Maid Marian, and Other Stories

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Somehow Sam and the other fellows seemed to realize that we weren't quite so brotherly as we had been, and consequently they enlarged upon our fraternal feelings, and represented us as being much more deeply attached to each other than we ever could have been; but at last it was all over, and we started to walk home—we had lodgings together. As we came out into the quiet moonlit streets I noticed Ted seemed to expect me to speak.

"Now see here," said I, turning to him; "you know what that little rascal said to-night?"

"Yes, I know," said Ted doggedly; "and I know what Jenny Hobbs said too."

"It's more than anybody else does," said I, feeling as if I wanted to choke him. "We'd better not discuss that now," said I, presently; "we've both had some champagne, and I want to think things over, and so do you, perhaps; so we'll let it rest until to-morrow."

"Just as you like," said Ted sulkily.

We went home and went to bed, both rather worn out with excitement. Next morning, just as we were dressed and going to get some breakfast, Sam Stacker came in, boiling. I don't know who could have told him, or whether he guessed at it from the way we looked the night before, but he evidently knew that something was up between us. So he sat right down and gave us a talking to. "Now, boys," says he, very earnestly, "you see how it is. You've made a tremendous hit with that there balloon feature. Last night when I came out and told that there whopper about the balloon bein' six miles in the air, and broached that benevolent scheme about your families, you ought to have heard the women scream; it done my heart good to hear 'em; two of 'em had to be carried out in convulsions, and it would be worth five thousand dollars' advertising if one of 'em was to die. Of course if you fellows quarrel, we'll have to drop the Valbella Brothers altogether, and that'll make a difference in your salaries. Besides, if you both get to making love to Jenny Hobbs, it will upset the whole business, and I'll just have to pay her the penalty in her contract, and get somebody else in her place. That'll be hard on her, poor girl, as she'll lose the best chance she's had yet of getting introduced to the public. I really had hoped you two fellows would have kept out of difficulties with each other," continued Sam, groaning. "I swear there's but one thing worse than quarreling in a theatrical company, and that is love-making. Blamed if I don't post a fine for any man in the company that's caught looking at a woman. Love, anyhow, is the durndest, foolishest business on top of the earth—no money in it and lots of trouble—and here you are two fellows actually risking a cut of twenty dollars a week for the sake of a petticoat! It's wicked, I say, and blasphemous, and it'll ruin the show business. And here you've gone and brought the whole infernal bother on my head, and I've been a good friend to you both; and—and it's a shame—and—"

Sam stopped, almost crying. Neither one of us fully believed his threat about parting with Jenny, but it would clearly lead to trouble and loss of money on all sides if the Valbella Brothers came to grief. So it was tacitly understood that for the remainder of the season neither one of us should say a word to Jenny, and should go on as usual; and afterward each would try his luck with the pretty little dancer. Sam Stacker had intimated privately to me that if we left off our trapeze performance he and the rest of the company would construe it that I was afraid to risk it with Ted, considering the feeling between us, and I think he also managed to convey the same idea to Ted, and it had its effect on each. Sam swore that he intended to advise Jenny to marry the trombone, who had three wives in various stages of divorce, seven small children, and who alternated between the show business and that of a professional revivalist.

After that we went along as usual, and except that we were more than commonly polite to each other, nobody would have suspected anything was the matter. While we had been friends we often had little tiffs; but after we became enemies—for that was what we inevitably became—we were politer than French dancing masters to each other. We didn't do the balloon-trapeze act everywhere. If we only made one-night stands, or if the stage was too small, or if the lessee of the house objected to it, we didn't have it, but still we had five or six weeks of it before Christmas, and Jenny never would witness it, but went and hid her face when it came off—so that only made it plainer that she liked one of us, but which one nobody could guess. It often occurred to me when we were rising slowly on that trapeze in front of the foot-lights, doing all kinds of monkey tricks while the people yelled and shouted, and the balloon was going up into the flies, that Ted could do me a mischief that nobody would know anything about after I was mashed and bruised out of shape by the fall, and I dare say he thought the same of me. Nothing happened, however, until one night—it was the very night before Christmas. Now, excepting the bad blood between the Valbella Brothers, I don't believe there was a man or a woman in that company who wasn't at peace and in good-will with the others that blessed Christmas Eve. Sam Stacker was such a kind, honest, soft-hearted but hard-headed old customer that he made quarreling unpopular and almost impossible. He had given us all something that day, and Jenny Hobbs's present was the best of any. I wanted to give Jenny something too, but I hardly thought it fair to my understanding with Ted. But just before the performance began, Jenny came to me, smiling and blushing very much, and said:

"I've—I've got a Christmas gift for you."