Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories Part 16

she confided before the curtain rose.

"It's Joe," he said, "Joe Ridder, What's your front name?"

"Miss Beaver," she said mischievously. "What do you think it is?"

Joe could not guess.

"Say," she went on, "I knew who you was all right even if I didn't know yer name. I seen you over to the hall when they had the boxin' match."

"The last one?"

"Yes, when you and Ben Schenk was fightin'. Say, you didn't do a thing to him!"

The surest of all antidotes to masculine shyness was not without its immediate effect. Joe straightened his shoulders and smiled complacently.

"Didn't I ma.s.sacre him?" he said. "That there was a half-Nelson holt I give him. It put him out of business all right, all right. Say, I never knowed you was there!"

"You bet I was," said his companion in honest admiration; "that was when I got stuck on you!"

Before he could fully comprehend the significance of this confession, the curtain rose, and love itself had to make way for the tragic and absorbing career of "The Widowed Bride." By the end of the third act Joe's emotions were so wrought upon by the unhappy fate of the heroine, that he rose abruptly and, muttering something about "gittin' some gum,"

fled to the rear. When he returned and squeezed his way back to his seat he found "Miss Beaver" with red eyes and a dejected mien.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked banteringly.

"My shoe hurts me," said Miss Beaver evasively.

"What you givin' me?" asked Joe, with fine superiority. "These here kinds of play never hurts my feelin's none. Catch me cryin' at a show!"

But Miss Beaver was too much moved to recover herself at once. She sat in limp dejection and surrept.i.tiously dabbed her eyes with her moist ball of a handkerchief.

Joe was at a loss to know how to meet the situation until his hand, quite by chance, touched hers as it lay on the arm of her chair. He withdrew it as quickly as if he had received an electric shock, but the next moment, like a lodestone following a magnet, it traveled slowly back to hers.

From that time on Joe sat staring straight ahead of him in embarra.s.sed ecstasy, while Miss Beaver, thus comforted, was able to pa.s.s through the tragic finale of the last act with remarkable composure.

When the time came to say "Good night" at the Beavers' door, all Joe's reticence and awkwardness returned. He watched her let herself in and waited until she lit a candle. Then he found himself out on the pavement in the dark feeling as if the curtain had gone down on the best show be had ever seen. Suddenly a side window was raised cautiously and he heard his name called softly. He had turned the corner, but he went back to the fence.

"Say!" whispered the voice at the window, "I forgot to tell you--It's Mittie."

The course of true love thus auspiciously started might have flowed on to blissful fulfilment had it not encountered the inevitable barrier in the formidable person of Mrs. Beaver. Not that she disapproved of Mittie receiving attention; on the contrary, it was her oft-repeated boast that "Mittie had been keepin' company with the boys ever since she was six, and she 'spected she'd keep right on till she was sixty." It was not attention in the abstract that she objected to, it was rather the threatening of "a steady," and that steady, the big, awkward, shy Joe Ridder. With serpentine wisdom she inst.i.tuted a counter-attraction.

Under her skilful manipulation, Ben Schenk, the son of the saloon-keeper, soon developed into a rival suitor. Ben was engaged at a down-town pool-room, and wore collars on a weekday without any apparent discomfort. The style of his garments, together with his easy air of sophistication, entirely captivated Mrs. Beaver, while Ben on his part found it increasingly pleasant to lounge in the Beavers' best parlour chair and recount to a credulous audience the prominent part which he was taking in all the affairs of the day.

Matters reached a climax one night when, after some close financing, Joe Ridder took Mittie to the Skating Rink. An unexpected run on the tin savings bank at the Ridders' had caused a temporary embarra.s.sment, and by the closest calculation Joe could do no better than pay for two entrance-tickets and hire one pair of skates. He therefore found it necessary to develop a sprained ankle, which grew rapidly worse as they neared the rink.

"I don't think you orter skate on it, Joe!" said Mittie sympathetically.

"Oh, I reckon I kin manage it all O.K.," said Joe.

"But I ain't agoin' to let you!" she declared with divine authority. "We can just set down and rubber at the rest of them."

"Naw, you don't," said Joe; "you kin go on an' skate, and I'll watch you."

The arrangement proved entirely satisfactory so long as Mittie paused on every other round to rest or to get him to adjust a strap, or to hold her hat, but when Ben Schenk arrived on the scene, the situation was materially changed.

It was sufficiently irritating to see Ben go through an exhaustive exhibition of his accomplishments under the admiring glances of Mittie, but when he condescended to ask her to skate, and even offered to teach her some new figures, Joe's irritation rose to ire. In vain he tried to catch her eye; she was laughing and clinging to Ben and giving all her attention to his instructions.

Joe sat sullen and indignant, savagely biting his nails. He would have parted with everything he had in the world at that moment for three paltry nickels!

On and on went the skaters, and on and on went the music, and Joe turned his face to the wall and doggedly waited. When at last Mittie came to him flushed and radiant, he had no word of greeting for her.

"Did you see all the new steps Mr. Ben learnt me?" she asked.

"Naw," said Joe.

"Does yer foot hurt you, Joe?"

"Naw," said Joe.

Mittie was too versed in masculine moods to press the subject. She waited until they were out under the starlight in the clear stretch of common near home. Then she slipped her hand through his arm and said coaxingly--

"Say now, Joe, what you kickin' 'bout?"

"Him," said Joe comprehensively.

"Mr. Ben? Why, he's one of our best friends. Maw likes him better'n anybody I ever kept company with. What have all you fellers got against him?"

"He was black marveled at the hall all right," said Joe grimly.

"What for?"

"It ain't none of my business to tell what for," said Joe, though his lips ached to tell what he knew.

"Maw says all you fellows are jealous 'cause he talks so pretty and wears such stylish clothes."

"We might, too, if we got 'em like he done," Joe began, then checked himself. "Say, Mittie, why don't yer maw like me?"

"She says you haven't got any school education and don't talk good grammar."

"Don't I talk good grammar?" asked Joe anxiously.

"I don't know," said Mittie; "that's what she says. How long did you go to school?"

"Me? Oh, off and on 'bout two year. The old man was always poorly, and Maw, she had to work out, till me an' the boys done got big enough to work. 'Fore that I had to stay home and mind the kids. Don't I talk like other fellers, Mittie?"

"You talk better than some," said Mittie loyally.

After he left her, Joe reviewed the matter carefully. He thought of the few educated people he knew--the boss at the shops, the preacher up on Twelfth Street, the doctor who sewed up his head after he stopped a runaway team, even Ben Schenk, who had gone through the eighth grade.

Yes, there was a difference. Being clean and wearing good clothes were not the only things.