THE parlor of the Cottonwood Hotel was in the front of the house, opposite the office. It was a room that was a sort of left-over, suitable for nothing else but a parlor, small and pinched, with two lean windows looking out on a cottonwood tree, the sidewalk and the end of the watering trough. Drummers sometimes used it for a sample room, making it gay with red underwear, silk petticoats, and neckties of assertive hues.
There was a little round table in the middle of the room, with a knitted cord cover; on the table a copy of Gems For. The Fireside, a thick brown book with tinsel lettering, representing Mrs. Cowsgill's sole literary investment during the course of her life; a folding panorama of Niagra Falls; a lamp with a china bowl and festive, pleated shade. There was a sofa which presented disconcerting inequalities, like the carcass of a dead horse; and a chair with spiral springs, upholstered in ingrain carpeting, standing over against the window which gave the best view upon the street. This chair sighed and creaked when sat on, very much like the sound of air brakes under freight cars, well in harmony with the railroad atmosphere of the house.
There was a picture of a plate of fish on the wall, and another one of Pharaoh's Horses, alarmed and wild-eyed, seeming always about to bolt away from the scent of the fish and never making a start. There were rocking chairs with spindles in the backs, like the balusters of stairs, and narrow arms which crowded a railroader or stockman to force himself into their embrace; and a carpet with big flowers such as never grew in any field but that of the loom; and in a corner an organ, with work on the top of it similar to the headboard of an old-time walnut bed. It was a very grand organ, having many stops and starts, all of which were known to Goosie like the toes on her feet. When Goosie played it and sang Ma-ha-goreet, her tears fell down upon the keys.
Mrs. Cowgill liked to sit in the carpet chair on rainy days, such as this, and watch the cowhands come and go on their drenched horses, mud to the fetlocks in the street that was dust but yesterday, water slithering from their slickers, not much gaiety in them, and no regard for anybody who wanted to cross on foot. Banjo Gibson was sitting at the other window, facing Mrs. Cowgill in amiable propinquity. Banjo was living at the Cottonwood Hotel on his means; he would continue on that arrangement until his wad of sixty dollars was gone, which would be a good while at five dollars a week for room and board, the current rate for regulars at that house. Which was a high rate for that town and that day, sufficient to keep the vulgar in their proper place.
It was that slack hour in the afternoon between dinner and supper—there was no such meal as luncheon in the heavy economy of the Cottonwood Hotel—when cook and dining-room girls, as well as Mrs. Cowgill, had a little while to catch their breath. Mrs. Cowgill encouraged the girls to make use of the parlor during this lull, their presence there giving the house an air of liveliness and continual business. Goosie frequently pumped the organ in the afternoon, and sang her sentimental songs, although she could not merge herself so completely and comfortably with the lost ladies of the ballads when there was anybody around as she could when alone, and in a darkened place.
Mrs. Cowgill had a son, a knock-kneed, shambling, long-armed stuttering chap of twenty-four or five, who had a regular run firing a through freight. She called him Herby, but everybody else called him Pap. He was laying over today, and he also was in the parlor, spread out on the sofa in the elegant repose of a man who could afford it. He had blue sleeve-holders with tassels. Pap had a naturally leering and goggling look about him which seemed to mock and discredit everybody, and everything they said. He talked slowly and thickly, his words catching frequently, like a knot at the end of a rope.
So these three lights of civilization were in the parlor of the Cottonwood Hotel, engaged in a three-cornered talk, the subject of which was Tom Laylander, and his adventures in McPacken.
"I sent him to Judge Dockum," Mrs. Cowgill said. "I knew if his case was to be won, Judge Dockum could win it."
"It'll be five or six weeks before court meets," said Banjo, "and them cattle they're out there with nine or ten deputy sheriffs herdin' and watchin' over them. It don't matter much, it looks to me, who wins, with all them costs to pay. Won't be nothing left."
"Poor feller! He paid them two men that helped him bring the cattle up from Texas, and he had to put down a hundred dollars before Judge Dockum he'd touch the case. It left him strapped."
"I hu-hu-hope you ain't carryin' him on," said Pap.
"He paid a week in advance, but his time's up today. Well, I wouldn't shut down on him, even if he didn't have a job."
"Got a job, has he?" Banjo inquired, a laugh in his words as if he saw humor in the necessity that drove a man to that pass.
"Funny the way that boy hunted high and low over this town for work and couldn't find it anywhere," Mrs. Cowgill soliloquized. "Yes; oh yes. He got a job this morning; starts in tomorrow, he told me."
"Cow job?" Banjo inquired.
"No; too bad it ain't. But he didn't want to leave town," he said. I think the poor boy wants to be here in hopes he'll meet that old rascal Withers and shoot it out between them."
"From what I hear of Withers he ain't so long on the fight as you might take him to be," Banjo said.
"He'll fight, all right," Mrs. Cowgill corrected him, seriously and glumly enough. "The trouble with him is he wants to have a sure thing. That boy never wilt meet him alone; Cal's always goin' to be careful to have two or three limber-jims with him when he comes to town. I saw him in yesterday morning with that same gang he had the other day, but Tom was out hustlin' around for a job and didn't even know he was in town."
"Maybe he wasn't lookin' for him very hu-hu-hard," said Pap.
"Don't fool yourself!" Banjo advised, seriously. "That boy he'd wade through a river of wildcats for a crack at that old crook."
"He won't make the mistake of shootin' first next time, though," Mrs. Cowgill said confidently. "I posted him on that. Well, when he goes to work maybe he'll be kep' out of the way. Cal don't come to town except to do his business with the bank and buy his supplies. He's only around here in business hours. I hope to mercy we can put off that shootin' match till Tom beats the case in court."
"What kind of a job's he got?" Pap asked.
"It was funny the way he went around town huntin' work," Mrs. Cowgill said, ignoring the importunities of Banjo and her son, bound to begin at the beginning and move all the trifles out of her way clear down to the end. "He was wearin' that old white Stetson—well it was white once—with the crown pushed up as high as it would go, his gun hangin' on him like he was out to kill. He went to the roundhouse first, and struck Ford Langley to take him on. Ford said he looked like a toothpick under a toadstool with that big hat on, his face kind of peakid the way it's got since this trouble struck him. Ford sent him on to the shops, and the boys there got onto the joke and passed him along from one fool thing to another. They kep' him trottin' two or three days before he caught on they were kiddin' him."
Banjo Gibson laughed; a care-free, head-back, mouth-open laugh that rang with an appreciation of life. Pap seemed indifferent to the further adventures of the Texas cowman, ignoble creature at the best.
"He tried the livery stable and the stores, and I believe he even tried the bank," Mrs. Cowgill continued.
"Where'd he pick up a job?" Banjo asked, trying politely to bring the evasive narration to an end.
"Jerryin'. Orrin Smith took him on the section."
"The hu-hu-hell you say!" said Pap.
Banjo said nothing. He looked sort of foolish, his face coloring a little, as if he had heard something obscene.
"He asked me for board when he come in at noon, and I told him I'd let him stay."
"The hu-hu-hell you did!" said Pap.
"I've been kind of thick with that feller, I kind of took up with him," Banjo confessed, regret, humiliation, in his tone.
"Well, he didn't know any better than to go to jerryin'. He's as green as grass," Mrs. Cowgill excused him.
"Jerryin'!" Banjo derided. "I'd ruther git me a tin bill and shovel mud with the ducks."
"It was funny," Mrs. Cowgill reflected, the humor of the case bright in her eyes. "When he come back today he said he was goin' railroadin'."
"The hu-hu-hell he did! Damn jerry!" Pap was so moved by the fellow's presumption that he sat up, his greasy countenance inflamed, his pop eyes leering.
"What're they payin' the jerries now?" Banjo asked, indifferently.
"Two-and-a-half on this division; east of here only two," Mrs. Cowgill replied.
"You'll be losin' a lot of railroad men if you make this hu-hu-house a dump for jerries," Pap warned her.
"There'll only be him and Orrin. Nobody's got any kick comin' on Orrin, him boss, even if it ain't such a very high-up job. I'll put him and Tom off together at a corner table, and Louise can wait on 'em. Nobody'll notice. Well, I don't care if they do. He's a good, decent boy; he didn't know what he was doin' when he took a section-hand job."
"Let him go over to Ryan's with the rest of the jerries," Pap suggested indignantly.
"He'll stay right here in this house till he gets good and ready to leave," said Mrs. Cowgill.
She closed her mouth very tightly on the declaration, her thin lips fitting like some excellent piece of joinery. Pap knew what it meant when she spoke and looked that way. <A switch engine couldn't move her.
Pap went to the office and helped himself to one of the best cigars in the case, which was no great drain on the finances of the establishment. He sat on the porch smoking. Mrs. Cowgill could see him, sitting there gloomy and disgruntled, as much out of sorts over her harboring a common jerry in that house as if he had been called on to share his bed with a stranger.
Louise came to the parlor door, looked in, and started away.
"Was you lookin' for something, Louise?" Mrs. Cowgill called.
"The rest of the Kansas City paper." Louise displayed part of it, with a nod and friendly smile to Banjo, who waved his hand airily.
"I ain't seen it," Mrs. Cowgill returned indifferently, "but I expect Myron's got it off in a corner somewhere. That man he'll read anything; he'll let business go any day to set down with a book or a paper and read."
Mrs. Cowgill was censorious and severe. She had no pride in her husband's facility with an accomplishment that was only a business adjunct to her, and loosely grasped at the best. She had heard Myron boast that he could read his carpenter's square, once in an argument with a timber carpenter on a bridge gang. Myron had meant to prove by that assertion that he was an aristocrat among carpenters, one who had learned his trade by a long apprenticeship and could "lay out" a house. It had become a prodpole in his wife's hands, much to Myron's discomfort in subsequent years.
"Oh well, let him read it then," said Louise, unwilling to snatch one of Myron's few pleasures out of his hand. She entered the parlor, and sat on the end of the sofa.
"If he'd do more of his readin' on his square, as I tell him, maybe I wouldn't have to slave my head off runnin' a hotel," Mrs. Cowgill said bitterly, at war on every point with all manner of printed matter that was not pressed into steel. "Now, there goes Herby over to the saloon! Banjo, I wish you'd go after him and tell him to let that slop alone. Tell him I said he'd better remember he's got to go out on his run tonight, and to let that slop alone!"
Banjo was not reluctant to go. He felt that he could carry a shot or two very cheerfully that gloomy day himself.
"I guess he's just goin' over to play a game of seven-up," said he, rising, making preparation to follow. "Well, Louise, how're you stackin' up?"
"I'm as gay as possible, Mr. Banjo."
"Mr. Banjo!" Mrs. Cowgill repeated in comical astonishment, as she might have exclaimed over finding a ribbon on the handle of her frying pan. Then she laughed, shrilly, in sudden outbreak, according to her habit, very little change in her facial expression indicative of mirth except her wide-stretched mouth.
"I thought you might be in love," said Banjo, facetiously. "You kind o' look like you'd been losin' sleep. If you need any advice, come to me."
"Thank you, Mr. Banjo." Louise made him a little bow, a merry light in her agate-clear brown eyes.
"I never heard you was a love doctor, Banjo," Mrs. Cowgill said. Her fit of merriment had brought a flush to her cheeks, as brandy starts its fires under the eyes of one not accustomed to its use. Perhaps laughter intoxicated Mrs. Cowgill in like manner, so unaccustomed to her lips.
Banjo laughed in his own loud way, the machinery being well oiled and easy to swing in his case. It was a pleasant sound, tuneful, contagious. One scarcely could help laughing with Banjo Gibson, let the matter that moved it be as trivial as a gnat. He waved his hand, jaunty and care-free as a troubadour should be. At next sight of him he was picking his way across the muddy street.
"Well, he ought to be posted in love matters, if he ain't," Mrs. Cowgill reflected, watching him with a sort of aloof and impersonal interest, as she might have watched a rooster engaged on a similar expedition. "He's been married to three women; he ought to know something about love."
"Young as he is?" Louise marvelled, taking the chair lately vacated by the notable under discussion. "What became of them all?"
"Two of them run off with other men and one divorced him," Mrs. Cowgill replied, Banjo Gibson's simple history succinct and ready on her tongue.
"He's had a lot of experience for a little man," said Louise, looking after him with new interest. "But his losses don't seem to trouble him very much."
"No, nor make him any wiser. He's as light in the head as smoke. Well, if there ain't Maud Kelly! Look at her—just look at her—liftin' up them skirts!"
Louise leaned to see. A tall young woman, wearing a man's sombrero, a rubber cape around her shoulders, was crossing the street a little below the point where Banjo Gibson had forded it. She was displaying considerably more shank than was countenanced in those long-skirted days, stopping now and then to sling the viscous mud from her feet with a vigorous forward kick, which did not add to the decorum of her march.
It was plain that public opinion had very little weight with Maud Kelly. She was careless of the curious eyes fixed on her up and down the street. She crossed over to the hotel, where she stamped the rough of the mud off and continued on her way.
"Well, as I live! If that girl was a daughter of mine I'd sew her up in a sack," Mrs. Cowgill declared.
"She seems to be unconscious of any unusual display," said Louise. "Who is she? I mean, does she belong to anybody in particular?"
"Her father's one of our retired men; lives here in town. He used to be a cattleman, and a big one in his day, but he lost most of his money in mines. Maud's got a job in the court house; deputy county treasurer. Fine one to be trustin' with all that money!"
"She seems to be rather strong-minded," Louise ventured. She was looking at Maud Kelly's back as she went swinging up the street, skirts held high above her shoetops with careless grasp, swishing about her legs as she strode along swinging her arm.
"I don't think she's got much of any kind of a mind. She's just dare-devilish and don't care. Last winter she was ont on a hayride with some of the young folks here in town and the boys bantered her to strike a match like a man. Well, she done it!"
"She looks like she would," said Louise. "Was it day or night?"
"Night, thank goodness! But it wouldn't 'a' made no difference to her. Anyhow, we'll soon be rid of her in the treasurer's office. She's goin' to resign her job in a month or so to be married. She's marryin' a man named Cook, baggage-smasher here on the road. He's a big, fine-lookin' man with a brown mustache. He's got a good job, too, better than brakeman; he makes good money, but I don't think it's the kind of a job the man that marries that girl ought to have—home one day and away two. The man that marries Maud Kelly wants to be at home every day."
"I wish I was a citizen of this town; I'd go and apply for her job."
"Yes, it'd be more suitable to you than dining-room work. If Goosie had the education you've got I wouldn't keep her around this place a minute. Why don't you try for the job, anyhow? Mr. Montgomery, the treasurer, he stops in every morning on his way to the office for a cigar—he says I keep the best in town. I'll speak to him about it in the morning. I wouldn't doubt he'd hire you in a minute."
"I never did that kind of work; I don't know a thing about it, but I believe I could handle the job, all right."
"Of course you could. Nothing to do but make out tax receipts and take in money. I could nearly do that myself—I could if I could write and spell a little better."
"There are mighty few things you couldn't do," said Louise, with more sincerity than flattery. She had seen enough of Julia Cowgill to know that she was a highly competent woman, indeed.
"I'll speak to him about it in the morning for you. It's a good place to get married from, better than a dining-room, respectable and nice as that is if a girl wants to make it that 'way. Of course Goosie she's doin' well with Bill Connor. He'll get his engine next year and they can live in style down in Argentine. But every girl in dining-room work can't do that well. Goosie ain't a hired girl. It's like marryin' a member of the firm."
"Yes, there's a big difference," said Louise.
She had felt this difference from the first in the attitude of the regular boarders who were familiar with her standing there. They attempted familiarities with her which they would not dare with the landlady's daughter, subjected her to coarse jokes and boisterous humor from which Goosie was supremely exempt.
Ford Langley, roundhouse foreman, was one of the leading humorists of the dining-room. He was as persistent as one of those gnats which dance and dart before the face when one walks at evening along a woodland path, innocuous but irritating. Ford Langley was no more to be brushed aside nor frightened away from his provoking witticisms than one of those inconsequential creatures, which fill no purpose in nature save to provoke and irritate, that any man ever has found out.
Langley was playing up to Goosie, plainly in the hope of supplanting Bill Connor, employing all the small flatteries of a sycophant. The most favored trick Langley had among his crude devices was showing Goosie in light superior to the green girl.
Langley would wink and smirk, and pass remarks about educated biscuit-shooters. He had many witty things to say about the thousand ways to make money that such a superior person knew, of which biscuit-shooting was the surest and best. Langley was an under-sized, dark-visaged man, with a nose sharp enough to work embroidery, as Mrs. Cowgill said. He had been reduced from engineer, and hoped to mount to that exalted station again in his day. Louise took Langley's banter with outward indifference, only now and then giving him a cut with some clever retort that turned the laugh to her side. These little flashes of tepartee, her ready efforts to please everybody with her service, no matter how gay or how glum, raised up certain champions for her, who were not silent in her defense. Louise would much rather have had them keep their peace.
Goosie was friendly, but cynical and impatient, after the way of people who know much about some common thing, and hold all the rest of the world ignorant and in contempt. Try as she might, Louise could not march up to the swinging door between kitchen and dining-room with a loaded tray on her palm, held at shoulder's level, back up to it and give it a kick with anything approaching the art of Goosie.
Louise had to take the door slowly, pushing it with her free shoulder and edging through; Goosie marched out while it was on the swing from her competent and practiced foot. Louise was afraid to risk more than half as high a stack of empties on the tray as Goosie bore in triumph to the kitchen sink, where Angus Valorous washed them in the midst of a clatter from which he drew no knowing what simulation of jangling freight trains and puffing engines.
There was no romance, and mighty little dignity, in the labor of carrying on food at the Cottonwood Hotel; perhaps there is not much romance nor dignity in such a job anywhere. Louise did not doubt that Goosie's complaint of the unequal distribution of work, due to her assistant's want of bone and muscle, and inability to master the art of kicking open a swinging door, had led to Mrs. Cowgill's suggestion about the court house job. There was hope in the outlook, Louise knew, for Mrs. Cowgill was a woman with a pull. If her pull with the county treasurer was only half as strong as it was with the division superintendent of the railroad, Louise believed Mrs. Cowgill could land her in Maud Kelly's place without putting her influence to much of a strain.