The Twins of Suffering Creek

She was putting the finishing touches to the long dining-table, making it ready for the next day’s breakfast. It was not an elaborate preparation. She “dumped” a box of knives and forks at each end of it, and then proceeded to chase any odd bits of débris from the last meal on to the floor with a duster. Then, with a hand-broom and pan, she took these up and with them any other rubbish that might be lying about. Finally, she set jugs of drinking water at intervals down the center of the table, and her work was done.

She looked about her, patting her fair hair with that eminently feminine touch which is to be seen in every woman from the millionaire’s wife down to the poorest emigrant. Then, with less delicacy, she lifted her apron and wiped the moisture from her round young face.

“Guess that’s ’most everything,” she murmured, her eyes brightening at the contemplation of her completed task. “I’ll just cut out them–”

She went to a cupboard and drew out a parcel of white lawn and paper patterns, which she carefully spread out on the table. And, in a few moments, she was bending absorbedly over the stuff, lost in the intricacies of hewing out an embryonic garment for her personal adornment.

It was at this task that Toby Jenks found her. He was worried to death at the thought that, as a member of the newly formed Zip Trust, it was his duty to gather information concerning the management of children. However, in the midst of his trouble he hit on the brilliant idea of consulting the only woman of his acquaintance.

Toby wanted to do something startling in the interests of the Trust. He felt that his membership had been conferred in a rather grudging spirit. And, to his mildly resentful way of thinking, it seemed it would be a good thing if he could surprise his friends with the excellence of his services in the general interests of the concern.

Birdie heard the door open, and raised a pair of startled eyes at the intruder. It was not that such visits were out of order, or even uncommon, but they generally occurred after pre-arrangement, which gave her the opportunity of “fixing herself right.”

With a wild grab she scrambled her material, and the pattern, so that its identification would be quite impossible to male eyes, and hugged it in her arms. Turning swiftly she thrust it into the cupboard, and slammed the door. But she had no resentment at the interruption. Toby was quite a new visitor, and, well–the more the merrier.

She turned to him all smiles, and Toby returned her welcome something sheepishly. He cut a quaint figure with his broad, ungainly shoulders supporting his rather pumpkin face. Then his arms were a little too long and terminated in two “leg-of-mutton” hands.

“Evenin’, Birdie,” he said bashfully. “Guess you were sewin’?”

“Guess again,” cried the girl readily, her eyes dancing at the contemplation of a few moments’ badinage with a new candidate for her favors.

“Well, you wa’an’t playin’ the pianner.”

But Birdie was quite equal to the best efforts of her candidates.

“My, but ain’t you slick?” she cried, allowing her smiling gaze to remain looking straight into his face in a way she knew never failed to confuse her admirers on Suffering Creek. She watched till the sturdy man’s eyes turned away, and knew that he was groping for an adequate retort. This effect was the result of practice with her, a practice she thoroughly enjoyed.

The “leg-of-mutton” hands fumbled their way into the tops of Toby’s trousers, and, with a sudden self-assertion, which fitted him badly, he lurched over to the table, beyond which Birdie was standing. It was his intention to seat himself thereon, but his tormentor had not yet reached the point where she could allow such intimacy.

“Say, I ain’t ast you to sit around,” she said, with an alluring pout. “Men-folk don’t sit around in a lady’s’ parlor till they’re ast. ’Sides, the table’s fixed fer breakfast. And anyway it ain’t for settin’ on.”

Toby moved away quickly, his attempt at ease deserting him with ludicrous suddenness. At sight of his blushing face Birdie relaxed her austerity.

“Say, ain’t you soft?” she declared, with a demure lowering of her lids. “I’ve allus heerd say, you only got to tell a feller don’t, an’ he sure does it quick. Men-folk is that contrary. Now–”

The encouragement brought its reward. Toby promptly sat himself on the table and set it creaking.

“Well, I do declare!” cried Birdie, in pretended indignation. “And I never ast you, neither. I don’t know, I’m sure. Some folks has nerve.”

But this time Toby was not to be intimidated. Perhaps it was the girl’s bright smile. Perhaps, with marvelous inspiration, he saw through her flirtatious methods. Anyway, he remained where he was, grinning sheepishly up into her face.

“Guess you best push me off. I ain’t heavy,” he dared her clumsily.

“I sure wouldn’t demean myself that way,” she retorted. “Gee, me settin’ hands on a feller like you. It would need a prize-fighter.”

The acknowledgment of his size and strength was a subtle tribute which pleased the man, as it was intended to. He preened himself and drew his knees up into his arms, in an attitude intended to be one of perfect ease and to show his confidence.

“I sure ain’t much of a feller for strength,” he said modestly, eyeing his enormous arms and hands affectionately. “You ought to see Wild Bill. He–he could eat me, an’ never worry his digestion.”

Birdie laughed happily. She was always ready to laugh at a man’s attempt at humor. That was her way.

“You are a queer one,” she said, seating herself on the opposite edge of the table, so that she was sufficiently adjacent, and at the requisite angle at which to carry on her flirtation satisfactorily. “Say,” she went on, with a down drooping of her eyelids, “why ain’t you in there playin’ poker? Guess you’re missin’ heaps o’ fun. I wish I was a ‘boy.’ I wouldn’t miss such fun by sitting around in here.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Toby grinned, while his brains struggled to find a happy reply. “Well, you see,” he hazarded at last, “poker an’ whisky ain’t to be compared to talkin’ to a dandy fine gal with yaller hair an’ elegant blue eyes.”

He passed one of his great hands across his forehead as though his attempt had made him perspire. But he had his reward. Birdie contrived a blush of pleasure, and edged a little nearer to him.

“Gee, you can talk pretty,” she declared, her lips parted in an admiring smile. “It makes me kind o’ wonder how you fellers learn it.” Then she added demurely, “But I ain’t pretty, nor nothing like you fellers try to make out. I’m jest an ord’nary sort of girl.”

“No you ain’t,” broke in Toby, feeling that his initial success had put him on the top of the situation, and that he had nothing now to fear. Besides, he really felt that Birdie was an uncommonly nice girl, and, in a vague way, wondered he had never noticed it before.

“That you ain’t,” he went on emphatically. Then he added as though to clinch his statement, “not by a sight.”

This brought him to a sudden and uncomfortable stop. He knew he ought to go on piling up compliment on compliment to make good his point. But he had emptied his brain cells by his threefold denial, and now found himself groping in something which was little better than a vacuum. And in his trouble he found himself wishing he was gifted with Sunny’s wit. Wild Bill’s force would have carried him through, or even Sandy Joyce’s overweening confidence would have kept his head above water. As it was he was stuck. Hopelessly, irretrievably at the end of his resources.

He perspired in reality now, and let his knees drop out of his arms. This movement was his salvation. With the relaxing of his physical effort the restraining grip upon his thinking powers gave way. Inspiration leaped, and he found himself talking again almost before he was aware of it.

“You’re a real pretty gal, Birdie,” he heard himself saying. “Now, maybe you got some kids?” he added, with an automatic grin of ingratiation.

How the inquiry slipped out he never knew. How it had been formulated in his brain remained a riddle that he was never able to solve. But there it was, plain and decided. There was no shirking it. It was out in all its naked crudeness.

There was a moment’s pause which might have been hours, it seemed so horribly long to the waiting man. He became dimly aware of a sudden hardening in Birdie’s eyes, a mounting flush to her cheeks and forehead, a sudden, astounding physical movement, and then the work-worn palm of her hand came into contact with his cheek with such force as to prove the value to her physical development of the strenuous labors which were hers.

He never thought a woman’s hand could sting so much. He never thought that he could be made to feel so mean as this girl’s sudden vehemence made him feel.

“How dare you, you bumming remittance feller?” she cried, with eyes blazing and bosom heaving. “How dare you–you–you–” And then she further punished him with that worst of all feminine punishments–she burst into tears.

The next few moments were never quite clear to the distracted and unthinking Toby. He never really knew what actually happened. He had a confused memory of saying things by way of apology, of making several pacific overtures, which met with physical rebuffs of no mean order, and tearful upbraidings which were so mixed up with choking sniffs as to be fortunately more or less unintelligible. Finally, when he came to his ordinary senses, and the dead level of his understanding was fully restored, he found himself grasping the girl firmly by the waist, her golden head lying snugly on his massive shoulder, and with a distinct recollection of warm ripe lips many times pressed upon his own. All of which was eminently pleasing.

When once these comfortable relations were thoroughly established, he had no difficulty in clearing the clouds from her horizon, and relegating her tears into the background. Her nature was of a much too smiling order to need a great deal of coaxing. But explanation was needed, and explanation never came easily to this stalwart dullard.

“Y’see, what I meant was,” he said, with a troubled frown of intense concentration, “maybe you know about kids. I didn’t mean offense, I sure didn’t. Everybody knows our Birdie to be jest a straight, up-standin’, proper gal, who wouldn’t hurt nobody, nor nuthin’, ’cep’ it was a buzzin’ fly around the supper hash. No feller don’t take no account o’ her bein’ a pot-wallopin’, hash-slingin’ mutton rustler. It sure ain’t no worse than ladlin’ swill to prize hogs. It’s jest in the way o’ business. ’Sides, she don’t need to care what no fellers thinks. She ain’t stuck on men-folk wuth a cent.”

“That I sure ain’t,” asserted a smothered voice from the bosom of his dirty shirt.

“That you ain’t,” he reassured her. “You’re jest a dandy gal as ’ud make any feller with a good patch o’ pay dirt a real elegant sort o’ wife.”

The golden head snuggled closer into his shirt.

“You ain’t got no patch o’ pay dirt, Toby?” she inquired.

Toby shook his head all unsuspiciously.

“No sech luck,” he asserted. Then with a sudden burst of gallantry, “If I had I don’t guess there’d be no Birdie Mason chasin’ around these parts unbespoke.”

The girl’s eyes developed an almost childish simplicity as they looked up into his foolish face.

“What d’you mean?”

“Mean? Why, jest nothin’, only–”

Toby laughed uneasily. And a shadow crossed Birdie’s face.

“I don’t guess the patch o’ pay dirt matters a heap,” she said, with subtle encouragement.

“That’s so,” agreed Toby.

“Y’see, a gal don’t marry a feller fer his patch o’ pay dirt,” she went on, doing her best.

“Sure she don’t.”

But Toby’s enthusiasm was rapidly cooling. The girl breathed a sigh of perfect content. And her heavy breathing was fast making a moist patch amidst the gravel stains on his shirt front.

“She jest loves a feller–”

Toby’s arm slipped from her waist, and a hunted look crept into his foolish eyes.

“An’ she don’t care nothin’–”

The man was suddenly seized with a racking fit of coughing, which somehow jolted the girl into an upright position.

“Course she don’t,” he agreed, when his paroxysm had passed. “Say, you don’t think I got newmony?” he inquired, feeling the need for an abrupt change of subject. “I was allus weak-chested as a kid. An’ talkin’ o’ kids,” he hurried on, in his terror recalling the object of his visit, “guess you ken put me wise.”

“Kids? I wasn’t talkin’ of kids,” protested the girl a little angrily.

She was hurt. Cruelly hurt. All her best efforts had gone for nothing. A moment before Toby had seemed so nearly hers, and now–

“No. I didn’t guess you were. But–that is–you see–”

The man floundered heavily and broke off. His look was one of comical confusion and trouble. So much so that it was too much for the girl’s good nature.

“Whose kids?” she demanded, the familiar smile creeping back into her eyes, and her lips pursing dryly. “Yours?”

“Oh, no,” denied the man quickly. “Not mine. It’s Zip’s. Y’see, since his wife’s lit out he’s kind o’ left with ’em. An’ he’s that fool-headed he don’t know how to raise ’em proper. So I guessed I’d help him. Now, if you put me wise–”

“You help raise Zip’s kids? Gee!” The girl slid off the table and stood eyeing him, her woman’s humor tickled to the limit.

But Toby did not realize it. He was in deadly earnest now.

“Yes,” he said simply. Then, with a gleam of intelligence, “How’d you raise ’em?”

The girl was suddenly stirred to a feeling of good-humored malice.

“How’d I raise ’em? Why, it ain’t jest easy.”

“It sure ain’t,” agreed Toby heartily. “Now, how’d you feed ’em?”

Birdie became judicially wise.

“Well,” she began, “you can’t jest feed ’em same as ord’nary folks. They need speshul food. You’ll need to give ’em boiled milk plain or with pap, you kin git fancy crackers an’ soak ’em. Then ther’s beef-tea. Not jest ord’nary beef-tea. You want to take a boilin’ o’ bones, an’ boil for three hours, an’ then skim well. After that you might let it cool some, an’ then you add flavorin’. Not too much, an’ not too little, jest so’s to make it elegant tastin’. Then you cook toasties to go with it, or give ’em crackers. Serve it to ’em hot, an’ jest set around blowin’ it so it don’t scald their little stummicks. Got that? You can give ’em eggs, but not too much meat. Meat well done an’ cut up wi’ vegetables an’ gravy, an’ make ’em eat it with a spoon. Knives is apt to cut ’em. Eggs light boiled, an’ don’t let ’em rub the yolk in their hair, nor slop gravy over their bow-ties. Candy, some, but it ain’t good for their teeth, which needs seein’ to by a dentist, anyway. Say, if they’re cuttin’ teeth you ken let ’em chew the beef bones, it helps ’em thro’. Fancy canned truck ain’t good ’less it’s baked beans, though I ’lows beans cooked reg’lar is best. You soak ’em twenty-four hours, an’ boil ’em soft, an’ see the water don’t boil away. Fruit is good if they ain’t subjec’ to colic, which needs poultices o’ linseed, an’ truck like that. Don’t let ’em eat till they’re blown up like frogs, an’–you got all that?”

“Ye-es,” replied the bewildered man a little helplessly.

“Well,” continued the smiling girl, “then there’s their manners an’ things.”

Toby nodded vaguely.

“You’ll need to give ’em bed at sundown,” Birdie hurried on. “An’ up at sunrise. Clothes needs washin’ at least once a month–with soap. See they says their prayers, an’ bath ’em once a week reg’lar–with soap. But do it Sundays. An’ after that give ’em a Bible talk for an hour. Then I dessay they’ll need physic once a week–best give it Saturday nights. Don’t fix ’em that way same as a horse, their stummicks ain’t made of leather. You got all that?”

Toby gave a bewildered nod.

“How ’bout when they’re sick?” he asked.

“Sick? Why, see they don’t muss their clothes,” Birdie answered cheerfully. “Guess that’s put you wise to most everything.”

“Sure.” Toby slid from the table, feeling dazed. Nor had he the courage to ask any more questions. He was trying hard to fix the salient points of the information in his whirling brain, but all he could remember was that all washing must be done with soap, and the children must have bones to keep their teeth right. He clung to these things desperately, and felt that he must get away quickly before they, too, should slip through the sieve of his memory.

“Guess I’ll git along an’–an’ see to things,” he murmured vaguely, without glancing in Birdie’s direction. “You said beef bones?” he added, passing a hand perplexedly across his forehead.

“Sure,” smiled the girl.

“Good. Thanks.” Then he moved heavily off. “Beef bones and soap–bath an’ Bible talk; beef bones an’ soap–”

The girl watched him vanish behind the closing door, muttering as he went to “see to things.”

She stood for some moments where he had left her. The smile was still in her eyes, but its humor had died out. She was unfeignedly sorry he had gone. He was such a good-natured simpleton, she thought. A real good-hearted sort. Just the sort to make a husband worth having. Ah, well, he had gone! Better luck next time.

She turned away with a deep, sentimental sigh, and crossed over to the cupboard. She drew out her work once more and again spread out the crumpled paper pattern upon the gossamer lawn.

Yes, Toby would have suited her well. She heaved another sigh. He had remittances from home, too. And he wouldn’t be difficult to manage. His head was rather a funny shape, and his face didn’t suggest brightness, but then–

She began to snip at the material with her rusty scissors. But just as her mind had fully concentrated upon her task a sudden sound startled her. She looked up, listening, and the next moment the door was flung wide, and Sandy Joyce stood framed in the opening.

CHAPTER XIV

BIRDIE GIVES MORE ADVICE

The ordinary woman would probably have resented this second interruption, taking into consideration the nature of Birdie’s occupation, and the fact that Toby’s visit had hardly proved a success from her point of view. But Birdie was only partially ordinary. Her love and admiration for the opposite sex was so much the chief part of her composition that all other considerations gave way before it. Her heart thrilled with a sickly sentiment at all times. To her men were the gods of the universe, and, as such, must be propitiated, at least in theory. In practice it might be necessary to flout them, to tease them, even to snub them–on rare occasions. But this would only come after intimacy had been established. After that her attitude would be governed by circumstances, and even then her snubs, her floutings, her teasing, would only be done as a further lure, a further propitiation. She loved them all with a wonderful devotion. Her heart was large, so large that the whole race of men could have been easily lost in its mysterious and obscure recesses.

Again her work was bundled into the cupboard, the poor flimsy pattern further suffering. But beyond a casual wonder if the garment would eventually be wearable, cut from so mangled a pattern, she had no real care.

Her smiling eyes turned readily upon the newcomer the moment her secret labors had been hidden from prying male eyes. And there was no mistaking her cordiality for this cold-eyed visitor.

“Sakes alive! but you do look fierce,” she cried challengingly. “You sure must be in a bad temper.”

But Sandy’s expression was simply the outcome of long and difficult consideration. As a matter of fact, in his hard way, he was feeling very delighted. His past married experience had brought him to the conviction that here was the only person in Suffering Creek who could help him.

And, furthermore, he was well satisfied to think that only his experience as a married man could have suggested to him this means of gaining the information required by their president, and so shown him the way to surpass his comrades in his efforts on behalf of the Trust.

But his knowledge of womankind warned him that he must not be too hasty. He must not show his hand until he had established himself in a favorable position in the susceptible Birdie’s heart. With this object in view he set himself to offer his blandishments in characteristic fashion. He did not suffer from Toby’s complaint of bashfulness. Married life had cured him of that. In consequence, his method, if crude, was direct.

“I can’t say the same of you, Birdie,” he declared unsmilingly. “You’re bloomin’ as–as a kebbige.”

“Kebbige?” sniffed the girl.

“Kebbige, sure,” nodded the man of married experience. “Guess mebbe it ain’t a bokay fer smell. But fer taste–with corned beef? Gee!”

Birdie took no umbrage.

“You got to it–after awhiles,” she remarked slyly. Then she added, with a gush, “D’you know, I’m allus most scared to death of you men. You’re that big an’ strong, it makes me feel you could well-nigh eat me.”

Sandy availed himself of the invitation.

“A tasty mouthful,” he declared. And without more ado he passed round the table, caught her quickly in his arms, and, without the smallest expression of interest, kissed her. If interest were lacking, his movements were so swift that, had the girl the least idea of avoiding the embrace–which she hadn’t–she would have found it difficult to do so.

“You men are ones!” she declared, with a little gasp, as his arms fell from about her.

“How’s that?”

“I never did–the cheek of some of you!”

“A feller needs cheek,” replied the self-satisfied widower. “’Specially with pretty gals around,” he added condescendingly.

Birdie eyed him archly.

“Gals?” she inquired.

“I should have said ‘gal.’”

The laughing nod that rewarded him assured Sandy that he was well on the right track, and at once he took the opportunity of introducing the object of his visit.

“Say,” he began, “guess you never tho’t o’ gettin’ hitched up to a feller?”

Birdie lowered her eyelids and struggled for a blush, which somehow defied her best efforts. But her subtleties were quite lost upon Sandy, and in his eagerness he waited for no reply.

“No, course you hain’t. You got so many beaus to choose from. ’Sides,” he added thoughtfully, “gettin’ married sure needs special savvee. What I mean,” he explained, seeing the amused wonder in the girl’s now wide eyes, “you kind o’ need eddicatin’ to git married. Y’see, when you get fixed that way you sort of, in a manner of speakin’, got to unlearn things you never learnt, an’ learn them things what can’t never be taught. What I mean is, marriage is a sort of eddication of itself, wot don’t learn you nuthin’ till you git–unmarried. Savee?”

The girl shook her head in bewilderment.

“That’s sure too bright fer me.”

“That’s ’cos you ain’t been married. Y’see, I have.”

“Can’t you put it easier–seein’ I ain’t been married?”

“Sure I can.” Sandy took up a position, on the edge of the table with such a judicial air that the girl started to giggle.

“See here,” he began largely. “Now what d’you know ’bout kids–raisin’ ’em, I mean?”

The girl’s eyes twinkled on the verge of laughing outright.

“Zip’s kids?” she inquired shrewdly.

Sandy started and frowned.

“What d’you mean–Zip’s kids?”

“Oh, just nothing,” said Birdie airily. “Seein’ kids was in your mind, I naturally tho’t o’ Zip’s.”

Sandy nodded. But he was only half convinced. How on earth, he wondered, did she know he was thinking of Zip’s kids? He felt that it would be best to nip that idea in the bud. It was undignified that he should appear to be interested in Zip’s twins.

“I ain’t interested in no special kids,” he said, with some dignity. “I was just theorizin’–like. Now, if you got married, wot you know of raisin’ kids? Guess you’re that ignorant of the subject maybe you’d feed ’em hay?”

Birdie laughed dutifully, but her retort was rather disconcerting.

“You bin married–how’d you feed ’em? I’m learning.”

“How’d I feed ’em?” Sandy eyed his tormentor severely. “That ain’t the question. How’d you feed ’em?”

The girl thought for a moment, and then looked up brightly.

“If they was Zip’s kids–”

“I said they ain’t.”

“Well, if they were, I’d say–”

“See here, cut Zip’s kids out. They ain’t in this shootin’ match,” cried Sandy testily.

But Birdie persisted slyly.

“Y’see, I must get some kids in my eye if I’m to answer you right,” she said. “I can see things better that way. Now, if they were Zip’s kids–”