Side-stepping with Shorty

VIII

PINCKNEY AND THE TWINS

Say, when it comes to gettin' himself tangled up in ways that nobody ever thought of before, you can play Pinckney clear across the board. But I never knew him to send out such a hard breathin' hurry call as the one I got the other day. It come first thing in the mornin' too, just about the time Pinckney used to be tearin' off the second coupon from the slumber card. I hadn't more'n got inside the Studio door before Swifty Joe says:

"Pinckney's been tryin' to get you on the wire."

"Gee!" says I, "he's stayin' up late last night! Did he leave the number?"

He had, and it was a sixty-cent long distance call; so the first play I makes when I rings up is to reverse the charge.

"That you, Shorty?" says he. "Then for goodness' sake come up here on the next train! Will you?"

"House afire, bone in your throat, or what?" says I.

"It's those twins," says he.

"Bad as that?" says I. "Then I'll come."

Wa'n't I tellin' you about the pair of mated orphans that was shipped over to him unexpected; and how Miss Gertie, the Western blush rose that was on the steamer with 'em, helps him out? Well, the last I hears, Pinckney is gone on Miss Gertie and gettin' farther from sight every minute. He's planned it out to have the knot tied right away, hire a furnished cottage for the summer, and put in the honeymoon gettin' acquainted with the ready made family that they starts in with. Great scheme! Suits Pinckney right down to the ground, because it's different. He begins by accumulatin' a pair of twins, next he finds a girl and then he thinks about gettin' married. By the way he talked, I thought it was all settled; but hearin' this whoop for help I suspicioned there must be some hitch.

There wa'n't any carnation in his buttonhole when he meets me at the station; he hasn't shaved since the day before; and there's trouble tracks on his brow.

"Can't you stand married life better'n this?" says I.

"Married!" says he. "No such luck. I never expect to be married, Shorty; I'm not fit."

"Is this a decision that was handed you, or was it somethin' you found out for yourself?" says I.

"It's my own discovery," says he.

"Then there's hope," says I. "So the twins have been gettin' you worried, eh? Where's Miss Gertie?"

That gives Pinckney the hard luck cue, and while we jogs along towards his new place in the tub cart he tells me all about what's been happenin'. First off he owns up that he's queered his good start with Miss Gertie by bein' in such a rush to flash the solitaire spark on her. She ain't used to Pinckney's jumpy ways. They hadn't been acquainted much more'n a week, and he hadn't gone through any of the prelim's, when he ups and asks her what day it will be and whether she chooses church or parsonage. Course she shies at that, and the next thing Pinckney knows she's taken a train West, leavin' him with the twins on his hands, and a nice little note sayin' that while she appreciates the honour she's afraid he won't do.

"And you're left at the post?" says I.

"Yes," says he. "I couldn't take the twins and follow her, but I could telegraph. My first message read like this, 'What's the matter with me?' Here is her answer to that," and he digs up a yellow envelope from his inside pocket.

"Not domestic enough. G." It was short and crisp.

He couldn't give me his come back to that, for he said it covered three blanks; but it was meant to be an ironclad affidavit that he could be just as domestic as the next man, if he only had a chance.

"And then?" says I.

"Read it," says he, handin' over Exhibit Two.

"You have the chance now," it says. "Manage the twins for a month, and I will believe you."

And that was as far as he could get. Now, first and last, I guess there's been dozens of girls, not countin' all kinds of widows, that's had their lassoes out for Pinckney. He's been more or less interested in some; but when he really runs across one that's worth taggin' she does the sudden duck and runs him up against a game like this.

"And you're tryin' to make good, eh?" says I. "What's your program?"

For Pinckney, he hadn't done so worse. First he hunts up the only aunt he's got on his list. She's a wide, heavy weight old girl, that's lost or mislaid a couple of husbands, but hasn't ever had any kids of her own, and puts in her time goin' to Europe and comin' back. She was just havin' the trunks checked for Switzerland when Pinckney locates her and tells how glad he is to see her again. Didn't she want to change her plans and stay a month or so with him and the twins at some nice place up in Westchester? One glimpse of Jack and Jill with their comp'ny manners on wins her. Sure, she will!

So it's tip to Pinckney to hire a happy home for the summer, all found. Got any idea of how he tackles a job like that? Most folks would take a week off and do a lot of travelling sizin' up different joints. They'd want to know how many bath rooms, if there was malaria, and all about the plumbin', and what the neighbours was like. But livin' at the club don't put you wise to them tricks. Pinckney, he just rings up a real estate agent, gets him to read off a list, says, "I'll take No. 3," and it's all over. Next day they move out.

Was he stung? Well, not so bad as you'd think. Course, he's stuck about two prices for rent, and he signs a lease without readin' farther than the "Whereas"; but, barrin' a few things like haircloth furniture and rooms that have been shut up so long they smell like the subcellars in a brewery, he says the ranch wa'n't so bad. The outdoors was good, anyway. There was lots of it, acres and acres, with trees, and flower gardens, and walks, and fish ponds, and everything you could want for a pair of youngsters that needed room. I could see that myself.

"Say, Pinckney," says I, as we drives in through the grounds, "if you can't get along with Jack and Jill in a place of this kind you'd better give up. Why, all you got to do is to turn 'em loose."

"Wait!" says he. "You haven't heard it all."

"Let it come, then," says I.

"We will look at the house first," says he.

The kids wa'n't anywhere in sight; so we starts right in on the tour of inspection. It was a big, old, slate roofed baracks, with jigsaw work on the eaves, and a lot of dinky towers frescoed with lightnin' rods. There was furniture to match, mostly the marble topped, black walnut kind, that was real stylish back in the '70's.

In the hall we runs across Snivens. He was the butler; but you wouldn't guess it unless you was told. Kind of a cross between a horse doctor and a missionary, I should call him – one of these short legged, barrel podded gents, with a pair of white wind harps framin' up a putty coloured face that was ornamented with a set of the solemnest lookin' lamps you ever saw off a stuffed owl.

"Gee, Pinckney!" says I, "who unloaded that on you!"

"Snivens came with the place," says he.

"He looks it," says I. "I should think that face would sour milk. Don't he scare the twins?"

"Frighten Jack and Jill?" says Pinckney. "Not if he had horns and a tail! They seem to take him as a joke. But he does make all the rest of us feel creepy."

"Why don't you write him his release?" says I.

"Can't," says Pinckney. "He is one of the conditions in the contract – he and the urns."

"The urns?" says I.

"Yes," says Pinckney, sighin' deep. "We are coming to them now. There they are."

With that we steps into one of the front rooms, and he lines me up before a white marble mantel that is just as cheerful and tasty as some of them pieces in Greenwood Cemetery. On either end was what looks to be a bronze flower pot.

"To your right," says Pinckney, "is Grandfather; to your left, Aunt Sabina."

"What's the josh?" says I.

"Shorty," says he, heavin' up another sigh, "you are now in the presence of sacred dust. These urns contain the sad fragments of two great Van Rusters."

"Fragments is good," says I. "Couldn't find many to keep, could they? Did they go up with a powder mill, or fall into a stone crusher?"

"Cremated," says Pinckney.

Then I gets the whole story of the two old maids that Pinckney rented the place from. They were the last of the clan. In their day the Van Rusters had headed the Westchester battin' list, ownin' about half the county and gettin' their names in the paper reg'lar. But they'd been peterin' out for the last hundred years or so, and when it got down to the Misses Van Rusters, a pair of thin edged, old battle axes that had never wore anything but crape and jet bonnets, there wa'n't much left of the estate except the mortgages and the urns.

Rentin' the place furnished was the last card in the box, and Pinckney turns up as the willin' victim. When he comes to size up what he's drawn, and has read over the lease, he finds he's put his name to a lot he didn't dream about. Keepin' Snivens on the pay roll, promisin' not to disturb the urns, usin' the furniture careful, and havin' the grass cut in the private buryin' lot was only a few that he could think of off hand.

"You ain't a tenant, Pinckney," says I; "you're a philanthropist."

"I feel that way," says he. "At first, I didn't know which was worse, Snivens or the urns. But I know now – it is the urns. They are driving me to distraction."

"Ah, do a lap!" says I. "Course, I give in that there might be better parlour ornaments than potted ancestors, specially when they belong to someone else; but they don't come extra, do they? I thought it was the twins that was worryin' you?"

"That is where the urns come in," says he. "Here the youngsters are now. Step back in here and watch."

He pulls me into the next room, where we could see through the draperies. There's a whoop and a hurrah outside, the door bangs, and in tumbles the kids, with a nurse taggin' on behind. The youngsters makes a bee line for the mantelpiece and sings out:

"Hello, Grandfather! Hello, Aunt Sabina! Look what we brought this time!"

"Stop it! Stop it!" says the nurse, her eyes buggin' out.

"Boo! Fraid cat!" yells the twins, and nursy skips. Then they begins to unload the stuff they've lugged in, pilin' it up alongside the urns, singin' out like auctioneers, "There's some daisies for Aunt Sabina! And wild strawberries for Grandfather! And a mud turtle for aunty! And a bird's nest for Grandfather!" windin' up the performance by joinin' hands and goin' through a reg'lar war dance.

Pinckney explains how this was only a sample of what had been goin' on ever since they heard Snivens tellin' what was in the urns. They'd stood by, listenin' with their mouths and ears wide open, and then they'd asked questions until everyone was wore out tryin' to answer 'em. But the real woe came when the yarn got around among the servants and they begun leavin' faster'n Pinckney's Aunt Mary could send out new ones from town.

"Maybe the kids'll get tired of it in a few days," says I.

"Exactly what I thought," says Pinckney; "but they don't. It's the best game they can think of, and if I allow them they will stay in here by the hour, cutting up for the benefit of Grandfather and Aunt Sabina. It's morbid. It gets on one's nerves. My aunt says she can't stand it much longer, and if she goes I shall have to break up. If you're a friend of mine, Shorty, you'll think of some way to get those youngsters interested in something else."

"Why don't you buy 'em a pony cart?" says I.

"I've bought two," says he; "and games and candy, and parrots and mechanical toys enough to stock a store. Still they keep this thing up."

"And if you quit the domestic game, the kids have to go to some home, and you go back to the club?" says I.

"That's it," says he.

"And when Miss Gertie comes on, and finds you've renigged, it's all up between you and her, eh?" says I.

Pinckney groans.

"G'wan!" says I. "Go take a sleep."

With that I steps in and shows myself to the kids. They yells and makes a dash for me. Inside of two minutes I've been introduced to Grandfather and Aunt Sabina, made to do a duck before both jars, and am planted on the haircloth sofa with a kid holdin' either arm, while they puts me through the third degree. They want information.

"Did you ever see folks burned and put in jars?" says Jack.

"No," says I; "but I've seen pickled ones jugged. I hear you've got some ponies."

"Two," says Jill; "spotted ones. Would you want to be burned after you was a deader?"

"Better after than before," says I. "Where's the ponies now?"

"What do the ashes look like?" says Jack.

"Are there any clinkers?" says Jill.

Say, I was down and out in the first round. For every word I could get in about ponies they got in ten about them bloomin' jars, and when I leaves 'em they was organisin' a circus, with Grandfather and Aunt Sabina supposed to be occupyin' the reserved seats. Honest, it was enough to chill the spine of a morgue keeper. By good luck I runs across Snivens snoopin' through the hall.

"See here, you!" says I. "I want to talk to you."

"Beg pardon, sir," says he, backin' off, real stiff and dignified; "but – "

"Ah, chuck it!" says I, reachin' out and gettin' hold of his collar, playful like. "You've been listenin' at the door. Now what do you think of the way them kids is carryin' on in there?"

"It's outrageous, sir!" says he, puffin' up his cheeks, "It's scandalous! They're young imps, so they are, sir."

"Want to stop all that nonsense?" says I.

He says he does.

"Then," says I, "you take them jars down cellar and hide 'em in the coal bin."

He holds up both hands at that. "It can't be done, sir," says he. "They've been right there for twenty years without bein' so much as moved. They were very superior folks, sir, very superior."

"Couldn't you put 'em in the attic, then?" says I.

He couldn't. He says it's in the lease that the jars wa'n't to be touched.

"Snivens," says I, shovin' a twenty at him, "forget the lease."

Say, he looks at that yellowback as longin' as an East Side kid sizin' up a fruit cart. Then he gives a shiver and shakes his head. "Not for a thousand, sir," says he. "I wouldn't dare."

"You're an old billygoat, Snivens," says I.

And that's all the good I did with my little whirl at the game; but I tries to cheer Pinckney up by tellin' him the kids wa'n't doin' any harm.

"But they are," says Pinckney. "They're raising the very mischief with my plans. The maids are scared to death. They say the house is haunted. Four of them gave notice to-day. Aunt Mary is packing her trunks, and that means that I might as well give up. I'll inquire about a home to send them to this afternoon."

I guess it was about four o'clock, and I was tryin' to take a snooze in a hammock on the front porch, when I hears the twins makin' life miserable for the gard'ner that was fixin' the rose bushes.

"Lemme dig, Pat," says Jill.

"G'wan, ye young tarrier!" says Pat

"Can't I help some?" says Jack.

"Yes, if ye'll go off about a mile," says Pat.

"Why don't the roses grow any more?" asks Jill.

"It's needin' ashes on 'em they are," says Pat.

"Ashes!" says Jack.

"Ashes!" says Jill.

Then together, "Oh, we know where there's ashes – lots!"

"We'll fetch 'em!" says Jill, and with that I hears a scamperin' up the steps.

I was just gettin' up to chase after 'em, when I has another thought. "What's the use, anyway?" thinks I. "It's their last stunt." So I turns over and pretends to snooze.

When Pinckney shows up about six the twins has the pony carts out and is doin' a chariot race around the drive, as happy and innocent as a couple of pink angels. Then they eats their supper and goes to bed, with nary a mention of sayin' good-night to the jars, like they'd been in the habit of doin'. Next mornin' they gets up as frisky as colts and goes out to play wild Indians in the bushes. They was at it all the forenoon, and never a word about Grandfather and Aunt Sabina. Pinckney notices it, but he don't dare speak of it for fear he'll break the spell. About two he comes in with a telegram.

"Miss Gertie's coming on the four o'clock train," says he, lookin' wild.

"You don't act like you was much tickled," says I.

"She's sure to find out what a muss I've made of things," says he. "The moment she gets here I expect the twins will start up that confounded rigmarole about Grandfather and Aunt Sabina again. Oh, I can hear them doing it!"

I let it go at that. But while he's away at the station the kitchen talk breaks loose. The cook and two maids calls for Aunt Mary, tells her what they think of a place that has canned spooks in the parlour, and starts for the trolley. Aunt Mary gets her bonnet on and has her trunks lugged down on the front porch. That's the kind of a reception we has for Miss Gertrude and her mother when they show up.

"Anything particular the matter?" whispers Pinckney to me, as he hands the guests out of the carriage.

"Nothin' much," says I. "Me and Snivens and the twins is left. The others have gone or are goin'."

"What is the matter?" says Miss Gertie.

"Everything," says Pinckney. "I've made a flat failure. Shorty, you bring in the twins and we'll end this thing right now."

Well, I rounds up Jack and Jill, and after they've hugged Miss Gertie until her travelin' dress is fixed for a week at the cleaners', Pinckney leads us all into the front room. The urns was there on the mantel; but the kids don't even give 'em a look.

"Come on, you young rascals!" says he, as desperate as if he was pleadin' guilty to blowin' up a safe. "Tell Miss Gertrude about Grandfather and Aunt Sabina."

"Oh," says Jack, "they're out in the flower bed."

"We fed 'em to the rose bushes," says Jill.

"We didn't like to lose 'em," says Jack; "but Pat needed the ashes."

"It's straight goods," says I; "I was there."

And say, when Miss Gertrude hears the whole yarn about the urns, and the trouble they've made Pinckney, she stops laughin' and holds out one hand to him over Jill's shoulder.

"You poor boy!" says she. "Didn't you ever read Omar's —

Say, who was this duck Omar? And what's that got to do with fertilisin' flower beds with the pulverised relations of your landladies? I give it up. All I know is that Pinckney's had them jars refilled with A-1 wood ashes, that Aunt Mary managed to 'phone up a new set of help before mornin', and that when I left Pinckney and Miss Gertie and the twins was' strollin' about, holdin' hands and lookin' to be havin' the time of their lives.

Domestic? Say, a clear Havana Punko, made in Connecticut, ain't in it with him.

IX

A LINE ON PEACOCK ALLEY

What's the use of travelin', when there's more fun stayin' home? Scenery? Say, the scenery that suits me best is the kind they keep lit up all night. There's a lot of it between 14th-st. and the park. Folks? Why, you stand on the corner of 42d and Broadway long enough and you won't miss seein' many of 'em. They most all get here sooner or later.

Now, look at what happens last evenin'. I was just leanin' up against the street door, real comfortable and satisfied after a good dinner, when Swifty Joe comes down from the Studio and says there's a party by the name of Merrity been callin' me up on the 'phone.

"Merrity?" says I. "That sounds kind of joyous and familiar. Didn't he give any letters for the front of it?"

"Nothin' but Hank," says Swifty.

"Oh, yes," says I, gettin' the clue. "What did Hank have to say?"

"Said he was a friend of yours, and if you didn't have nothin' better on the hook he'd like to see you around the Wisteria," says Swifty.

With that I lets loose a snicker. Honest, I couldn't help it.

"Ah, chee!" says Swifty. "Is it a string, or not? I might get a laugh out of this myself."

"Yes, and then again you mightn't," says I. "Maybe it'd bring on nothin' but a brain storm. You wait until I find out if it's safe to tell you."

With that I starts down towards 34th-st to see if it was really so about Hank Merrity; for the last glimpse I got of him he was out in Colorado, wearin' spurs and fringed buckskin pants, and lookin' to be as much of a fixture there as Pike's Peak.

It was while I was trainin' for one of my big matches, that I met up with Hank. We'd picked out Bedelia for a camp. You've heard of Bedelia? No? Then you ought to study the map. Anyway, if you'd been followin' the sportin' news reg'lar a few years back, you'd remember. There was a few days about that time when more press despatches was filed from Bedelia than from Washington. And the pictures that was sent east; "Shorty Ropin' Steers" – "Mr. McCabe Swingin' a Bronco by the Tail," and all such truck. You know the kind of stuff them newspaper artists strains their imaginations on.

Course, I was too busy to bother about what they did to me, and didn't care, anyway. But it was different with Hank. Oh, they got him too! You see, he had a ranch about four miles north of our camp, and one of my reg'lar forenoon stunts was to gallop up there, take a big swig of mountain spring water – better'n anything you can buy in bottles – chin a few minutes with Hank and the boys, and then dog trot it back.

That was how the boss of Merrity's ranch came to get his picture in the sportin' page alongside of a diagram of the four different ways I had of peelin' a boiled potato. Them was the times when I took my exercise with a sportin' editor hangin' to each elbow, and fellows with drawin' pads squattin' all over the place. Just for a josh I lugged one of the papers that had a picture of Hank up to the ranch, expectin' when he saw it, he'd want to buckle on his guns and start down after the gent that did it.

You couldn't have blamed him much if he had; for Hank's features wa'n't cut on what you might call classic lines. He looked more like a copy of an old master that had been done by a sign painter on the side of a barn. Not that he was so mortal homely, but his colour scheme was kind of surprisin'. His complexion was a shade or two lighter than a new saddle, except his neck, which was a flannel red, with lovely brown speckles on it; and his eyes was sort of buttermilk blue, with eyebrows that you had to guess at. His chief decoration though, was a lip whisker that was a marvel – one of these ginger coloured droopers that took root way down below his mouth corners and looked like it was there to stay.