Sandburrs and Others

“Aim low, and send ‘em along!” said George. “What is it my Queen would learn from her slave?”

In his ecstacy he achieved a “half Nelson” on the lovely girl, and caught her in the back of the neck with a kiss.

The Angora cat, who was stealthily threading the hall, intending to play a return game with the library rug, gave a great convulsive start, at the kiss, which carried him out of the mansion, and over the alley fence.

“They’re a mark too high for me!” said the Angora to himself.

Then inflating his lungs to the last limit of expansion, the Angora sent a song of invitation down the line that set every Tabby in the block to washing her face and combing her ears.

“Your Queen wants a square heel-and-toe talk, George,” said the sweet girl, as she tucked up her silken locks, dishevelled by his caresses into querulous little rings. “And your Queen wants straight goods this time, and no guff! Oh, darling!” continued Angelina McLaurin in a passionate outburst, “be square with me, and make me those promises upon which my life’s happiness depends!”

George Maurice St. John strained Angelina to his bosom.

“I’ll promise anything!” he said. “What wouldst thou have me do? My life, my fortune, my honour – my all, I lay at your feet! Monkey with them as thou wilt.”

“Then listen!” said Angelina.

“George, we are to be wedded in a month, are we not?”

“We are!” he cried exultantly; and again he essayed the “half Nelson,” and attempted to bury his nose in her mane.

“Don’t get gay, George!” she said mournfully, as she broke George’s lock, and gently but firmly pushed his bows off a point; “don’t get funny! but hear me.”

“Go on,” said George, and his tones showed that his failure pierced him like a javelin. “We are to be wedded in a month. What then, lady?”

“George,” said Angelina McLaurin, and the tear-jewels shone in her eyes, “don’t think me unwomanly, but you know how I am fixed; – father and mother both dead! I am an orphan, George, and must heel-and-handle myself.”

“Even so!” said George, and his face showed his sympathy.

“Then, George, before we take that step to the altar,” she went on steadily enough, but with a quaver in her voice which his ear, made sensitive by great love, did not fail to detect: “before we take that step, I say, from which there is no retreat, I must know certain things. You must make me certain promises.”

“Name them,” he whispered, and his deep voice overran her like a melody.

“Then, George,” she said, “is it too much to ask that $100,000 worth of property be settled upon me at this time?”

“My solicitors have already received my instructions to make it a million.” George Maurice St. John’s voice dwelt fondly on the settlement. “It is but a beggarly ante in such a game of table-stakes as this!” This time Angelina McLaurin did not decline his endearments. When he let up, she continued:

“And it’s dead sure I go to the Shore each summer?”

“It is a welded cinch,” he replied, as he drew her nearer to him. “You take in the coast from Bar Harbour to the Florida Keys.”

“And servants?”

“A mob shall minister unto thee,” he said.

“Then I have but one more boon, George,” she murmured, “grant that, and I am thine forever.”

“Board the card!” cried George; “I promise before you ask.”

“Say not so,” she said with a sweet sadness; “but muzzle your lips and listen. You must quit golf.”

“What!” shrieked George, with an energy that sent the Angora backward off a shed-roof of dubious repute, from which he was carolling to his low companions; “what!” he repeated. “Woman, think!”

“I have thought, George,” responded Angelina Mc-Laurin, with an air of sorrowful firmness. “There is but one alternative: saw short off, – saw short off on golf, or give me up forever!”

“Is this some horrid dream?” he hissed, as he strode up and down the library.

At last he paused before her.

“Woman,” he said sternly, “look on me! Is this some lightsome bluff, or does it go? Dost mean it, woman?”

“Ay! I mean it!” answered Angelina, while her cheek paled and her breath came quick and fast. “Don’t make any mistake on that; I mean it. My talk goes. And my hand is off my chips.”

“Is this your love?” he sneered, bitterly.

“It is,” she faltered. “I have spoken, and I abide your answer.”

“Then, girl,” said George Maurice St. John, and his words were cold and hard, “all is over between us. You would drive me into a corner and take away my golf! I say No! No! a thousand times, No!”

At this outbreak the curve in Angelina’s nose became more intense. She dried her eyes. Her features, too, became as flint. She even cut loose a low, mocking laugh.

“Be it so!” she said; “sirrah, take your ring!”

He seized the bauble and ground it beneath his heel. As he did so her strength failed her, and she sank to the floor.

“That knocked her out!” he muttered, and he started to count: “One! – Two! – Three – Four! – ”

“Oh, not necessarily!” she said, struggling to her feet. “I’m still in it; and I say again, give up golf, or give up me!”

“The die is cast!” and as he spoke the fatal words, the eyes of George Maurice St. John took on the firm, irrevocable expression of a fish’s set in death. “I wouldn’t give up golf for the best woman that ever put a dress on over her head. Maiden, you ask too much; you come too high! Damsel, I quit you cold!”

George Maurice St. John rushed from the scene. The ponderous door, as it slammed behind him, echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted apartments of the McLaurin mansion. Angelina McLaurin listened until his footsteps died away far up the street.

“He has flew the coop on me!” she wailed.

Then she gave way to a torrent of tears. In her distress Angelina McLaurin was more beautiful than ever. Two minutes! Five minutes! Ten minutes went by! Her tears still fell like rain.

“I have turned the hose on my hopes!” she said.

This was the thought that crossed her mind; but she desperately womanned (word coined since advent of new woman) herself to bear it.

Still afloat on the sad currents of her tears, her head bowed, a light sound beat upon the tympanum of Angelina McLaurin. She looked quickly up and squared herself to emit a glad cry, if one should be necessary.

What was it?

Something had come back.

True! it was the Angora cat.

As the Angora flung himself upon the rug with an air of reckless abandon, Angelina McLaurin gazed at him with a wistful fixedness. One eye was closed, his fur was torn, blood dripped from his lacerated ears. He was, in good sooth, but a tattered Angora! Angelina McLaurin laughed long and wildly.

“He, too,’ has got it in the neck!”

DINKY PETE

(Annals of The Bend)

Do we have romances on t’ East Side!” and Chucky’s voice was vibrant with the scorn my doubts provoked. “Do we have romances! Well, I don’t t’ink! Say! there’s days when we don’t have nothin’ else.”

At this crisis Chucky called for another glass; did it without invitation. This last spoke of and betrayed a sense of injury.

“Let me tell youse,” continued Chucky, “an’ d’ yarn don’t cost you a cent, see! how Dinky Pete sends Jimmy d’ barkeep back to his wife. It’s what I calls romantic for a hundred plunks.

“Not that Jimmy ever leaves her, for that matter; that is, he don’t leave her for fair! But he’s sort o’ organisin’ for d’ play when Dinky Pete puts d’ kybosh on d’ notion, an’ wit’ that Jimmy don’t chase at all, see!

“Jimmy d’ barkeep is some soft in d’ nut, see! Nit, he ain’t really got w’eels; ain’t bad enough for d’ bug house; but he’s a bit funny in his cocoa – mostly be way of bein’ dead stuck on himself.

“An’ bein’ weak d’ way I says, Jimmy is a high roller for clothes; always sports a w’ite t’ree-sheet, wit’ a rock blazin’ in d’ centre, big enough to trip a dog. An’ say! his necktie’s a dream, an’ his hat’s d’ limit!

“What’s a t’ree-sheet? an’ what’s a rock? I don’t want to give you no insultin’ tips, but on d’ square! youse ought to take a toim at night school. Why! a t’ree-sheet is his shirt, an’ d’ rock I names is Jimmy’s spark! Of course, d’ spark ain’t d’ real t’ing; only a rhinestone; but it goes in d’ Bend all d’ same for a 2-carat headlight.

“Jimmy makes a tidy bit of dough, see! He gets, mebby it’s fifteen bones a week, an’ I makes no doubt he shakes down d’ bar for ten more, which is far from bad graft. So it ain’t s’prisin’ one day when Jimmy gets it stuck in his frizzes he’ll be married.

“Jimmy’s Bundle is all right at that. Her name’s Annie, an’ she’s a proper straight chip. An’ that ain’t no song an’ dance; square as a die she was. An’ a bute! She was d’ pick of d’ Bowery crush, an’ don’t youse doubt it.

“Well, Jimmy an’ Annie goes on wit’ their courtships, I takes it, same as if dey lives on Fift’ Avenoo. Annie’s a mil’ner, an’ while she don’t have money to t’row to d’ boids, she woiks for enough so it’s as good as a stan’-off on livin’, which is all her hand calls for an’ all she asts. If she don’t quit winner after trimmin’ hats a week, at any rate she don’t get in d’ hole, see!

“Oh, yes; she an’ Jimmy gets action on d’ sights. Now an’ then it’s Coney Island; then ag’in it’s a front seat at d’ People’s; or mebby if some of d’ squeeze has a dance, dey pulls on their skates an’ steps in on d’ spiel. An’ say! as a spieler Annie’s a wonder, an’ don’t youse forget it. I has d’ woid for it from me own Rag, an’ when it comes to pickin’ out a dancer, you can trust me Rag to be dead on in a minute. D’ loidy can do a dizzy stunt or two on a wax floor herself when it comes to a show-down.

“But about me romance. Jimmy has chased around wit’ Annie, say it’s t’ree mont’s. An’ all this time his strong play is voylets, see! Annie is gone on voylets, so each evenin’ Jimmy toins in on Dinky Pete, who sells poipers an’ peanuts, an’ some of this hard, bum candy you breaks your teet’s on. Dinky also deals a little flower game, wit’ about a 5-cent limit, an’ that’s what gets Jimmy. Just as I says, each evenin’ Jimmy sticks in a nickel for a bunch of voylets at Dinky’s an’ sends some kid – Dinky’s joint is a great hang-out for d’ kids – to take ‘em up to Annie.

“An’ them voylets tickles Annie to death.

“At last all goes well, an’ Jimmy an’ Annie gets spliced. An’ it’s all right at that! Me Rag, who calls on ‘em, says Jimmy an’ Annie’s d’ happiest ever, an’ gettin ‘d’ boss run for their money.

“It’s about a year when Annie don’t do a t’ing but have a kid. At foist Jimmy likes it, an’ lets on it’s d’ racket of his career. But after a while Jimmy gets chilly – sort o’ gets sore on d’ kid. Me Rag gives me a pointer it’s mostly Annie’s fault. She stars d’ kid too heavy, an’ it makes Jimmy feel like a deuce in a bum deck; makes him t’ink he ain’t so strong – ain’t so warm as he was. An’ it toins out’ Annie, bein’ always busy monkeyin’ wit ‘d’ young-one, an’ givin’ Jimmy d’ languid eye, d’ nex’ news you get, Jimmy is back on d’ street when he is off watch, tryin’ to pipe off some fun.

“I never knows where she catches on wit’ Jimmy, but it ain’t no time when one of them razzle-dazzle blondes has him on d’ string. She’s doin’ d’ grand at that, see! an’ givin’ him d’ haughty stand-off.

“Mebby Jimmy met her on d’ street onct or twict, when for d’ foist time, Goldie – which is this blonde tart’s name – says Jimmy can come an’ see her.

“It’s been mont’s since Jimmy’s done d’ flower act at Dinkey Pete’s. But d’ sucker t’inks it’s d’ night of his life, an’ so he chases in an’ goes ag’inst Pete’s counter for a bunch.

“This Dinky Pete’s a dead queer little mug. He’s a short, sawed-off mark, wit’ a humpy back an’ a bum lamp. But you can gamble your life Î Dinky Pete’s heart is on straight, whether his back is or not.

“It’s be chanct I’m in Dinky Pete’s meself d’ time Jimmy is out to meet this blonde mash. Now, at d* time I ain’t onto Jimmy’s curves; I don’t tumble to d’ play till a week later, when me Rag puts me on.

“W’at was I doin’ in Dinky Pete’s? Flowers? Nit; not on your life! Naw; I wants to change me luck. I’d got d’ gaff at draw poker d’ night before, an’ I’m layin’ for Dinky Pete for to rub his hump on d’ sly. Sure! Youse’ll have luck out of sight. Only you mustn’t let d’ humpback guy get on. If he notices you rubbin’ his hump it’ll give youse bad luck, see!

“Jimmy comes in, an’ at foist, be force of habit, I s’spose, he’s goin’ to plunge on voylets. But he t’inks of Annie, an’ he can’t stand for it. Wit’ that, Jimmy shifts his brush an’ tells Dinky Pete to toin him out some roses.

“‘An’ make ‘em d’ reddest in d’ joint, see!’ says Jimmy.

“Dinky Pete’s got his mits on some voylets, but when Jimmy says ‘roses’ Dinky comes to a stan’ still.

“’ W’at! roses?’ says Dinky Pete, an’ his ratty eyes – one of ‘em on d’ hog, as I states – looks dead sharp at Jimmy. ‘Roses?’ he repeats.

“‘That’s what I says!’ is d’ way Jimmy comes back.

“’ Better take voylets,’ says Dinky, an’ he stops foolin’ wit ‘d’ flowers an’ gives Jimmy d’ gimlet eye.

“‘Nit,’ declares Jimmy; * I’m dead onto me needs. Give me roses.’

“‘But roses won’t last,’ says Dinky, an’ his look is sharp an’ soft an’ sad all at onct. ‘Roses won’t last, an’ that’s for fair,’ says Dinky, ‘while voylets is stayers. Better take voylets, Jimmy!’

“But Jimmy gets sullen an’ won’t have no voylets, see! An’ he swings an’ rattles wit’ Dinky that he wants roses – roses red as blood.

“‘Roses has thorns,’ goes on Dinky, still holdin’ his lamps on Jimmy in d’ same queer way; ‘you don’t want roses, Jimmy; you just t’inks you want roses! Be a square bloke, Jimmy; be yourself an’ take voylets!’

“An’ I’m damned!” declares Chucky, “if Jimmy don’t begin to look like a whipped kid, an’ d’ foist t’ing I knows, he welches on roses, grabs off a bunch of voylets big enough to make a salad, an’ goes chasin’ home to Annie. Me Rag is there when Jimmy pours in.

“Say! It’s d’ finish of d’ blonde! She ain’t in it! Me rag, on d’ quiet, gives Annie d’ chin-chin of her existence, an’ shows her Jimmy ain’t gettin’ a square deal. An’ Annie – who, for all she’s nutty about d’ kid, is a dead wise fowl just d’ same – takes a tumble, an’ from that time she makes d’ bettin’ even money on* bot ‘d’ young-one an’ Jimmy. D’ last time I sees Jimmy he stops to tell me that Annie’s a peach, an’ d’ kid’s a wonder. An’ he’s lookin’ like a nine-times winner himself. Now don’t youse call that a romance for Dinky Pete to get onto Jimmy’s game so quick, an’ stickin’ to him till he takes d’ voylet steer? Ain’t it a romance? Well! I should kiss a pig!”

CRIB OR COFFIN?

I

YOUNG Jones stood in the telegraph office – the one at Twenty-third Street and Broadway. There was an air of triumph about Jones, an atmosphere of insolent sagacity, which might belong to one who, by some sudden, skilful sleight had caught a starling. Yet Jones’s victory was in nowise uncommon. Others had achieved it many a time and oft. It was simply a baby; young Jones had become a papa, and it was this that gave him those frills which we have chronicled. The presence of young Jones in the telegraph office might be explained by looking over his shoulder. This is the message he wrote:

New York City, Dec. 8, ’99.

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps,

Albany, N. Y.

I still take it you are interested in the census of your family. Recent events in this city have altered the figures. Don’t attempt to write a history of the tribe of Van Epps without consulting Sanford Jones.

“There!” said young Jones, “that ought to fetch him. He won’t know whether I mean the birth of a baby or Mary’s death. If he doesn’t come to see her now, I will mark him off my list for good. I would as it stands, if it were not for Mary.”

“Won’t father worry, dear?” asked Mary, when young Jones repeated the ambiguous message he had aimed at his up-the-State father-in-law.

“I expect him to shed apprehensive tears all the way to New York,” replied young Jones. “But don’t fret, Mary; I am sure he will come; and a tear or two won’t hurt him. They will help his eyes, even though they do his heart no good. I don’t resent his treatment of me, but his neglect of you is not so easy to forgive.”

II

This was the story:

Back four years, Albany would have shown you young Jones opening his law office in that hamlet. Mary was “Mary Van Epps.” At that time seventeen years was all the family register allowed to her for age.

Her father, Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps, was one of the leading citizens of Albany. While not a millionaire, he was of sufficient wealth to dazzle the local eye, and he was always mentioned by the denizens of his native place as “rich.”

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps had a weakness. He was slave to the pedigree habit. Never a day went by but he called somebody’s attention to those celebrities who aforetime founded and set flowing the family of Van Epps; and he proposed at some hour in the future to write a history of that eminent house. With his wealth and his family pride to prompt him, it came easy one day for Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps to object with decision and vigour to a match between young Jones and his daughter Mary.

“They were both fools!” he said.

Then he pointed out that the day would never dawn when a plebeian like unto Jones, without lineage or lucre, boasting nothing better than a law office vacant of practice, and on which the rent was in arrears three months, would wed a daughter of the Van Epps. Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps, in elaboration of his objection, showed that beyond a taste to drink whiskey and a speculative bent toward draw poker, he knew of nothing which young Jones possessed. Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps closed, as he began, with the emphatic announcement that no orange blossoms would ever blow for the nuptials of young Jones and Mary Van Epps.

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps in his attitude will have the indorsement of all good Christian people. He was right as a father. As a prophet touching orange blossoms, however, he was what vulgar souls call “off.” Of that anon.

III

YOUNG Jones more than half believed that Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps was right. So far as whiskey and draw poker were concerned, he went with him; but with Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps’ objections to him, based on the lack of pedigree and a failure of pocket-book, he didn’t sympathise.

“I may be poor, and my family tree may be a mullein stalk, but I am still a fitting mate for any member of the Van Epps tribe.”

Thus spake young Jones to Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps. He then took the earliest private occasion to kiss Mary good-bye, give her his picture, and make her his promise to wed her within five years.

“Would she wait?”

“I would wait a century,” said Mary.

Young Jones kissed Mary again after that. The next day Albany was short one citizen, and that citizen was young Jones. Albany is short to this day.

IV

Let us drop details. Good luck came to young Jones, hard on the lonely heels of his evacuation of Albany. He was named a junior partner of a New York City law firm. His income equalled his hope. He dismissed whiskey and draw poker, and he wrote to Mary Van Epps:

“Could he claim her now?”

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps said “No” again. Young Jones still lacked ancestry, and a taste for whiskey and four aces still lurked in his blood. Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps would not consent. This served for a time to abate the bridal preparations.

V

Two years deserted the future for the past. A great deal of water will run under a bridge in two years. Mary Van Epps was nineteen. She went on a visit to a Trenton relative. Young Jones became abundant in Trenton at that very time. They took in a parson while on a stroll one day, and when that experienced divine got through with them they were man and wife. They wired their entangled condition to Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps. He sent them a message of wrath.

“I cast Mary off for ever! Never let me see her face again!”

“Very well!” remarked young Jones as he read the wire; “I shall need Mary myself, in New York. Casting her off, therefore, at Albany, cuts no great figure. As for Mary’s face, I will look at it all the more to make up for her brutal dad’s abatement of interest therein.”

Then he kissed Mary as if the feat were entirely fresh. And while Mary wept, she still felt very happy. Next they came to a modest home in the city.

VI

Two years more trailed the otners into history. Young Jones was held a fortunate man. His work was a success. Whiskey and poker were now so far astern as to be hull-down in the horizon. And he loved Mary better than ever. She was the triumph of his life, and he told her so every day.

“It is certainly wonderful,” he said, “how much more beautiful you become every day.”

This pleased Mary; and while her heart turned to her hard old father, she did not repent that episode at Trenton, which changed her name to Jones.

Once a month Mary faithfully addressed a letter, new and fresh each time with the love that fails and fades not, to “Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps, Albany, N. Y.” And once a month Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps read it, gulped a little, and made no reply.

“I will never see her again!” Colonel Stuyvesant

Van Epps remarked to himself on these letter occasions.

All the time he knew he lived for nothing else. But he thought of his family and mustered his pride, and of course became a limitless fool at once, as do those who give way to an attack of pedigree.

But the Jones baby was born; and young Jones concluded to try his hand on Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps. Mary wanted him to come, and that settled the whole matter so far as young Jones was concerned. In his new victory as a successful father, he felt that he could look down on Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps. He therefore wrote the message referred to in our first chapter with perfect confidence, that, turn as matters might, he had nothing to fear.

“The past, at least, is secure!” said young Jones; “and, come what may, I have Mary and the baby.” Both Mary and young Jones, however, awaited the returns from Albany with anxiety; – Mary, because she loved her father and mourned for his old face, and young Jones because he loved Mary. They were relieved when the bell rang at 7 P. M., and a bicycle boy handed in a yellow paper, which read: “Will be there to-morrow on the 8:30. – Stuyvesant Van Epps.”

Mary was all gladness. Young Jones was calm, but gave way sufficiently to say:

“Mary, we will call the cub ‘Stuyvesant Van Epps Jones.’”

VII

YOUNG Jones met Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps at the Forty-Second Street station. The old gentleman had been torn by doubts and grievous misgivings all the way down. What did young Jones’ ambiguous message mean? Was Mary dead? Was he bound to a funeral? or a christening? Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps knew that something tremendous had happened. But what?

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps walked up to young Jones at the station, and without pausing to greet him, remarked:

“Crib or coffin?”

“Crib!” said young Jones.

Then Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps fell into a storm of tears, and began to shake young Jones by the hand for the first time in his life.

VIII

The three happiest people in the world that night were Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps, Mary and young Jones. The baby was the one member of the family who did not give way to emotion. He received his grandfather with a stolid phlegm which became a Van Epps.

“And his name is Stuyvesant Van Epps Jones,” said Mary.

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps kissed Mary again at this cheering news, and shook hands with young Jones for the second time in his life.

That is all there is to a very true story. Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps lives now in New York City, and Albany is shy a second citizen. Mary is happy, young Jones feels like a conqueror, and the infant, Stuyvesant Van Epps Jones, beneath the eye of his grandsire, waxes apace.

OHIO DAYS

I – AT THE LEES

Aunt Ann, be we goin’ to the spellin’ to-night at the Block schoolhouse?”

Jim Lee always called his wife “Aunt Ann.” So did everybody except her daughter Lydia. She called Aunt Ann “Mother.” But to Jim Lee and the other inhabitants of Stowe Township, she was “Aunt Ann Lee.”

As Jim Lee asked Aunt Ann the question, he threw down the armful of maple wood and retreated to the back door to stamp the snow off his boots.