“No respectable married woman would think of doing a thing like that!” he had said hotly.
So I had watched the event, longingly, standing on a boardwalk across the street and yearning to be one of the gay throng, to be wearing a beautiful evening dress or even better, to be one of the amateur actresses from Central City playing on the stage. But I had been a good wife and obeyed Harvey—I had not gone.
Now it was different and I was defiant. Harvey could not support me and Jake had given us too many groceries and presents of merchandise not to admit the friendship openly.
“I’d be dead—starved to death—if it wasn’t for Jake. He’s helped us out over and over again when you didn’t have a dime. I won’t let you say things against him!”
Harvey was surly but said nothing more and soon took his bad temper out to dramatize in a saloon. But the next quarrel was the end. He insinuated that my baby wasn’t his and I picked up a specimen of Fourth of July ore that we kept on the table and threw it at him with all the strength I could muster. The rock hit him on the neck, scratching him badly, and, as he felt the injured spot and the trickle of blood, he blurted out,
“Why, you common Irish hussy!”
He glared at me briefly, turned in awkward anger and stamped out the door. I did not see him again for months. I heard later that he had hitched a ride on a freight train out of camp.
When I told Jake what had happened, he said,
“Never mind, Baby, I’ll see you through—and what you need now is some gayety to forget about your troubles. Let’s go to the Shoo-Fly tonight.”
The suggestion shocked me and I peered at my friend suspiciously but he only shrugged his shoulders and asked laconically: