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Shorty McCabe

<h3>CHAPTER X</h3></div> But say, I guess Buddy'll work out all right. There's good stuff in him. Anyways, I ain't losin' my eyesight, tryin' to follow his curves. And my date book's been full lately. That's the way I like it. If you know how to take things there's a whole lot of fun in just bein' alive; ain't there? Now look at the buffo combination I've been up against. First off I meets Jarvis—you know, Mr. Jarvis of Blenmont, who's billed to marry that English girl, Lady Evelyn, next month. Well, Jarvis he was all worked up. Oh, you couldn't guess it in a week. It was an awful thing that happened to him. Just as he's got his trunk packed for England, where the knot-tyin' is to take place, he gets word that some old lady that was second cousin to his mother, or something like that, has gone and died and left him all her property. "Real thoughtless of her, wa'n't it?" says I. "Well," says Jarvis, lookin' kind of foolish, "I expect she meant well enough. I don't mind the bonds, and that sort of thing, but there's this Nightingale Cottage. Now, what am I to do with that?" "Raise nightingales for the trade," says I. Jarvis ain't one of the joshin' kind, though, same as Pinckney. He had this weddin' business on his mind, and there wa'n't much room for anything else. Seems the old lady who'd quit livin' was a relative he didn't know much about. "I remember seeing her only once," says Jarvis, "and then I was a little chap. Perhaps that's why I was such a favorite of hers. She always sent me a prayer-book every Christmas." "Must have thought you was hard on prayer-books," says I. "She wa'n't batty, was she?" Jarvis wouldn't say that; but he didn't deny that there might have been a few cobwebs in the belfry. Aunt Amelia—that's what he called her—had lived by herself for so long, and had coaxed up such a case of nerves, that there was no tellin'. The family didn't even know she was abroad until they heard she'd died there. "You see," says Jarvis, "the deuce of it is the cottage is just as she stepped out of it, full of a lot of old truck that I've either got to sell or burn, I suppose. And it's a beastly nuisance." "It's a shame," says I. "But where is this Nightingale Cottage?" "Why, it's in Primrose Park, up in Westchester County," says he. With that I pricks up my ears. You know I've been puttin' my extra-long green in pickle for the last few years, layin' for a chance to place 'em where I could turn 'em over some day and count both sides. And Westchester sounded right. "Say," says I, leadin' him over to the telephone booth, "you sit down there and ring up some real-estate guy out in Primrose Park and get a bid for that place. It'll be about half or two-thirds what it's worth. I'll give you that, and ten per cent. more on account of the fixin's. Is it a go?" Was it? Mr. Jarvis had central and was callin' up Primrose Park before I gets through, and inside of an hour I'm a taxpayer. I've made big lumps of money quicker'n that, but I never spent such a chunk of it so swift before. But Jarvis went off with his mind easy, and I was satisfied. In the evenin' I dropped around to see the Whaleys. "Dennis, you low-county bog-trotter," says I, "about all I've heard out of you since I was knee high was how you was achin' to quit the elevator and get back to diggin' and cuttin' grass, same's you used to do on the old sod. Now here's a chance to make good." Well, say, that was the only time I ever talked ten minutes with Dennis Whaley without bein' blackguarded. He'd been fired off the elevator the week before and had been job-huntin' ever since. As for Mother Whaley, when she saw a chance to shake three rooms back and a fire-escape for a place where the trees has leaves on 'em, she up and cried into the corned beef and cabbage, just for joy. "I'll send the keys in the mornin'," says I. "Then you two pack up and go out there to Nightingale Cottage and open her up. If it's fit to live in, and you don't die of lonesomeness, maybe I'll run up once in a while of a Sunday to look you over." You see, I thought it would be a bright scheme to hang onto the place for a year or so, before I tries to unload. That gives the Whaleys what they've been wishin' for, and me a chance to do the weekend act now and then. Course, I wa'n't lookin' for no complications. But they come along, all right. It was on a Saturday afternoon that I took the plunge. You know how quick this little old town can warm up when she starts. We'd had the Studio fans goin' all the mornin', and the first shirtwaist lads was paradin' across Forty-second street with their coats off, and Swifty'd made tracks for Coney Island, when I remembers Primrose Park. I'd passed through in expresses often enough, so I didn't have to look it up on the map; but that was about all. When I'd spoiled the best part of an hour on a local full of commuters and low-cut high-brows, who killed time playin' whist and cussin' the road, I was dumped down at a cute little station about big enough for a lemonade stand. As the cars went off I drew in a long breath. Say, I'd got off just in time to escape bein' carried into Connecticut. I jumps into a canopy-top surrey that looks like it had been stored in an open lot all winter, and asks the driver if he knows where Nightingale Cottage is. "Sure thing!" says he. "That's the place Shorty McCabe's bought." "Do tell!" says I. "Well, cart me out to the front gate and put me off." It was a nice ride. If it had been a mile longer I'd had facts enough for a town history. Drivin' a depot carriage was just a side issue with that Primrose blossom. Conversin' was his long suit. He tore off information by the yard, and slung it over the seat-back at me like one of these megaphone lecturers on the rubber-neck wagons. Accordin' to him, Aunt 'Melie had been a good deal of a she-hermit. "Why," says he, "Major Curtis Binger told me himself that in the five years he lived neighbors to her he hadn't seen her more'n once or twice. They say she hadn't been out of her yard for ten years up to the time she went abroad for her health and died of it." "Anyone that could live in this town that long and not die, couldn't have tried very hard," says I. "Who's this Major Binger?" "Oh, he's a retired army officer, the major is; widower, with two daughters," says he. "Singletons?" says I. "Yep, and likely to stay so," says he. About then he turns in between a couple of fancy stone gate-posts, twists around a cracked bluestone drive, and lands me at the front steps of Nightingale Cottage. For the kind, it wa'n't so bad—one of those squatty bay-windowed affairs, with a roof like a toboggan chute, a porch that did almost a whole lap around outside, and a cobblestone chimney that had vines growin' clear to the top. And sure enough, there was Dennis Whaley with his rake, comin' as near a grin as he knew how. Well, he has me in tow in about a minute, and I makes a personally conducted tour of me estate. Say, all I thought I was gettin' was a couple of buildin' lots; but I'll be staggered if there wa'n't a slice of ground most as big as Madison Square Park, with trees, and shrubbery, and posy beds, and dinky little paths loopin' the loop all around. Out back was a stable and goosb'ry bushes and a truck garden. "How's thim for cabbages?" says Dennis. "They look more like boutonnieres," says I. But he goes on to tell as how they'd just been set out and wouldn't be life-size till fall. Then he shows the rows that he says was goin' to be praties and beans and so on, and he's as proud of the whole shootin'-match as if he'd done a miracle. When we got around to the front again, where Dennis has laid out a pansy harp, I sees a little gatherin' over in front of the cottage next door. There was three or four gents, and six or eight women-folks. They was lookin' my way, and talkin' all to once. "Hello!" says I. "The neighbors seem to be holdin' a convention. Wonder if they're plannin' to count me in?" I ain't more'n got that out before one of the bunch cuts loose and heads for me. He was a nice-lookin' old duck, with a pair of white Chaunceys and a frosted chin-splitter. He stepped out brisk and swung his cane like he was on parade. He was got up in white flannels and a square-topped Panama, and he had the complexion of a good liver. "I expect that this is Mr. McCabe," says he. "You're a good guesser," says I. "Come up on the front stoop and sit by." "My name," says he, "is Binger, Curtis Binger." "What, Major Binger, late U. S. A.?" says I. "The man that did the stunt at the battle of What-d'ye-call-it?" "Mission Ridge, sir," says he, throwin' out his chest. "Sure! That was the place," says I. "Well, well! Who'd think it? I'm proud to know you. Put 'er there." With that I had him goin'. He was up in the air, and before he'd got over it I'd landed him in a porch rocker and chased Dennis in to dig a box of Fumadoras out of my suit-case. "Ahem," says the Major, clearin' his speech tubes, "I came over, Mr. McCabe, on rather a delicate errand." "If you're out of butter, or want to touch me for a drawin' of tea, speak right up, Major," says I. "The pantry's yours." "Thank you," says he; "but it's nothing like that; nothing at all, sir. I came over as the representative of several citizens of Primrose Park, to inquire if it is your intention to reside here." "Oh!" says I. "You want to know if I'll join the gang? Well, seein' as you've put it up to me so urgent, I don't care if I do. Course I can't sign as a reg'lar, this bein' my first jab at the simple life; but if you can stand for the punk performance I'll make at progressive euchre and croquet, you can put me on the Saturday night sub list, for a while, anyway." Now, say, I was layin' out to do the neighborly for the best that was in me; but it seemed to hit the Major wrong. He turned about two shades pinker, coughed once or twice, and then got a fresh hold. "I'm afraid you fail to grasp the situation, Mr. McCabe," says he. "You see, we lead a very quiet life here in Primrose Park, a very domestic life. As for myself, I have two daughters—" "Chic, chic, Major!" says I, pokin' him gentle in the ribs with me thumb. "Don't you try to sick any girls on me, or I'll take to the tall timber. I'm no lady's man, not a little bit." Then the explosion came. For a minute I thought one of them 'Frisco ague spells had come east. The Major turns plum color, blows up his cheeks, and bugs his eyes out. When the language flows it was like turnin' on a fire-pressure hydrant. An assistant district attorney summin' up for the State in a murder trial didn't have a look-in with the Major. What did I mean—me, a rough-house scrapper from the red-light section—by buttin' into a peaceful community and insultin' the oldest inhabitants? Didn't I have no sense of decency? Did I suppose respectable people were goin' to stand for such? Honest, that was the worst jolt I ever had. All I could do was to sit there with my mouth ajar and watch him prancin' up and down, handin' me the layout. "Say," says I, after a bit, "you ain't got me mixed up with Mock Duck, or Paddy the Gouge, or Kangaroo Mike, or any of that crowd, have you?" "You're known as Shorty McCabe, aren't you?" says he. "Guilty," says I. "Then there's no mistake," says he. "What will you take, cash down, for this property, and clear out now?" "Say, Major," says I, "do you think it would blight the buds or poison the air much if I hung on till Monday morning? That is, unless you've got the tar all hot and the rail ready?" That fetched a grunt out of him. "All we desire to do, sir," says he, "is to maintain the respectability of the neighborhood." "Do the other folks over there feel the same way about me?" says I. "Naturally," says he. "Well," says I, "I don't mind telling you, Major, that you've thrown the hooks into me good an' plenty, and it looks like I'd have to make a new book. I didn't come out here' to break up any peaceful community; but before I changes my program I'll have to sleep on it. Suppose you slide over again some time to-morrow, when your collar don't fit so tight, and then we'll see if there's anything to arbitrate." "Very well," says he, does a salute to the colors, and marches back stiff-kneed to tell his crowd how he'd read the riot act to me. Now, say, I ain't one of the kind to lose sleep because the conductor speaks rough when I asks for a transfer. I generally takes what's comin' and grins. But this time I wa'n't half so joyful as I might have been. Even the sight of Mother Whaley's hot biscuits and hearin' her singin' "Cushla Mavourneen" in the kitchen couldn't chirk me up. I'd been keen for lookin' the house over and seein' what I'd got in the grab; but it was all off. Course I knew I had the rights of the thing. I'd put down me good money, and there wa'n't any rules that could make me pull it out. But I've lived quite some years without shovin' in where I knew I'd get the frigid countenance, and I didn't like the idea of beginnin' now. I couldn't go back on my record, either. In my time I've stood up in the ring and put out my man for two thirds of the gate receipts. I ain't so proud of that now as I was once; but I ain't never had any call to be ashamed of the way I done it. What's more, no soubrette ever had a chance to call herself Mrs. Shorty McCabe, and I never let 'em put my name over the door of any Broadway jag parlor. You got to let every man frame up his own argument, though. If these Primrose Parkers had listed me for a tough citizen, that had come out to smash crockery and keep the town constable busy, it wa'n't my cue to hold any debate. All the campaign I could figure out was to back into the wings and sell to some well-behaved stock-broker or life-insurance grafter. It was goin' to be tough on the Whaleys, though. I didn't let on to Dennis, and after supper we sat on the back steps while he smoked his cutty and gassed away about the things he was goin' to raise, and how the flower-beds would look in a month or so. About nine o'clock he shows me a place where I can turn in, and I listens to the roosters crowin' most of the night. Next mornin' I had Dennis get me a Sunday paper, and after I'd read the sportin' notes, I turns to the suburban real estate ads. "Why not own a home?" most of 'em asks. "I know the answer to that," says I. And say, a Luna Park Zulu that had strayed into young Rockefeller's Bible class would have felt about as much at home as I did there on my own porch. The old Major was over on his porch, walkin' up and down like he was doin' guard duty, and once in a while I could see some of the women-folks takin' a careful squint at me from behind a window blind. If I'm ever quarantined, it won't be any new sensation. It wasn't exactly a weddin' breakfast kind of a time I was havin'; but I didn't dodge it. I was just lettin' it soak in, "for the good of me soul," as Father Connolly used to say, when I sees a pair of everfed blacks, hitched to a closed carriage, switch in from the pike and make for the Major's. "Company for dinner," says I. "That's nice." I didn't get anything but a back view as he climbed out on the off side and was led in by the Major; but you couldn't fool me on them short-legged, baggy-kneed pants, or that black griddle-cake bonnet. It was my little old Bishop, that I keeps the fat off from with the medicine-ball work. "Lucky he didn't see me," says I, "or he'd hollered out and queered himself with the whole of Primrose Park." I was figurin' on fadin' away to the other side of the house before he showed up again; but I didn't hurry about it, and when I looks up again there was the Bishop, with them fat little fingers of his stuck out, and a three-inch grin on his face, pikin' across the road right for me. He'd come out to wig-wag his driver, and, gettin' his eyes on me, he waddles right over. I tried to give him the wink and shoo him off, but it was no go. "Why, my dear professor!" says he, walkin' up and givin' me the inside-brother grip with one hand and the old-college-chum shoulder-pat with the other. I squints across the way, and there was the Major and the girls, catchin' their breath and takin' it all in, so I sees it's no use throwin' a bluff. "How's the Bishop?" says I. "You've made a bad break; but I guess it's a bit too late to hedge." He only chuckles, like he always does. "Your figures of speech, professor, are too subtle for me, as usual. However, I suppose you are as glad to see me as I am to find you." "Just what I was meanin' to spring next," says I, pullin' up a rocker for him. We chins awhile there, and the Bishop tells me how's he been out to lay a cornerstone, and thought he'd drop in on his old friend, Major Binger. "Well, well, what a charming place you have here!" says he. "You must take me all over it, professor. I want to see if you've shown as good taste on the inside as you apparently have on the out." And before I has time to say a word about Jarvis's Aunt 'Melie, he has me by the arm and we're headed for the parlor. I hadn't even opened the door before, but we blazes right in, runs up the shades, throws open the shutters, and stands by for a look. Say, it was worth it! That was the most ladyfied room I ever put me foot in. First place, I never see so many crazy lookin' little chairs, or bow-legged tables, or fancy tea-cups before in my life. There wa'n't a thing you could sit on without havin' to call the upholstery man in afterward. Even the gilt sofa looked like it ought to have been in a picture. But what had me button-eyed was the wall decorations. If I hadn't been ridin' on the sprinker for so long I'd thought it was time for me to hunt a D. T. institute right then. First off I couldn't make 'em out at all; but after the shock wore away I see they were dolls, dozens of 'em, hangin' all over the walls in rows and clusters, like hams in a pork shop. And say, that was the wooziest collection ever bunched together! They wa'n't ordinary Christmas-tree dolls, the store kind. Every last one of 'em was home-made, white cotton heads, with hand-painted faces. Course, I tumbled. This was some of that half-batty Aunt 'Melie's work. This was what she'd put in her time on. And she sure had produced. For face paintin' it was well done, I guess, only she must have been shut up so long away from folks that she'd sort of forgot just how they looked. Some of the heads had sunbonnets on, and some nightcaps; but they were all the same shape, like a hardshell clam, flat side to. The eyes were painted about twice life-size—some rolled up, some canted down, some squintin' sideways, and a lot was just cross-eye. There was green eyes, yellow eyes, pink eyes, and the regular kinds. They gave me the creeps. When I turns around, the Bishop stands there with his mouth open. "Why," says he—"why, professor!" That was as far as he could get. He gasps once or twice and gets out something that sounds like "Remarkable, truly remarkable!" "That's the word," says I. "I'll bet there ain't another lot like this in the country." "I—I hope not," says he. "No offence meant, though. Do you—er—do this sort of thing yourself?" Well, I had to loosen up then. I told him about Aunt 'Melie, and how I'd bought the place unsight and unseen. And when he finds this was my first view of the parlor it gets him in the short ribs. He has a funny fit. Every time he takes a look at them dolls he has another spasm. I gets him out on the porch again, and he sits there slappin' his knees and waggin' his head and wipin' his eyes. By-'m'-by the Bishop calms down and says I've done him more good than a trip to Europe. "You must let me bring Major Binger over," says he. "I want him to see those dolls. You two are bound to be great cronies." "I've got my doubts about that," says I. "But don't you go to mixin' up in this affair, Bishop. I don't want to lug you in for any trouble with any of your old friends." You couldn't stave the Bishop off, though. He had to hear the whole yarn, and the minute he gets it straight he jumps up. "Binger's a hot-headed old—well," says he, catchin' himself just in time, "the Major has a way of acting first, and then thinking it over. I must have a talk with him." I guess he did, too; for they were at it some time before the Bishop waves by-by to me and drives off. I'd just got up from one of Mrs. Whaley's best chicken dinners, when I hears a hurrah outside, and horses stampin' and a horn tootin'. I rushes out front, and there was Pinckney, sittin' up on a coach box, just pullin' his leaders out of Dennis's pansy bed. There was about a dozen of his crowd on top of the coach, includin' Mrs. Dipworthy—Sadie Sullivan that was—and Mrs. Twombley Crane, and a lot more. "Hello, Shorty!" says Pinckney. "Is the doll exhibition still open? If it is, we want to come in." They'd met the Bishop; see? And he'd steered 'em along. Well say, I might have begun the day kind of lonesome, but it had a lively finish, all right. Inside of ten minutes Sadie has on one of Mother Whaley's white aprons and is takin' charge. She has some of them fancy tables and chairs lugged out on the porch, and the first thing I knows I'm holdin' forth at a pink tea that's the swellest thing of the kind Primrose Park ever got its eyes on. <hr class="major" /> <div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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