Object, Matrimony

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.”

Ellis didn’t hardly agree. He said we could keep cases, and if the game didn’t look all straight, why, we could buy in and coax Shooting-star out. He said we had slathers of influence, if we was a mind to use it right. So we kinda laid low and kept our eyes peeled.

That night Shooting-star commenced to knock the cooking—without cause, too. It was my week in the kitchen, and I don’t back down from no man on boiling coffee or making sour-dough biscuits. Besides them, I had beefsteak you could cut with a paper knife, it was that tender; and stewed prunes with the pits all oozing out; and fresh syrup made by burning a little white sugar in the pan first for flavor, and beans. And if that ain’t good enough for any white man to fill up on, I’ll hand over the dish towel and resign prompt and willing. All that evening Shooting-star set out in the kitchen and wrote. It sure be hard labor, because in the morning the stove was half-full uh burnt paper—where he’d backed up for a fresh start, I took it. Once in awhile he’d holler in to Ellis and me for our idea of the spelling of a word; and by keeping tab on them same words, we got an idea uh what the letter was like. I know we spelled “heartfelt” and “barren,” “generous” and “constant” and “prayer.” Ellis and me studied for an hour over how he figured on ringing in that last word; but Ellis has sure got a swell imagination, and when he thought about, “May the angels watch over you is my prayer,” we savvied right off that we were on the right trail. Say, I’d give a lot to uh seen that letter; I bet she was sure hot stuff.

Shooting-star rode in and mailed it himself, which sure looked to us like he lacked confidence in Ellis and me. Then he dubbed around in a daze till he got the answer, which wasn’t long getting here, either. They sure seemed to go after that corresponding business enthusiastic, and as if they meant business. This here letter had her picture in it, and Ellis and me like to perjured our souls and twisted our necks plumb off trying to get a look at it. But Shooting-star wouldn’t let us see anything but the back; and he packed it around in his inside coat pocket between times, and we never could catch him with his coat off. It was plumb aggravating.

Along about then he got extreme fastididus over what he eat, and bellyached over the cooking till Ellis and me was fair desperate. Ellis got on the peck, one night, and commenced throwing it into Shooting-star about Lonesome Ann—which is what we called her.

“It looks like you’d hurry up the nooptials, then, before yuh starve plumb to death,” he growls. “And have yuh got a affidavy that Lonesome Ann can frame up any better meals than what Bud and me can? The chances is she can’t. Some uh the darndest messes I ever insulted my insides with was throwed together by the gentle hands uh woman. Yuh don’t want to go into this thing with your hands tied behind yuh, Shooting-star.”

Shooting-star quit shoveling sugar into his coffee. “I ain’t,” he retorts, kinda lofty. “She can make coffee frappy and Charlotte Rush, and floatin’ island and plum pudding and mince pie. I asked her in my first letter. She can make everything in the Christmas menu on the Housekeeper’s Page uh that Family Cricket Magazine. I asked her. And in about three weeks you imitation chuck-slingers can git out the kitchen, and let somebody in that can cook.”

Ellis kinda gulped, but he didn’t say nothing then. Afterwards, we went down to the old bunk-house and started a fire, and talked it over without results. Any way we looked at it we didn’t see no chance to butt in. We both took the same stand—that a woman that had to advertise for a man or go without, must sure be a hard proposition. And we didn’t take no stock in her cooking, neither; that kind of a female would likely lie promiscous when she was after a husband. We shook our heads sorrowful, and wisht we’d held up that first letter. Now things had gone so far we couldn’t do nothing but look on and be sorry.

In about two weeks Shooting-star told us to turn loose and clean up the Hall of Mirth. He said it was plumb scandalous the way we’d let the dirt pile up a foot thick on the floor; and he wanted George Washington gone over with a damp cloth—which was quite a contract, considering the size of him—and the cobwebs swept off’n the stars and stripes on the ceiling. He said it was a disgrace the way we’d let that beautiful place go to rack and ruin. And when he come back, he said (he was going to Butte to meet Lonesome Ann, and they was to be hooked up there), he wanted the house good and warm, and we was to have the table all set in the dining-room, and all the folding-doors wide open, so Mrs. Shooting-star could get a good view uh the beauty and richness of her new home at one glance.

“And for the Lord’s sake,” he winds up, “don’t throw matches and cigarette-stubs on the floor; try and have some style about yuh. And,” he says, “I want yuh to fix up that dance sign, and light it just before we git here. Ellis can drive in after us, and Bud, yuh sure want to remember that sign, and have it ready; and have all the lamps lit, so these rooms’ll show up good. I want her to see, right off, that there ain’t nothing small about Montana.”

The sign, if yuh remember, was the one we had up over the front door on the night he gave the great dance he’d built the house for. It was one uh these cloth boxes, with lamps inside, and it read: “Welcome to the Hall of Mirth” in letters you could read clear down to the first bend in the trail. It was sure gaudy and impressive, and it looked like a dance-hall sign—only Shooting-star never seemed to realize it. And as to the rooms, when the lamps was lit and all the big archways opened up, you could stand in the front door and look right down about seventy-five feet of insanity; through the big front parlor, and the back parlor, and the dining-room. And the farther yuh looked the crazier it got. Shooting-star sure had an eye for bright colors.

Ellis and me didn’t hardly take time to feed the stock and eat our meals; and by the time the bride and groom was due, things was sure shining. When we lit the lamps and stood by the front door, just to see how she stacked up, we got so dizzy we had to grab hold uh the casing. Mister! it would throw a crimp into a blind man.

Well, sir, she come. Ellis and me didn’t hardly believe she would, but she did, all right. Ellis drove up to the front door with ’em just after it got good and dark, and the sign was casting yellow light on the snow, and all the big bay windows oozing brightness around the edges—for I’d pulled the blinds, so she couldn’t see inside till she got in. Shooting-star helped her out like she was made uh glass, and led her up the steps, and: said: “Welcome to the Hall uh Mirth, Mrs. Wilson.” And Ellis and me hunched each other, and waited.

Shooting-star throwed the door wide open, and pulled her in. And she give one look, and then yelled like we’d stuck a pin in her. And then she fell backward, and Ellis and me caught her—and she was plumb dead to the world.

We packed her in and laid her on a sky-blue couch, and Ellis brought a bucket uh water and a dipper, while I undone her wraps. Old Shooting-star never done a blame thing but stand around in the way with his jaw hanging slack. Ellis and me sloshed water on her generous, and she come to enough to open her eyes and look around; but when she seen them walls, with that great, ungodly picture uh George Washington, she give another squawk, and come near going off again. Then she commenced to cry—and I want to tell yuh right now, that she had me going when she done that. She wasn’t no beauty, but she wasn’t as big a freak as we’d looked for her to be; and she was plumb scared at that house—and nobody blaming her but Shooting-star. He come up and took the slack out uh his jaw long enough to ask what ailed her; and when she just flinched away from him, like some horses do when yuh throw a saddle on their backs unexpected, Shooting-star looked plumb mad.

“It’s this darn, crazy shack yuh brought her to,” snaps Ellis. “Yuh should ’a’ told her, and kinda prepared her for the worst, yuh two-faced old skate.”

“There ain’t nothing the matter with the house,” says Shooting-star. “It cost ten thousand dollars—and it suits me.”

But it sure didn’t suit the missus. She cried for a plumb hour, and begged pitiful for us to take her away from that dreadful place. She said she’d sure go crazy if she had to stop there overnight.

Ellis and me wanted to warm up the old bunk-house, and take her down there, but old Shooting-star wouldn’t stand for it. He said this was his home, and consequently her home, and here’s where she belonged, and had got to stay, so long as she lived with him. Shooting-star’s easy, if yuh don’t get him roused up; but once he bows his neck, he can’t be neither coaxed nor drove.

So then she got fighty, and said she never would live in such a crazy-looking place, and he must uh been crazy to build it. And they got to passing remarks back and forth, and pretty soon Ellis and me took a sneak. We didn’t feel that we ought to be present at no such domestic crisis. We went out and set in the kitchen, with our feet in the oven, and waited for the returns; but we didn’t say much. Only once I says: “Shooting-star sure needs killing, anyway, for bringing a white woman into such a house and trying to make her gentle down and stay here.”

By and by she hollers for us, and we hot-footed into the parlor again. She was still on the couch, setting squeezed into a corner with her face covered up with her hands.

“If you are gentlemen,” she says, kinda teary and trembly, “you’ll help me get back to that little town, and away from this dreadful, insane person, and this dreadful, insane place. And I hope the Lord will forgive me for doing such a foolish thing as to marry him.”

Ellis and me looked grave, and told her the team was still hooked up, and we’d take her, if she insisted.

Shooting-star laughed savage. “Yes, and yuh can’t take her a darned bit too quick to suit me,” he grunts. “Anybody that can’t see the beauty and comfort of this domicile, there’s sure something wrong with that person’s head, and they can’t pull their freight too soon,” he says, and walks, dignified, out into the kitchen. So Ellis and me drove her back to Bent Willow; and seeing she didn’t have much money—as we found out by questioning her artful—we borrowed fifty dollars, and made her take it.

That was sure a brief honeymoon—for she never come back. Her year uh residence was up a couple uh months ago, and soon as it was, she sued him for a divorce and fifty a month alimony, and got it. The court come out and looked at the Hall uh Mirth, and went back and wrote out the decree immediate. So now she’s back in Plumville, Illinois, living comfortable off that fifty a month.

And Shooting-star’s praying for good years and top prices for beef, and cursing female women promiscous. And I notice he don’t make no kick about the cooking.