Grant was shaving when David clattered in to tell me about the fire. I called the fire department quickly, after a glance out the door; the licking flames were dramatic and beautiful out there in the blackness behind Moe's restaurant.
I ran toward the fire with David, beating Grant to the draw. One of us, naturally, had to stay with the baby and the motel, and I knew I'd be the one if I didn't hurry!
The fire department was there within five mintues, and before long they had the blazing weeds under control. The next morning we went out to inspect the path of the fire, marked by black weeds and burnt earth, and we saw that the fire had come up almost exactly to our property line, where it had been stopped.
"See, we aren't jinxed, after all," Grant said.
We realized how lucky we had been. If the wind had been blowing in another direction, or harder, and if the fire department hadn't been so prompt, the rear section of our motel--the four single cabins--might have burned.
Thursday was the day set for the wedding. Mr. Hawkins' well-built body was encased rakishly in a striped suit, and his brown eyes were sparkling with his characteristic sly amusement when he came into the office. I smiled, remembering Miss Nestleburt's remark about hoping he wouldn't embarass her by playing a practical joke or doing something eccentric at the ceremony. I couldn't blame her for not quite trusting him.
Mr. Hawkins swept off his hat. "I know, madame," he said, "what you think about me. I know what you're thinking right now. It is my fond hope that I can at least partially obliterate the bad impression I have made upon you. There are two hours yet before the ceremony, and in those two hours I propose to work for you. If you will give me cleaning equipment and fresh linens I shall clean my cabin from ceiling to floorboard, until it is so spotless it will look as though it had never been occupied."
Since Grant, who cleaned each occupied cabin each day, whether or not the occupants were staying over, had cleaned Mr. Hawkins' cabin the previous morning, it wasn't as much in need of a thorough cleaning as he implied.
We hadn't cleaned his cabin yet today, though. Since this was to be his last day here, we planned to wait until he left, and then to get it ready for a new customer.
I had tried to persuade the pair to stay at our motel for their honeymoon. Mr. Hawkins, though, insisted that they should travel for a few weeks, and then settle down in Burbank, where he had a nice home that had been rented out since the death of his first wife five years ago. Mr. Hawkins would have liked to spend a comfortable honeymoon in Banning, probably, but he didn't trust me. He knew that, although I had laughed off the rubber spider and several other of his little whimsicalities, I had never forgiven him for the tooth brush incident. He was afraid that I would seize upon his wedding night as an opportunity to revenge myself in full.