Bob Taylor's Magazine, Vol. I, No. 1, April 1905

by Various

TILDY BINFORD’S ADVERTISEMENT.

By Holland Wright.

The advertising agent had done his worst. He had subsidized the county paper, crowding out valuable editorials to make room for pictures of the yawning hippopotamus and the unconventional summer girl. Every barn within five miles was decorated with big red pictures and big black letters, all telling of the wonders exhibited by the Grand Combination of Railroad Circuses.

Hodges was but an advertising agent—a ruthless purveyor of publicity. Callous to æsthetic emotions, blind to the beauties of nature, his conscience was dead to the vandalism of highway advertising. Having bedaubed the smiling face of nature in the vicinity of Johnsonville, he was ready to advance on Jonesboro.

“Hello!” he said, stepping briskly into Elrod’s livery stable, “have you got a team that can snatch me into Jonesboro in four hours?”

“That’s just what we have,” said old Bill Elrod—“Truthful Bill,” the boys called him.

“Well, I mean exactly what I say,” said Hodges. “Exactly four hours. I know it’s a hard drive, and I’m willing to pay a dollar or two extra if you can do it.”

“That’s all right, stranger,” said Truthful. “You’ve come to the right place. I’ve got a pair of plugs that can put you there to the minute.”

“Well, hitch ’em up,” said Hodges. “I’ve got no time to spare.”

Old Elrod called to a stable boy to harness the grays, while he went out to get old Eli Wetherford to drive. He took Eli off into a corner of the blacksmith shop, to give him his instructions.

“See here, Eli, that lunatic of a bill-poster wants to be took to Jonesboro in four hours.”

“Well,” said Eli, “it’ll take ever’ minute of six hours to make the trip, but if he’s dead set on doin’ it in four, you’d better give him all kinds of encouragement. If he goes over to see Hopkins & Brown, they’ll agree to put him through in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll ’tend to that,” said Truthful. “I want you to drive him. If I send a boy, that feller will hustle him along fast enough to kill my horses, in spite of all I can do. Now I want you to take him and dash away with him like you was goin’ for a doctor. When you git to the first toll-gate, you can be talkin’ so fast he won’t think about the time o’ day no more till he hears the town clock strike in Jonesboro.”

“Jerusalem!” said Eli: “I ain’t no funnygraph, to be talkin’ a man blind for six hours on a stretch.”

“Oh, you’ll make it easy enough,” said Truthful. “I’ll put a pint of good liquor under the seat.”

“Well, now,” said Eli, persuasively, “if you could just make it a quart, so the stranger can take a nip now and then, it would encourage him powerful.”

“All right,” said Elrod. “I’ll put in a full quart of the best in town. And say, Eli, try to make up some yarn about advertisin’. The hotel clerk says this looney ain’t interested in nothin’ else.”

Thus it happened that when they passed the tollgate, old Eli, who is a bachelor, was telling Hodges of an imaginary wife, who kept him poor by reading advertisements and buying patent medicines.

“I do believe,” he said, “my old woman would have a fit any day if she should happen to read a double-column advertisement of a real good fit medicine.”

“What kind of advertisement does she seem to like best?” asked Hodges.

“Well, you see,” said Eli, “they ain’t a blessed thing the matter with her, so she likes advertisements that calls for ever’-day symptoms—You know some advertisements says if it makes you dizzy to stan’ on your head fifteen minutes, and if you feel warm in the summer time and cold in winter, you’ve got the very ailment that their bitters’ll cure. Ever’ time she sees a advertisement of that kind it costs old Eli a dollar,” and the indulgent husband of the extravagant hypochondriac solaced himself with a dose of his own favorite prescription.

“Try to make up some yarn about advertisin’.”

When they were half way to Jonesboro, they met Hank Binford, and Eli thought it would add some personal interest to a romance he had in mind to make Hank its hero. True, the hero must have a wife and a comfortable fortune, while Hank had neither, but that was immaterial, as the listener was a stranger in a strange land.

“Notice that feller we jest passed? That’s Hank Binford. He’s one of our leadin’ citizens. Owns half the houses in town, and a fine four-hundred-acre farm in the river bottom. Well, sir, when he married, five years ago, he didn’t own two shirts, and he was drunk half of the time. It’s a strange thing, but one little four dollar advertisement changed him into a prosperous citizen, with money in the bank.”

“Must have been a pretty good ad. Tell me about it,” said Hodges, moistening his lips with a half pint of whiskey, and settling down comfortably to listen.

Eli took a long pull at the bottle, and began his story. Even with the bottle of inspiration at his elbow, he could not expect to invent his story quite as fast as he could talk, so he told it with due deliberation and great impressiveness.

“When Tildy Maclin married Hank Binford, her folks all said if she didn’t have no more sense than to tie to such a drinkin’, gamblin’ cuss, she would deserve all she got, and mighty apt to git all she deserved. Tildy said Hank would settle down and do all right, and the other Maclins all predicted, mighty confident, that he’d do all wrong. Well, sir, I never did perfess to be no prophet, so naturally of course I couldn’t foresee in advance just what Tildy would make out of Hank. It appeared to me he might turn out as well as Tildy expected, or full as bad as her folks hoped, and neither way, it needn’t surprise nobody that knows what a powerful sight of human nature there is in a average man.

“Well, Tildy she managed to keep Hank tolerable straight for about a year. He’d go for months without so much as takin’ a dram, and when he did start in for a spree she always managed to git him straight before he could manage to git plum heedless drunk, and it begun to look like she had him safe, and would finally land him in old Rehoboth church.

“But, as I was sayin’, you can’t most always tell for certain just what a man critter is goin’ to do, so I wasn’t overly surprised to hear, one day, that Hank had took advantage of Tildy’s visit to her Wilson County kin, and had filled up with red liquor, and was down to Ike Denman’s grocery playin’ poker with Eb Wetherford and Eli Scoggins and Devil Bill Anderson. That is to say, Hank thought he was playin’, though in reality he was only bein’ played; him bein’ plum drunk and the other boys tolerable sober. One or two of Hank’s friends had dropped in, kinder incidentally, and tried to steer him outside, but of course they didn’t have no luck. ’Long about sundown, next day, I saw Tildy drive up to her gate and ’light, and in about a pair of minutes Miss Sallie Kate Slemmons followed her in, lookin’ powerful pleased, and I didn’t feel no sort of uneasiness but what Tildy would hear the news.

Bill just went sailin’ down the road with a armful of ’em, a-strowin’ ’em to the wind.

“Well, early Saturday mornin’ I happened to be goin’ right by the grocery, and I thought I’d jest step in and pass the time o’ day with Ike, seein’ as I wasn’t in no particular rush. I found Ike all alone by hisself, and he invited me to have somethin’, and I excused myself at first, as men will, and after a while I inquired if the game was still on, and what was the prospects for Hank to lose out, and go home and see Tildy, and hear all about his Wilson County kin folks. Ike said he hadn’t kept the run of the game and didn’t know how Hank stood, but he seemed to imagine that Hank wasn’t in no swivet to swap news with Tildy.

“Ike said Bunk Wetherford had come in early Friday night and took Eb home, and for a while it looked like the game was broke up; but Eli had bantered one of the Edwards boys to take Eb’s place, and he went up and took a hand, and the game broke out in a fresh place, and at last accounts, looked like it might last till all the spots was wore off the cards. I told Ike I’d go up and advise Hank that Tildy had come home.

“‘All right,’ says he, ‘walk right up. I don’t git no takeout from the game, and I’m more’n willin’ to see it broke up any time. I don’t like to interfere myself, jest because it would look like the boys wasn’t welcome here, so I jest lets ’em do mostly as they like, so long as they pays for what they gits, and don’t break nothin’.’

“So I went up and looked on a while, and tried to ketch Hank’s eye, but I could see ’twas no use. He was feelin’ his licker, and talkin’ powerful smart, and losin’ good hard-earned money just as cheerful as if money growed on trees and he owned all the timber land. After a while Denman come up to the head of the stairs, a-grinnin’ all over his face, and motioned me to come to the door. I went over and he handed me a printed poster, about two foot square, and containin’ the followin’ advertisement in big, black type:

‘LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN:

ONE YOUNG MAN!

About 28 years old, 5 ft. 10 in. High, Weighs about 140 lbs., Tow Headed, Sandy Complected, Weak-eyed, and When Sober answers to the name of

HANK BINFORD!

$4 reward will be paid for his return in good order, Securely Tied.

Signed: Tildy Binford.’

“‘Gee Whilikins!’ says I; ‘where did you find it?’

“‘Didn’t find it,’ says he. ‘Jest picked it up. Old man Weekly Clarion Johnson’s little boy, Bill, jest went sailin’ down the road with a armful of ’em, a-strowin’ ’em to the wind. The whole settlement’s full of ’em. They’re all over the floor downstairs, and all over the road, fur as you can see in both directions.’

“The boys at the table was so set on the game that they didn’t take no notice of me and Ike, till I steps over, while Hank was tryin’ to shuffle the cards, and lays the paper down right plum in the middle of the table.

“‘Take the blame thing away,’ says Hank, without readin’ a word.

“‘Read it,’ says I.

“‘Read nothin!’ says he. ‘This is no literary society. Take the blasted thing out of the way so I can deal the kyards.’

“‘I see your name on it,’ says I, ‘and I thought it might interest you.’

“Hank laid down the cards and glanced over the paper. * * First he looked kinder dazed. Then he picked the thing up and looked at it a long time. His face got mighty white, and I thought he was goin’ to faint, but he didn’t. He looked around at the boys; all of ’em a-grinnin’ and lookin’ tickled to death. I begins to have my suspicions about the meanin’ of that white look on his face, and I steps back and takes a stand nigh the door. It was mighty plain to me that Hank had misery to spare, and he meant to pass it around promiscuous. He come up with his chair, and before them grinnin’ idiots had time to back off from the table and climb out of their chairs, Hank had raised a knot on every head, and started ’round the circuit to repeat the dose. They closed in on him and mauled him and gouged him till you couldn’t tell who he was, only by the familiar cut of his clothes and the complexion of his hair and moustache. The only way we could know for certain it was Hank, was by takin’ a sort of inventory of them that could be identified. As none of the whole men was Hank, it stood to reason that this remnant must be him. It was also observed that the critter had a voice some like Hank’s, and used his favorite cuss words quite familiar like.

There ain’t nobody in the settlement that will go out of his way to have a difficulty with Ike.

“Now, endurin’ of the row, Devil Bill Anderson had received a tremenjous big lump on his head, which he could not recall that he had done any overt act or said any word to justify any human man to hit him that vengeful lick, and he was by no means satisfied. The more he thought over the details and narrated the circumstances, the more rebellious he felt and the louder he talked; insomuch that it finally became necessary for Denman to assert hisself and preserve order in his own grocery; which he finally said, quite emphatic, that if anybody wanted to hurt anybody, they might try their hand on Ike Denman. Now there ain’t nobody in the settlement that will go out of the way to have a difficulty with Ike; so Devil Bill kinder cooled off, the best way he could, and everything got quiet, and Denman poured a big sluice of raw whiskey into Hank, and put him to sleep under the big tree at the back of the grocery.

Tildy came out to the gate, looking a little pale, but holding her head up.

“I went to dinner, and when I got back Bud Runnels had just come up and was readin’ Tildy’s advertisement. Bud always did love to joke, and this one seemed to tickle him all over. After inquirin’ all about the particulars, he asked where Hank was at.

“‘He’s back there under the big ellum,’ says Denman, ‘sleepin’ sound as a baby.’

“‘What about the four dollars reward?’ says Bud.

“‘Why, I guess that’s jest a part of the joke,’ says Ike.

“‘Well, I don’t see it that away,’ says Bud. ‘The lady has lost her husband, and she wants him found and fetched home. Now, I’m goin’ to take him home, and if she don’t want him, I can easy fetch him back.’

“Ike grinned, and looked ‘round at the boys, and they grinned.

“‘I don’t hear no objection,’ says Ike. ‘You’ll find him back there under the tree.’

“‘Well,’ says Bud, ‘I can easy load him into my wagon and haul him home and unload him in his own yard, but it might be better for you boys that beat him up to jest take holt and come along with me; all a-totin’ of him home in a friendly way. Then if Tildy wants to know how come his face all broke up, you can jest show her the knots on your own heads and it’ll sorter help to explain matters.’

“Nobody didn’t answer right away, and before anybody could think of any objection, Bud added in his insinuatin’ way: ‘It might save trouble to keep Tildy pacified, so she’ll explain to Hank that he was to blame for all that’s been done to him. Now, ever’ body come on and take holt, and I’ll set ’em up to the crowd soon’s we get back.’

“Bud always seems to state a proposition so fair an’ reasonable that you jest can’t turn him down, so the boys jest got up without wastin’ any words, and followed him around to where Hank was. They gathered him up, one at each corner, and Bud holdin’ up his head. They ketched the step, ‘hayfoot-strawfoot,’ and marched up to Hank’s front gate.

“Tildy was sweepin’ off the front porch, and when she saw the crowd she come out to the gate, lookin’ a little pale, but holdin’ her head up, and a stiff upper lip.

“‘What is it?’ says she.

“‘It’s Hank,’ says Bud.

“‘Is he hurt?’ says she.

“‘Oh, no,’ says Bud. ‘That is to say, they ain’t any bones broke. He’s been a-fightin’ ‘round promiscuous, but he’s got no hurts to call for anybody to fetch him home. Fact is I saw a advertisement offerin’ a reward for Hank, and I just discovered him, and rescued him, and fetched him home.’

“‘Didn’t the advertisement say to return him in good order?’ says Tildy.

“‘I b’leeve it did,’ says Bud, ‘but I couldn’t p’form no miracle for four dollars, so I jest fetched him as I found him.’

“‘And didn’t it say bring him securely tied?’ says Tildy.

“Bud was set back considerable at that. ‘That’s a fact,’ says he, ‘and I jest plum overlooked it. It didn’t appear to me to be of no consequence, nohow.’

“‘Well, it’s mighty important to me,’ says Tildy. ‘If he wakes up in a tantrum, and untied, he might be troublesome.’

“‘That’s so,’ says Devil Bill, thinking of the lump on his own head.

“‘So it is,’ says Eli Scoggins, solemnly.

“‘I believe you,’ says Buck Edwards.

“‘Well,’ says Bud Runnels, ‘it ain’t none too late to tie him, but if I was you, Mizzes Binford, I b’leeve I’d jest sew him up, good and snug, in cotton baggin’ or heavy canvas or somethin’ good and stout like that, and leave nothin’ stickin’ out but jest his head.’

“‘Oh,’ says she, ‘I’ve got the very thing!’ and she went ‘round to the shed, and come back with the stoutest, heaviest, widest piece of cotton duckin’ that I ever see.

“‘I bought it at the auction,’ says she, ‘because it was cheap, and Hank said I never would have no use for it but you see he was mistaken.’

“Well, we sewed him up good and tight, and put him on the bed in the spare room and cut a big peachtree limb for Tildy to keep the flies off of him, and she paid Bud the four dollars.

“When Hank waked up, Sunday mornin’, he could hear Tildy fryin’ meat in the kitchen, and he knowed she was cookin’ breakfast. He didn’t seem to want any breakfast, but he thought a cup of strong coffee might be good for his head. He tried to git up, but the sheet seemed to be rolled ‘round him so he couldn’t rise. Then he tried to roll over, so he could git untangled, but he couldn’t even turn over. Then he got mad, and tried to bust the sheet, but he strained at it till he was black in the face, and couldn’t break a stitch. Then he called Tildy. She come in and walked ’round in front of him.

“‘Tildy,’ says he, ‘what’s the matter with this sheet?’

“‘I don’t see nothin’ wrong with it,’ says she.

“‘Well, then,’ says Hank, ‘what in the nation is the matter with me?’

“‘Oh!’ says Tildy; ‘that’s different. If I undertake to stan’ here and tell all that’s wrong with you, my breakfast’ll be burnt to a cinder before I’m half through.’ And with that, she turned ‘round and marched away to the kitchen.

“Well, of course Hank was fightin’ mad, but he wasn’t in no shape to do nothin’ but jest lay still and think, and not in no great shape for thinkin’, so he jest went to sleep again.

“Next time he opened his eyes, Tildy was standin’ over him with a dish of meat and bread, and a cup of hot coffee.

“‘Good mornin’,’ says she, mighty polite. ‘Would you like to have some breakfast?’

“Hank grinned, kinder sheepish, and she propped up his head, and begun to feed him with a spoon. When he tried to speak, she would pour a spoonful of coffee in his mouth, right quick, and he’d have to stop to swaller, and time he’d git that down, she’d have another one ready for him. He was tryin’ to talk all the time, but she didn’t give him a chance to say a word. Finally, she got so tickled, seein’ him swaller so fast, that she spilt a lot of hot coffee down his neck.

“‘Jerusalem!’ he yelled. ‘Woman, do you want to scald me to death?’ And with that he begun to cuss, and bluster about what he would do when he got loose. Tildy set the dishes on the table without sayin’ a word. Then she went to the front door, and called to little Johnnie Martin, in the next yard.

“‘Johnnie,’ she says, ‘is Brother Collins at home?’

“‘Yessum,’ says Johnnie.

“‘All right,’ says Tildy, and she went in and put on her bonnet and started out the front door.

“‘Where you goin’, Tildy?’ Hank asked.

“‘I’m goin’ after Brother Collins.’

“‘What for?’

“‘I want him to talk to you.’

“‘Me?’ says Hank. ‘I don’t want to talk to no preacher!’

“‘I don’t want you to talk to him,’ says Tildy. ‘I want him to talk to you,’ and she walked out the door. When Hank heard her slam the gate behind her, he hollered like the house was afire.

“‘Oh, Tildy!’ She come back to the door and looked in.

“‘Why, Tildy,’ says Hank, pitiful as a baby, ‘you don’t aim to make me the laughin’-stock of the settlement, do you?’

“‘I don’t see why you need to bother about that,’ says Tildy. ‘If it’s no disgrace to git drunk, and gamble, and fight, in a corner grocery, it’s no disgrace to talk to a minister of the gospel.’ She started out again, but Hank called her back.

“‘Hold on, Tildy; I’ll agree to anything you say, if you won’t call in the preacher.’

“‘What you goin’ to do about them circulars I got printed?’ she asked.

“‘Why, I’m goin’ down there and maul the life out of old Goatwhiskers for printin’ them things,’ says Hank. Tildy started out again, and he yelled after her to come back. Promised he wouldn’t say a word to him.

“‘What are you goin’ to say to the boys you had the fight with?’

“‘Fight!’ says Hank. ‘It wasn’t no fight. The whole crowd lit into me and mauled me most to death, and I hadn’t said a word.’

“‘I understand you knocked ’em all down with a cheer, if that’s any satisfaction to you,’ says Tildy.

“‘All right, then,’ says Hank, ‘I’m willin’ to call it square, if they are.’

“‘Not goin’ to say a word to nobody about nothin’?’ she asked.

“‘Not a word,’ says he.

“‘Not goin’ to drink any more?’

“‘Not a drop, Tildy. Now, come on and cut this devilish thing off. I feel like I’ll die if it stays on me another minute.’ Tildy couldn’t think of nothin’ more he could promise, so finally she cut the bastin’ threads and let him loose. Well, sir, he didn’t say a word out of the way to them boys that beat ’em up, and he wouldn’t even take a few drinks to taper off, and it’s my opinion,” said old Eli, solemnly, “that he wouldn’t drink a drop of liquor, right now, if he was bit by a snake.”

They were driving into Jonesboro when the old man finished his story, and the big town clock struck four.

“Great guns!” cried Hodges in amazement, “it’s four o’clock!”

“Egzackly,” said Eli, with an air of innocent triumph. “I’ve drove over this road so often, I can time the trip to a minute. You said you wanted to be here egzackly at four o’clock—”

“Four devils!” Hodges yelled. “I said four hours! I’m two hours late. I’ll have to stay in this jay town a whole day!”

“My, my!” exclaimed old Eli. “Somebody’s made a terrible mistake. I do hope I wasn’t in no way to blame for it. Now, if you’d just mentioned that you was behind time, I could easy have put them grays through two hours earlier.”

“Oh, it’s my fault, I guess,” said Hodges, when his wrath had subsided. “I told old Elrod, but I ought to have told you, too. Then I rode along for four mortal hours sucking that bottle of foolkiller, and didn’t have sense enough to look at my watch once. Well, well! I’ll just charge it up to Hodges, and see it don’t happen again.”

Though Eli was not to blame, he was inconsolable, till Hodges gave him a dollar at parting. Tears of gratitude stood in the old man’s eyes.

“Good-bye, Stranger,” he said. “I do hope old man Elrod won’t find out about you bein’ late. He’d be powerful pestered to know you’d been disappointed. Good-bye.” And as he drove away, he muttered to himself: “Darn the feller! I think he might have offered to fill my bottle.”

The modern lecturer is the alarm clock of civilization wound up to go off with a whiz and a bang at any hour in the evening, according to the whims of his audience. A Northern audience wants to be aroused at 8 P.M. sharp, a Southern audience anywhere between 8.30 P.M. and daylight, A.M. But some time in the night he is sure to wake the natives, for he is a traveling gesture tied to a bell clapper and

When his hands begin to swing

And his bell begins to ring

His waking listeners laugh and weep

And then, alas! go back to sleep.

But still he screams and fights the air

And stamps his foot and pulls his hair

And growls and roars upon the stage

Like some fierce lion in a rage,

Until at last his clock runs down

And he winds it up for another town.

Selah!

—Robert L. Taylor.

THE MAN AND THE MATINEE
BY
SYBIL STEWART

There was a ring at the door, a light tripping of feet up the stairs, a swish of skirts in the hall, then a quick little tap at Mabel’s door.

Mabel had looked up from her book at the first of these sounds with the eager interest an invalid must feel in any interruption to the long day. At each succeeding sound her face grew brighter until she cried a cordial, “Come in,” and, as the door flew open, added, “There, I knew it was you and I’m awfully glad. You are as good as a breath of the blessed out-doors.” And she kissed the newcomer’s glowing cheeks.

There was a general breeziness about Cora that justified Mabel’s words. She sailed into the room, veils fluttering and skirts rustling, kissed her friend swiftly and settled upon the arm of her chair like a bird on a bough.

“But, Angel of Peace, there’s nothing blessed about me. I’m in another scrape.” She opened her big eyes impressively upon her audience. The audience sat up in her chair and asked with interest, “What disagreeable thing has happened now?”

“Oh, I didn’t say it was disagreeable, did I? It wasn’t at all; at least it is not. Quite otherwise, really.”

“Well, Cora, you are the only person I know who can get into a dreadful scrape and have a lovely time there.”

“That’s because I feel so much at home. And then, some way, even if the scrape is personally painful I can enjoy its picturesqueness objectively, you know. That’s the way with this one. Personally it was very painful to be placed in such a position, especially with such people, you know.”

“No, I don’t know, but I’m dying to. I only live to hear your adventures. I never could have stood this sprained ankle if you had not come in to refresh me with your hairbreadth escapes. You are a perfect Sinbad.”

“Now you need not poke fun at me. Queer things do happen to me and I thought you liked to hear about them.”

“Why, I do, I do. I was just telling you how I liked it.”

“Well, you may thank your poor little ankle for preventing you from sharing this adventure, because if you had been able to walk I should have invited you to go to the Valley of Diamonds with me, and then I wonder what you would have done with that conscience of yours?”

“What are you talking about? I suppose you have been entering Tiffany’s vaults?”

“Not exactly—and it wasn’t a Valley of Diamonds, but a Valley of Matinee Tickets, which is quite as remarkable as anything Sinbad saw.”

“Don’t prelude so much. I am harrowed to the last degree.”

“I’ll tell you the whole story.” Cora shook her broad hat back over her tawny hair, dropped down upon a stool and clasped her hands about her knees. Mabel settled herself in the Morris chair with a sigh of satisfaction and anticipation.

“Well, you know this is the 28th of the month. That means I’ve been absolutely broke for a week.”

Mabel accepted this axiom and told her to go on and not be slangy.

“And doubtless you know too that ‘The Golden Quest’ has been running all week at Howards?

“I should think I did know it. I’ve been reading the papers every morning and eating my heart out in bitterness and tears. I’d give my eyes to see that third act. They do say she has the most gorgeous costumes in America, and her voice—”

“Oh, yes, her voice, but lots of people have voices. Not many of us have quarts of diamonds, and I was wild to see those, and I hadn’t a cent except the quarter Uncle Joe gave me when I had my first tooth pulled. That always stands between me and starvation and I like to keep it there; besides, the tickets were two dollars. I could not go to Daddy after the affair of The Gold Buckles, and I felt a certain delicacy in approaching the cook on the subject. I was thinking of selling my new shoes when Laura’s note came saying six of us were to lunch with her Saturday. I thought that would make me forget myself during the worst time and keep me from pawning my gold handled umbrella.

“Saturday came and I rode down to Laura’s, trying to avoid the posters. It was an awfully nice luncheon and Geraldine wore her new green. Beautiful dress but it makes her look bunchy. Well, any way we had just gotten to mushroom timbales—don’t you love timbales? I wonder how they make them—. Well, we were at timbales when the ’phone rang and the maid said someone wanted me. It was Mary, our cook, and she said a messenger boy had just brought some theater tickets and should she send them to me or was I coming back before the matinee. My heart leaped within me, but I calmed myself by considering that they were probably tickets for Stereopticon Views of Palestine, for Aunt Myra is always sending me that kind of thing. So I managed to contain myself sufficiently to ask details. My dear, can you imagine the tumult and wild joy raised in my bosom when Mary read over the tickets and found they were for ‘The Golden Quest’ and there were six of them? I told her to send them to Laura’s and then I tore back to the dining room. You should have heard the shrieks of jubilation. We beat the table with our forks and sang the opening chorus. Six tickets and six girls and all in our happy clothes, the matinee only an hour off and they had all wanted to see it as much as I. When the first wild burst was over, it occurred to me to wonder where the tickets came from. At first they seemed a direct answer to prayer, but I began to think there must be a more palpable source. It wasn’t Daddy. He had not forgiven me enough yet to be so horribly generous. And the only other person was Aunt Myra and she is old fashioned and Presbyterian.”

“What has that to do with it, Cora?”

“Why, it means she regards me as a raging heathen and never shows me any consideration as her niece, but a great deal of attention as a soul to be saved. She sends me little books and a weekly paper, and when a missionary visits her house she invites me over. She hopes to show me the beauties of a Higher Life, but it only sets me against Presbyterianism, because all the missionaries make noises with their soup and it must be awful to belong to a church like that.”

“Cora, you are a disgrace to a civilized family. And besides, it may after all have been your aunt that sent the tickets, hoping to win you through kindness.”

“Mabel, you rave! Aunt Myra regards the theater as the clearest manifestation of the Evil One on earth, and her saintly little Caddie is not allowed to look at a poster. A nephew is visiting them now, and I dare say they are taking him to the midweek lectures on Genesis in the Light of Arabian Topography. I know Aunt hopes to win him to her church, as he has heaps of money and they need a new chapel. As he belongs to her side of the family I suppose he trots along, and perhaps leads the experience meeting. I should not wonder if he wears a lawn tie in the morning,—that is a special mark of sanctity, you know.”

“Cora, I refuse to listen to you. You don’t know a thing about real church life, so leave it alone and go back to your matinee.”

“With gleesome heart, my dear. After I had cut Aunt Myra off my list of possible donors I was absolutely at a loss, and we girls just decided to believe in fairy godmothers, when the boy came with the tickets. How we gloated over that little envelope. I pulled them out, and Mabel—they were box-seats—six seats, box-seats to “The Golden Quest.” Talk about your Valley of Diamonds! We were all dazed and felt as if we were enchanted. It is such a beautiful thing to have your dreams come true in that miraculous way, though to be sure I had no more dreamed of box-seats than I had dreamed of the Koh-i-nor in my new hat. We wondered more than ever, and took turns looking at the tickets for some revealing clue. They were good bona-fide tickets, but that was all. There was no card, no name, no hint; even the envelope was the theater one with just the address scribbled over the ads. on the outside.

“Well, we didn’t care and scrambled into our things and hied us to the theater, while the girls chanted my praises and sang pæans of rejoicing and gratitude. The theater was full when we arrived and everybody was in her most gorgeous things, and we were the haughtiest ever when the usher showed us to our box. Our box! Why, we acted as if we’d always had it for the season. There was a little delay, for some reason, that gave me time to think. The mystery of the tickets puzzled me and was beginning to worry me a little, too. What if there was some mistake and I had rushed into all this with my usual mistaken velocity! The responsibility made me feel a little queer, Mabel, honestly. If it had not been such a frightfully extravagant thing I wouldn’t have thought so much of it. But not many people send thirty dollar tickets around promiscuously among the deserving poor. The girls were as gay as larks, but I couldn’t let myself go some way. They could afford to be gay. They were simply guests, but I,—whose guest was I? It was sort of getting on my nerves when a little diversion came. Six dashing young men came into the theater and stood talking to the usher. They were quite different from the men about here and created a sensation. Any one could see they were strangers and we all wondered where they got their beautiful clothes. One seemed to be the head of the party and he was having quite a lengthy consultation with the usher, so we had a good look at them. We were staring with all our eyes, I dare say, when suddenly that first young man lifted his head from talking to the usher and looked straight into our box—looked not casually and accidentally but deliberately and prolongedly, Mabel, and I began to feel my hat was wrong when he turned back to the usher and shook his head decidedly. Then the usher looked at us and my heart jumped right up into my new stock. It was something about those awful tickets and perhaps there was something the matter and they would come and turn us out of the box. What would the girls do to me and what would the people think and who was that man and who was responsible for the tickets? I was beginning to wish I had never heard of “The Golden Quest” and was sure I couldn’t stand it till the third act, when the usher and the man turned around and went out to the box office. Something was going to happen. What could I do? Here were the five girls at the heights of bliss and anticipation, and here was I in the depths of anxious misery, and there were the five young men staring coolly around, waiting for their friend, and there was the man out at the box office probably demanding that I be seized and turned with my friends into the streets. But what could I do? It wasn’t my fault, for the tickets had been sent to me, surely. Perhaps they had been stolen and sent to me as a revenge from some inhuman enemy. I thought of everything, Mabel, and then the man came back, collected his friends and the whole party with their usher at their head, came down the side aisle toward our box. I had just time to arrange my sad story and be thankful I had on my best hat when they reached the curtains of our box. I started up, but, Mabel, they went right on to the next box and sat down. I breathed again, but not very freely, for surely that man knew something about our box, or was my guilty conscience causing me hallucinations? Yet why guilty? What had I done? Apparently the worst was over now, but I was not at ease and thought the incident might at any moment repeat itself with different results. There was a blare of orchestra and the curtain went up; after one hurried glance at the stage I glued my eye to the door again. Fifteen minutes passed and nothing happened and so I turned around—turned to look into the interested eyes of the man in the other box. Perhaps he was a detective and watching me, but he didn’t look a bit like that, though he had quite a different look from the one a man ordinarily gives a girl in a pretty hat. My hat was very pretty—you remember the big black one—but it didn’t justify, the inquiring interest with which he regarded me. Yet he did not stare. Really he did not, Mabel, but was very decent. I looked at the stage now but sort of felt him there some way, and had a little feeling about the door, too, so I wasn’t very comfortable. When the curtain went down on the first act I expected to have a swarm of irate claimants for the box swoop down upon me, but not a soul appeared, and surely no one would come after that. I took the little envelope out of my bag and looked at it again. Nothing but 1229 Second on it—in pencil—. That was our number all right. Then something struck me. It was just 1229 Second, and ours is 1229 West Second. But after all that could make little difference, as heaps of our things come out marked that way and there is rarely a mistake, as Aunt Myra’s, by some freak of fate, is 1229 East Second, and everybody knows us both and knows which is which. The only accident that ever happened was that awful thing about Mme. Durant and the bridesmaid’s hat—you remember that? That incident made me notice the address, but I could not explain the mystery that way, for no theater tickets like these could ever have been sent to Aunt Myra’s respectable door. These were the things I pondered and puzzled while the play went merrily on. I didn’t see or hear much of it and I don’t believe that man in the box saw much more. He seemed to be pondering something, too.

“At last the thing was over and the crowd trooped out—among them the five young men and the man. You would have called him the man, too, Mabel, for he was quite different from the rest. Such shoulders and such a carriage! He held his head as if he were commanding an army or a yacht. Yet when we passed them in the corridor outside the box he bowed with such respectful humility. He was awfully impressive, but I was too much troubled to consider him long.

“The girls were wild with enthusiasm, so I suppose the play was really good. Anyway the girls were so full of admiration and adjectives that it was very easy to slip away from them a minute. I stepped to the box office and inquired about those tickets. The man was very polite, but didn’t know anything except that they had been ordered by ’phone to be sent to that address. They had been sent, but the man who said he had ordered them arrived shortly before the matinee and said they had not come. The usher assured him they must have been delivered for they had been presented just a few minutes before, and he showed the man the box. Whereupon the man paid for the tickets and procured another box. The man in the box office was very calm about it as he had his money, but I wasn’t. I told him I had gotten the tickets by mistake and must pay for them. He said he had been paid. I tried to show him I must pay, but he seemed to think me very foolish and said if I paid anyone I must pay the man who bought the tickets. I said that was what I wanted to do, but couldn’t he do it for me. He said he couldn’t as he had no idea who the man was or where he could be found. But if I could get the address he would gladly forward the money through the theater. He had begun to look as if he thought it a joke, so I had to be satisfied with that and went back to the girls.”

“But, Cora, what would you have done if he had said, ‘Oh, yes; Mr. Z. is one of our regular patrons. If you will give me the money I’ll give you a receipt and reimburse him.’ You didn’t have your chatelaine full of bills, did you? I suppose you would have passed your gold handled umbrella through the window and given that to the man as a token of your grateful esteem.”

“I haven’t the remotest idea what I would have done if he had asked for the money. As it was, I became from that hour a man-hunter. It has its fascinations as a pastime but is discouraging in its results. My method has its limitations. My only hope is that he can’t escape the girls long and I’ll soon hear of him again. I’m praying I may hear of him before I meet him face to face. Wouldn’t it be ghastly, Mabel, if at a crush some time my hostess should suddenly confront me with this man—and he would cry, ‘This is the young person who defrauded me of thirty dollars worth of matinee tickets?’ Only I know he would never denounce me openly. He would just wither me with silent scorn. Yet he didn’t look withering Saturday. Why on earth didn’t he give me a chance to straighten things out then and there?”

“Yes, it would have been so much more comfortable if he had demanded an explanation as the curtain went down and your guests turned to thank you. No, Cora, I think he did the only thing to do and did it beautifully. His effacement of himself shows he has a heart of gold. Most men would have left some chance to be thanked, any way. Still, it is embarrassing for you. However, I would not look too hard for him till my next allowance came. Your father would never understand this delicate situation.”

“Father! Heavens, no! Not a soul knows but you and the box office man, and I know you understand, don’t you, dear? Isn’t it awful—but isn’t it interesting? I wish you could have seen the man. And I do wish your ankle was well enough to permit of your going about with me, for I know I shall faint when I see him again.”

Cora glanced at her absurd little watch, and jumped to her feet. “Goodness, nearly five, and I’m due at Aunt Myra’s for dinner at seven. It is to meet that nephew of hers and a missionary or two, probably. I hate to waste the time, because if I were somewhere else I might get a clue to my man.”

“So you haven’t met the nephew yet?”

“No, indeed; Aunt wanted to give Caddie a good chance at him first, because she wants Caddie to have what is left after he builds the chapel. As if I would look at the solemn prig.”

“How do you know he is a prig?”

“Because Aunt Myra likes him. Caddie won’t look at him, either, though, because her eyes are full of that downy little theologue, and all Aunt Myra’s talk against worldliness is going to rebound upon her own head. Is that a mixed metaphor? Anyway, Caddie has set her affections on things above and wouldn’t look twice at a million. Good-bye, dear. This burst of confidence has eased my nerves wonderfully, and I’ll come again the instant I find a clue and tell you all about it. You are the only relative I have that does not think me shocking, and I love you—good-bye.” An airy kiss and she was gone, leaving a faint suggestion of violets behind her fluttering veils.

It was half past nine the next morning and Mabel was having coffee and rolls in bed when in rushed Cora, radiant, glowing, and evidently bursting with news.

Mabel rose on her elbow.

“Cora, you have found him!”

Cora settled herself in a fluffy pink heap on the foot of the bed.

“Now, it’s not fair unless you let me tell you the whole affair just as it happened.”

“All right, but do hurry.”

“Well,” began Cora, then paused long enough to remove her hat carefully, toss it beside her on the bed, and pat her little fingers over the most obstreperously crinkly waves around her face. “Well,” she said, “when I got home last night I began right away to dress for Aunt Myra’s. Daddy sent word to tell her he couldn’t come because a business friend had just arrived. Daddy’s friends always arrive just about an hour before Aunt Myra’s dinners. I think he keeps a corps of them just for such emergencies. Then I was nearly late trying to decide whether I’d wear that black chiffon that I can’t afford to throw away just yet, or my sweet new pale green and make the missionaries dream of other worlds than theirs. I finally decided on the green because the other fastens in the back and Jane had a terrible toothache. So I wore the green, and of course that horrid little opal pin Aunt Myra gave me, but it didn’t show much.

“Aunt received me with her usual sanctimonious frigidity and inquired after my health. We sat in stony silence for a few minutes. Caddie was sitting by the window but there were no missionaries about. Finally the clock struck seven. We had waited only three minutes but I was already frozen to my chair. When the clock struck Aunt Myra turned to Caddie and said:

“‘Where is your cousin Robert?’

I should have asked if I were my cousin’s keeper, but Caddie is meek and said he had been detained down town and was dressing, she thought.

“‘Your cousin seems to have no regard for a regular family life,’ said Aunt accusingly, and stalked out, evidently to drag the culprit to his dinner. I knew by the way she shoved the relationship off on Caddie that she didn’t approve of her nephew, and so I thought he might prove a possible person, after all.

“The minute Aunt had closed the door after her Caddie rushed over to me and began to whisper. She is a sweet little thing, but suppressed beyond belief.

“‘Oh, Cousin Cora,’ she said, ‘I have been dying to tell some one and you will be just the one to understand. It is the most exciting thing! Poor Cousin Robert isn’t a bit like us and he has a dreadful time with Mamma. He hasn’t been brought up in our way, but lives in New York in such a worldly family, and he doesn’t think anything of dancing and the theater, and he even plays cards. He seems very nice, though, and as long as that is the way he was taught I don’t know that he is to blame. But Mamma preaches at him all the time and he escapes whenever he can politely, because he is always considerate, even when Mamma is the worst. He has been lovely to me and I told him all about Clifford and he is going to help us. Well, he told me his troubles, too. A lot of his college friends came through here the other day and he couldn’t invite them to the house, because he knew Mamma wouldn’t approve of them, so he gave a little lunch down town somewhere and invited them to go to some play. He ’phoned for the tickets early in the morning and they were to come here, but they didn’t come, so he said he would get them at the theater. Well, Cora, he got home just in time for dinner and was so excited, and afterwards he took me into the library and told me all about it. There was some mistake about the tickets for they had been used already and the people were in the box—,’ Mabel, it would sound awfully silly for me to tell you all she said he said.”

“Go on,” said Mabel, sternly; “I must hear all.”

“Well, Caddie said he said it was the mistake of his life for it showed him the sweetest girl in the world. And then she told me a lot of stuff like that and wound up by asking me if I’d help her find the girl for him, because he had vowed he would spend the rest of his life looking, if necessary, and if she helped him he would see that Clifford had the new chapel. She was explaining it all to me when in came her Cousin Robert. He stopped short, and I was the color of that cushion. Caddie didn’t notice, but introduced us and told Mr. Page that she was sure I could help him in his search, as the girl was probably in my set. He looked hard at me and said he thought I might be able to help him—and, Mabel, I was awfully glad I had on that green. And Caddie said, ‘Tell Cousin Cora what the girl was like, Robert,’—and Mabel, that man had the brazen effrontery to do it. He looked me straight in the eye and told me what he thought of my hair and eyes and nose and even my clothes. And Aunt Myra came in and was displeased. Caddie had told her something of the matinee experience, and Aunt said severely, ‘Are you still discussing that impudent creature at the theater? I should think it would have been enough to have seen her at such a place without her being there on stolen tickets!’ So we dropped the matinee girl, to my infinite relief. When I rose to go home Mr. Page insisted upon accompanying me and told Aunt Myra he hoped to interest me in the plans for the chapel. And on the way home, Mabel, he didn’t allude to the matinee and I hated to drag it in. He kept talking about that chapel and said he wanted me to help him with the architect’s plans, as he wished my opinion on it because I might have to go there some time. He expected to. I suppose he was just talking to kill time. He said he was nearly dead from an excess of virtue that came from staying with Aunt Myra a week, and wouldn’t I please, as one heathen to another, ask him to tea? So he is coming this afternoon, Mabel. What do you think of it all, anyway?”

“I think it is beautiful and just what I always expected, Cora, and I shall order my hat of Mme. Durant.”

“O, you horrid thing!” and Cora buried her rosy face in the counterpane.