead," said Metta. "You can git a fine look at yourself in the tall glass in the old lady's bedroom."
Forthwith he went, profaning a sanctuary, to survey himself in a glass that had never reflected anything but the discreet arraying of his employer's lady. He looked long and earnestly. The effect was quite all he had hoped. He lowered the front of the broad-brimmed hat the least bit, tightened his belt another notch and moved the holster to a better line. He looked again. From feet to head he was perfect.
Then, slightly crouching, he drew his revolver from the holster and held it forward from the hip, wrist and forearm rigidly straight.
"Throw up your hands!"
He uttered the grim words in a low tone, but one facing him would not have been deceived by low tones. Steely-eyed, grim of face, relentless in all his bearing, the most desperate adversary would have quailed. Probably even Gashwiler himself would have quailed. When Buck Benson looked and spoke thus he meant it.
He held it a long, breathless moment before relaxing. Then he tiptoed softly from the hallowed confines of a good woman's boudoir and clattered down the back stairs to the kitchen. He was thinking: "I certainly got to get me another gun if I'm ever going to do Two-Gun Benson parts, and I got to get the draw down better. I ain't quick enough yet."
"Well, did you like your rig?" inquired Metta genially.
"Oh, it'll do for the stills we're shooting to-day," replied the actor. "Of course I ought to have a rattlesnake-skin band on my hat, and the things look too new yet. And say, Metta, where's the clothesline? I want to practise roping a little before my camera man gets here."
"My stars! You're certainly goin' to be a real one, ain't you?"
She brought him the clothesline, in use only on Mondays. He re-coiled it carefully and made a running noose in one end.
At two Lowell Hardy found his subject casting the rope at an inattentive Dexter. The old horse stood in the yard, head down, one foot crossed nonchalantly before the other. A slight tremor, a nervous flickering of his skin, was all that ensued when the rope grazed him. When it merely fell in his general neighbourhood, as it oftener did, Dexter did not even glance up.
"Good stuff!" applauded the artist. "Now just stand that way, holding the noose out. I want to make a study of that."
He rapidly mounted his camera on a tripod and put in a plate. The study was made. Followed several studies of the fighting face of Two-Gun Benson, grim and rigid, about to shoot from the hip. But these were minor bits. More important would be Buck Benson and his old pal, Pinto.
From the barn Merton dragged the saddle, blanket, and bridle he had borrowed from the Giddings House livery stable. He had never saddled a horse before, but he had not studied in vain. He seized Dexter by a wisp of his surviving mane and simultaneously planted a hearty kick in the beast's side, with a command, "Get around there, you old skate!" Dexter sighed miserably and got around as ordered. He was both pained and astonished. He knew that this was Sunday. Never had he been forced to work on this day. But he meekly suffered the protrusion of a bit between his yellow teeth, and shuddered but slightly when a blanket and then a heavy saddle were flung across his back. True, he looked up in some dismay when the girth was tightened. Not once in all his years had he been saddled. He was used to having things loose around his waist.
The girth went still tighter. Dexter glanced about with genuine concern. Someone was intending to harm him. He curved his swanlike neck and snapped savagely at the shoulder of his aggressor, who kicked him again in the side and yelled, "Whoa, there, dang you!"
Dexter subsided. He saw it was no use. Whatever queer thing they meant to do to him would be done despite all his resistance. Still his alarm had caused him to hold up his head now. He was looking much more like a horse.
"There!" said Merton Gill, and as a finishing touch he lashed the coiled clothesline to the front of the saddle.
"Now, here! Get me this way. This is one of the best things I do—that is, so far." Fondly he twined his arms about the long, thin neck of Dexter, who tossed his head and knocked off the cowboy hat. "Never mind that—it's out," said Merton. "Can't use it in this scene." He laid his cheek to the cheek of his pet. "Well, old pal, they're takin' yuh from me, but we got to keep a stiff upper lip. You an' me has been through some purty lively times together, but we got to face the music at last—there, Lowell, did you get that?"
The artist had made his study. He made three others of the same affecting scene at different angles. Dexter was overwhelmed with endearments. Doubtless he was puzzled—to be kicked in the ribs at one moment, the next to be fondled. But Lowell Hardy was enthusiastic. He said he would have some corking studies. He made another of Buck Benson preparing to mount good old Pinto; though, as a matter of fact, Buck, it appeared, was not even half prepared to mount.
"Go on, jump on him now," suggested the artist. "I'll get a few more that way."
"Well, I don't know," Merton hesitated. He was twenty- two years old, and he had never yet been aboard a horse. Perhaps he shouldn't try to go too far in one lesson. "You see, the old boy's pretty tired from his week's work. Maybe I better not mount him. Say, I'll tell you, take me rolling a cigarette, just standing by him. I darned near forgot the cigarettes."
From the barn he brought a sack of tobacco and some brown papers. He had no intention of smoking, but this kind of cigarette was too completely identified with Buck Benson to be left out. Lolling against the side of Dexter, he poured tobacco from the sack into one of the papers.
"Get me this way," he directed, "just pouring it out."
He had not yet learned to roll a cigarette, but Gus Giddings, the Simsbury outlaw, had promised to teach him. Anyway, it was enough now to be looking keenly out from under his hat while he poured tobacco into the creased paper against the background of good old Pinto. An art study of this pose was completed. But Lowell Hardy craved more action, more variety.
"Go on. Get up on him," he urged. "I want to make a study of that."
"Well—"again Merton faltered—"the old skate's tired out from a hard week, and I'm not feeling any too lively myself."
"Shucks! It won't kill him if you get on his back for a minute, will it? And you'll want one on him to show, won't you? Hurry up, while the light's right."
Yes, he would need a mounted study to show. Many times he had enacted a scene in which a director had looked over the art studies of Clifford Armytage and handed them back with the remark, "But you seem to play only society parts, Mr. Armytage. All very interesting, and I've no doubt we can place you very soon; but just at present we're needing a lead for a Western, a man who can look the part and ride."
Thereupon he handed these Buck Benson stills to the man, whose face would instantly relax into an expression of pleased surprise.
"The very thing," he would say. And among those stills, certainly, should be one of Clifford Armytage actually on the back of his horse. He'd chance it.
"All right; just a minute."
He clutched the bridle reins of Dexter under his drooping chin, and overcoming a feeble resistance dragged him alongside the watering trough. Dexter at first thought he was wished to drink, but a kick took that nonsense out of him. With extreme care Merton stood upon the edge of the trough and thrust a leg blindly over the saddle. With some determined clambering he was at last seated. His feet were in the stirrups. There was a strange light in his eyes. There was a strange light in Dexter's eyes. To each of them the experience was not only without precedent but rather unpleasant.
"Ride him out in the middle here, away from that well," directed the camera man.
"You—you better lead him out," suggested the rider. "I can feel him tremble already. He—he might break down under me."
Metta Judson, from the back porch, here came into the piece with lines that the author had assuredly not written for her.
"Giddap, there, you Dexter Gashwiler," called Metta loudly and with the best intentions.
"You keep still," commanded the rider severely, not turning his head. What a long way it seemed to the ground! He had never dreamed that horses were so lofty. "Better lead him," he repeated to his camera man.
Lowell Hardy grasped the bridle reins, and after many vain efforts persuaded Dexter to stumble away from the well. His rider grasped the horn of his saddle.
"Look out, don't let him buck," he called.
But Dexter had again become motionless, except for a recurrent trembling under this monstrous infliction.
"Now, there," began the artist. "Hold that. You're looking off over the Western hills. Atta boy! Wait till I get a side view."
"Move your camera," said the rider. "Seems to me he doesn't want to turn around."
But again the artist turned Dexter half around. That wasn't so bad. Merton began to feel the thrill of it. He even lounged in the saddle presently, one leg over the pommel, and seemed about to roll another cigarette while another art study was made. He continued to lounge there while the artist packed his camera. What had he been afraid of? He could sit a horse as well as the next man; probably a few little tricks about it he hadn't learned yet, but he'd get these, too.
"I bet they'll come out fine," he called to the departing artist.
"Leave that to me. I dare say I'll be able to do something good with them. So long."
"So long," returned Merton, and was left alone on the back of a horse higher than people would think until they got on him. Indeed he was beginning to like it. If you just had a little nerve you needn't be afraid of anything. Very carefully he clambered from the saddle. His old pal shook himself with relief and stood once more with bowed head and crossed forelegs.
His late burden observed him approvingly. There was good old Pinto after a hard day's run over the mesa. He had borne his beloved owner far ahead of the sheriff's posse, and was now securing a moment's much-needed rest. Merton undid the riata and for half an hour practised casting it at his immobile pet. Once the noose settled unerringly over the head of Dexter, who still remained immobile.
Then there was the lightning draw to be practised. Again and again the trusty weapon of Buck Benson flashed from its holster to the damage of a slower adversary. He was getting that draw down pretty good. From the hip with straight wrist and forearm Buck was ready to shoot in no time at all. Throughout that villain-infested terrain along the border he was known for his quick draw. The most desperate of them would never molest him except they could shoot him from behind. With his back to a wall, they slunk from the encounter.
Elated from this practice and from the memory of that one successful rope cast, Merton became daring in the extreme. He considered nothing less than remounting his old pal and riding, in the cool of early evening, up and down the alley upon which the barnyard gave. He coiled the rope and again lashed it to the left front of the saddle. Then he curved an affectionate arm over the arched neck of Pinto, who sighed deeply.
"Well, old pal, you and me has still got some mighty long miles to git over between now and sunup to-morrow. I reckon we got to put a right smart of distance between us and that pesky sheriff's posse, but I know yuh ain't lost heart, old pal."
Dexter here tossed his head, being cloyed with these embraces, and Two-Gun Benson caught a look in the desperate eyes of his pet which he did not wholly like. Perhaps it would be better not to ride him any more to-day. Perhaps it would be better not to ride him again until next Sunday. After all, wasn't Dexter practically a wild horse, caught up from the range and broken to saddle only that afternoon? No use overdoing it. At this moment the beast's back looked higher than ever.
It was the cutting remark of a thoughtless, empty-headed girl that confirmed Merton in his rash resolve. Metta Judson, again on the back steps, surveyed the scene with kindling eyes.
"I bet you daresn't get on him again," said Metta.
These were strong words; not words to be flung lightly at Two-Gun Benson.
"You know a lot about it, don't you?" parried Merton Gill.
"Afraid of that old skate!" murmured Metta, counterfeiting the inflections of pity.
Her target shot her a glance of equal pity for her lack of understanding and empty-headed banter. He stalked to the barnyard gate and opened it. The way to his haven over the border was no longer barred. He returned to Dexter, firmly grasped the bridle reins under his weak chin and cajoled him again to the watering trough. Metta Judson was about to be overwhelmed with confusion. From the edge of the trough he again clambered into the saddle, the new boots groping a way to the stirrups. The reins in his left hand, he swept off his ideal hat with a careless gesture—he wished he had had an art study made of this, but you can't think of everything at one time. He turned loftily to Metta as one who had not even heard her tasteless taunts.
"Well, so long! I won't be out late."
Metta was now convinced that she had in her heart done this hero a wrong.
"You better be here before the folks get back!" she warned.
Merton knew this as well as she did, but the folks wouldn't be back for a couple of hours yet, and all he meant to venture was a ride at sober pace the length of the alley.
"Oh, I'll take care of that!" he said. "A few miles' stiff gallop'll be all I want." He jerked Dexter's head up, snapped the reins on his neck, and addressed him in genial, comradely but authoritative tones.
"Git up there, old hoss!"
Dexter lowered his head again and remained as if posing conscientiously for the statue of a tired horse.
"Giddap, there, you old skate!" again ordered the rider. The comradely unction was gone from his voice and the bony neck received a smarter wallop with the reins. Dexter stood unmoved. He seemed to be fearing that the worst was now coming, and that he might as well face it on that spot as elsewhere. He remained deaf to threats and entreaties alike. No hoof moved from its resting place.
"Giddap, there, you old Dexter Gashwiler!" ordered Metta, and was not rebuked. But neither would Dexter yield to a woman's whim.
"I'll tell you!" said Merton, now contemptuous of his mount. "Get the buggy whip and tickle his ribs."
Metta sped on his errand, her eyes shining with the lust for torture. With the frayed end of the whip from the delivery wagon she lightly scored the exposed ribs of Dexter, tormenting him with devilish cunning. Dexter's hide shuttled back and forth. He whinnied protestingly, but did not stir even one hoof.
"That's the idea," said Merton, feeling scornfully secure on the back of this spiritless animal. "Keep it up! I can feel him coming to life."
Metta kept it up. Her woman's ingenuity contrived new little tricks with the instrument of torture. She would doubtless have had a responsible post with the Spanish Inquisition. Face set, absorbed in her evil work, she tickled the ribs crosswise and tickled between them, up and down, always with the artist's light touch.
Dexter's frame grew tense, his head came up. Once more he looked like a horse. He had been brave to face destruction, but he found himself unable to face being tickled to death. If only they had chosen some other method for his execution he would have perished gamely, but this was exquisitely poignant beyond endurance. He tossed his head and stepped into a trot toward the open gate.
Metta yelled in triumph. The rider tossed his own head in rhythm to Dexter's trot. His whole body tossed in the saddle; it was a fearsome pace; the sensations were like nothing he had ever dreamed of. And he was so high above the good firm ground! Dexter continued his jolting progress to the applause of Metta. The rider tried to command Metta to keep still, and merely bit his tongue.
Stirred to life by the tickling, Dexter now became more acutely aware of that strange, restless burden on his back, and was inspired to free himself from it. He increased his pace as he came to the gate, and managed a backward kick with both heels. This lost the rider his stirrups and left him less securely seated than he wished to be. He dropped the reins and grasped the saddle's pommel with both hands.
He strangely seemed to consider the pommel the steering wheel of a motor car. He seemed to be twisting it with the notion of guiding Dexter. All might have been well, but on losing his stirrups the rider had firmly clasped his legs about the waist of the animal. Again and again he tightened them, and now Dexter not only looked every inch a horse but very painfully to his rider felt like one, for the spurs were goring him to a most seditious behaviour. The mere pace was slackened only that he might alarmingly kick and shake himself in a manner as terrifying to the rider as it was unseemly in one of Dexter's years.
But the thing was inevitable, because once in his remote, hot youth Dexter, cavorting innocently in an orchard, had kicked over a hive of busy bees which had been attending strictly to their own affairs until that moment. After that they had attended to Dexter with a thoroughness that had seared itself to this day across his memory. He now sincerely believed that he had overturned another hive of bees, and that not but by the most strenuous exertion could he escape from their harrying. They were stinging him venomously along his sides, biting deeper with every jump. At last he would bear his rider safely over the border.
The rider clasped his mount ever more tightly. The deep dust of the alley road mounted high over the spirited scene, and through it came not only the hearty delight of Metta Judson in peals of womanly laughter, but the shrill cries of the three Ransom children whom Merton had not before noticed. These were Calvin Ransom, aged eight; Elsie Ransom, aged six; and little Woodrow Ransom, aged four. Their mother had lain down with a headache, having first ordered them to take their picture books and sit quietly in the parlour as good children should on a Sabbath afternoon. So they had noisily pretended to obtain the picture books and then quietly tiptoed out into the backyard, which was not so stuffy as the parlour.
Detecting the meritorious doings in the Gashwiler barnyard, they perched in a row on the alley fence and had been excited spectators from the moment that Merton had mounted his horse.
In shrill but friendly voices they had piped, "Oh, Merton Gill's a cowboy, Merton Gill's a cowboy! Oh, looka the cowboy on the big horse!"
For of course they were motion-picture experts and would know a cowboy when they saw one. Wide-eyed, they followed the perilous antics of Dexter as he issued from the alley gate, and they screamed with childish delight when the spurs had recalled to his memory that far-off dreadful day with the busy bees. They now balanced precariously on the alley fence, the better to trace Merton's flight through the dust cloud.
"Merton's in a runaway, Merton's in a runaway, Merton's in a runaway!" they shrieked, but with none of the sympathy that would have become them. They appeared to rejoice in Merton's plight. "Merton's in a runaway," they joyously chanted.
Suddenly they ceased, frozen with a new and splendid wonder, for their descriptive phrase was now inexact. Merton was no longer in a runaway. But only for a moment did they hesitate before taking up the new chant.
"Looky, looky. He's throwed Merton right off into the dirt. He's throwed Merton right off into the dirt. Oh, looky Merton Gill right down there in the dirt!"
Again they had become exact. Merton was right down there in the dirt, and a frantic, flashing-heeled Dexter was vanishing up the alley at the head of a cloud of dust. The friendly Ransom tots leaped from the fence to the alley, forgetting on her bed of pain the mother who supposed them to be engrossed with picture books in the library. With one accord they ran toward the prostrate horseman, Calvin ahead and Elsie a close second, holding the hand of little Woodrow.
They were presently able to observe that the fleeing Dexter had narrowly escaped running down a motor car inopportunely turning at that moment into the alley. The gallant animal swerved in time, leaving the car's driver and his wife aghast at their slight margin of safety. Dexter vanished to the right up shaded Spruce Street on a Sabbath evening as the first call to evening worship pealed from a neighbouring church tower.
His late rider had erected himself and was beating dust from the new chaps and the front of the new shirt. He picked up the ideal hat and dusted that. Underneath all the flurry of this adventure he was still the artist. He had been set afoot in the desert by a treacherous horse; he must find a water hole or perish with thirst. He replaced the hat, and it was then he observed the motor car bearing down the alley upon him.
"My good gosh!" he muttered.
The Gashwilers had returned a full two hours before their accustomed time. The car halted beside him and his employer leaned out a warmly hostile face.
"What's this mean?" he demanded.
The time was not one to tell Gashwiler what he thought of him. Not only was there a lady present, but he felt himself at a disadvantage. The lady saved him from an instant necessity for words.
"That was our new clothesline; I recognized it at once." The woman seemed to pride herself on this paltry feat.
"What's this mean?" again demanded Gashwiler. He was now a man of one idea.
Again was Merton Gill saved from the need of instant speech, though not in a way he would have chosen to be saved. The three Ransom children ran up, breathless, shouting.
"Oh, Merton, here's your pistol. I found it right in the road there." "We found your pistol right in the dirt there. I saw it first." "You did not; I saw it first. Merton, will you let me shoot it off, Merton? I found your pistol, didn't I, Merton? Didn't I find it right in the road there?" The friendly tots did little step dances while they were thus vocal.
"Be quiet, children," commanded Merton, finding a voice. But they were not to be quelled by mere tones.
"He throwed Merton right off into the dirt, didn't he, Merton? Merton, didn't he throw you right off into the dirt, Merton? Did he hurt you, Merton?" "Merton, will you lemme shoot it off just once—just once, and I'll never ask again?" "He didn't either find it first, Merton." "He throwed you off right into the dirt—didn't he throw you right off into the dirt, Merton?"
With a harsher show of authority, or perhaps merely because he was bearded—so unreasoning are the inhibitions of the young—Gashwiler stilled the tumult. The dancing died.
"What's this mean?" he repeated.
"We nearly had an accident," said the lady.
"What's this mean?"
An answer of sorts could no longer be delayed.
"Well, I thought I'd give Dexter a little exercise, so I saddled him up and was going to ride him around the block, when—when these kids here yelled and scared him so he ran away."
"Oh, what a story!" shouted the tots in unison. "What a bad story! You'll go to the bad place," intoned little Elsie.
"I swear, I don't know what's gettin' into you," declared Gashwiler. "Don't that horse get exercise enough during the week? Don't he like his day of rest? How'd you like me to saddle you up and ride you round the block? I guess you'd like that pretty well, wouldn't you?" Gashwiler fancied himself in this bit of sarcasm, brutal though it was. He toyed with it. "Next Sunday I'll saddle you up and ride you round the block see how you like that, young man."
"It was our clothesline," said the lady. "I could tell it right off."
With a womanish tenacity she had fastened to a minor inconsequence of the outrage. Gashwiler became practical.
"Well, I must say, it's a pretty how-de-do. That horse'll make straight back for the farm; we won't have any delivery horse to-morrow. Sue, you get out; I'll go down the road a piece and see if I can head him off."
"He turned the other way," said Merton.
"Well, he's bound to head around for the farm. I'll go up the road and you hurry out the way he went. Mebbe you can catch him before he gets out of town."
Mrs. Gashwiler descended from the car.
"You better have that clothesline back by seven o'clock to-morrow morning," she warned the offender.
"Yes, ma'am, I will."
This was not spoken in a Buck Benson manner.
"And say"—Gashwiler paused in turning the car—"what you doing in that outlandish rig, anyhow? Must think you're one o' them Wild West cowboys or something. Huh!" This last carried a sneer that stung.
"Well, I guess I can pick out my own clothes if I want to."
"Fine things to call clothes, I must say. Well, go see if you can pick out that horse if you're such a good picker-out."
Again Gashwiler was pleased with himself. He could play venomously with words.
"Yes, sir," said Merton, and plodded on up the alley, followed at a respectful distance by the Ransom kiddies, who at once resumed their vocal exercises.
"He throwed you off right into the dirt, didn't he, Merton? Mer-tun, didn't he throw you off right into the dirt?"
If it were inevitable he wished that they would come closer. He would even have taken little Woodrow by the hand. But they kept far enough back of him to require that their voices should be raised. Incessantly the pitiless rain fell upon him "Mer-tun, he throwed you off right into the dirt, didn't he, Merton?"
He turned out of the alley up Spruce Street. The Ransom children lawlessly followed, forgetting their good home, their poor, sick mother and the rules she had laid down for their Sabbath recreation. At every moment the shrill cry reached his burning ears, "Mer-tun, didn't he throw you off?" The kiddies appeared to believe that Merton had not heard them, but they were patient. Presently he would hear and reassure them that he had, indeed, been thrown off right into the dirt.
Now he began to meet or to pass early churchgoers who would gaze at him in wonder or in frank criticism. He left the sidewalk and sought the centre of the road, pretending that out there he could better search for a valuable lost horse. The Ransom children were at first in two minds about following him, but they soon found it more interesting to stay on the sidewalk. They could pause to acquaint the churchgoers with a matter of common interest.
"He throwed Merton off right into the dirt."
If the people they addressed appeared to be doubting this, or to find it not specific enough, they would call ahead to Merton to confirm their simple tale. With rapt, shining faces, they spread the glad news, though hurrying always to keep pace with the figure in the road.
Spruce Street was vacant of Dexter, but up Elm Street, slowly cropping the wayside herbage as he went, was undoubtedly Merton's good old pal. He quickened his pace. Dexter seemed to divine his coming and broke into a kittenish gallop until he reached the Methodist Church. Here, appearing to believe that he had again eluded pursuit, he stopped to graze on a carefully tended square of grass before the sacred edifice. He was at once shooed by two scandalized old ladies, but paid them no attention. They might perhaps even have tickled him, for this was the best grass he had found since leaving home. Other churchgoers paused in consternation, looking expectantly at the approaching Merton Gill. The three happy children who came up with him left no one in doubt of the late happening.
Merton was still the artist. He saw himself approach Dexter, vault into the saddle, put spurs to the beast, and swiftly disappear down the street. People would be saying that he should not be let to ride so fast through a city street. He was worse than Gus Giddings. But he saw this only with his artist's eye. In sordid fact he went up to Dexter, seized the trailing bridle reins and jerked savagely upon them. Back over the trail he led his good old pal. And for other later churchgoers there were the shrill voices of friendly children to tell what had happened—to appeal confidently to Merton, vaguely ahead in the twilight, to confirm their interesting story.
Dexter, the anarchist, was put to bed without his goodnight kiss. Good old Pinto had done his pal dirt. Never again would he be given a part in Buck Benson's company. Across the alley came the voices of tired, happy children, in the appeal for an encore.
"Mer-tun, please let him do it to you again." "Mer-tun, please let him do it to you again."
And to the back porch came Mrs. Gashwiler to say it was a good thing he'd got that clothesline back, and came her husband wishing to be told what outlandish notion Merton Gill would next get into the thing he called his head. It was the beginning of the end.
Followed a week of strained relations with the Gashwiler household, including Dexter, and another week of relations hardly more cordial. But thirty dollars was added to the hoard which was now counted almost nightly. And the cruder wits of the village had made rather a joke of Merton's adventure. Some were tasteless enough to rally him coarsely upon the crowded street or at the post office while he awaited his magazines.
And now there were two hundred and seventy-five dollars to put him forever beyond their jibes. He carefully rehearsed a scathing speech for Gashwiler. He would tell him what he thought of him. That merchant would learn from it some things that would do him good if he believed them, but probably he wouldn't believe them. He would also see that he had done his faithful employee grave injustices. And he would be left, in some humiliation, having found, as Merton Gill took himself forever out of retail trade, that two could play on words as well as one. It was a good warm speech, and its author knew every word of it from mumbled rehearsal during the two weeks, at times when Gashwiler merely thought he was being queer again.
At last came the day when he decided to recite it in full to the man for whom it had been composed. He confronted him, accordingly, at a dull moment on the third Monday morning, burning with his message.
He looked Gashwiler firmly in the eye and said in halting tones, "Mr. Gashwiler, now, I've been thinking I'd like to go West for a while—to California, if you could arrange to let me off, please."
And Mr. Gashwiler had replied, "Well, now, that is a surprise. When was you wishing to go, Merton?"
"Why, I would be much obliged if you'd let me get off to-night on No. 4, Mr. Gashwiler, and I know you can get Spencer Grant to take my place, because I asked him yesterday."
"Very well, Merton. Send Spencer Grant in to see me, and you can get off to-night. I hope you'll have a good time."
"Of course, I don't know how long I'll be gone. I may locate out there. But then again"
"That's all right, Merton. Any time you come back you can have your same old job. You've been a good man, and they ain't so plenty these days."
"Thank you, Mr. Gashwiler."
No. 4 was made to stop at Simsbury for a young man who was presently commanding a meal in the palatial diner, and who had, before this meal was eaten, looked out with compassion upon two Simsbury-like hamlets that the train rushed by, a blur of small-towners standing on their depot platforms to envy the inmates of that splendid structure.
At last it was Western Stuff and no fooling.