The She Boss: A Western Story

by Arthur Preston Hankins

  CHAPTER VII

  HIRAM, THE BUTTERFLY

  "Mother, I've come home to die!" gasped Playmate Tweet.

  He was seated in one of the yellow chairs near a window of the loungingroom. He had dropped his newspaper and was staring at Hiram Hooker ashe strode through the door.

  Hiram seated himself on the edge of a chair and grinned uncomfortably.

  The ordeal of appearing before Tweet in his new clothes, at firstpoignantly dreaded, had been absent from his thoughts for the pasthour. Standing there before the jeweler's store after Lucy Dalles hadleft him, tingling blissfully in every vein, the mundane thought thatTweet was probably awaiting him in the lodging house had obtrudeditself and hurried him up the street. As he opened the lounging-roomdoor he thought once more of his clothes.

  Tweet rubbed his eyes and looked again. "Christopher Columbus!" headded in an undertone. He blinked his eyes three times, then threwhimself back and laughed uproariously.

  For a half minute he shook in his chair, then got up, wiped his twistednose with his handkerchief, and came over to his half resentful charge.

  "Well, Hiram," he said with a chuckle, "how much did they set us back?"

  "Set us back?"

  "I mean, how poor are we now?"

  "How poor are _we_?"

  "Sure--Tweet, Hooker & Co. pays the bills."

  "I guess I c'n do what I want to with my own money, can't I?"

  "Sure--sure! Don't get your shirt off. I don't mean to insinuate thatyou're not capable o' judiciously handlin' the firm's money. I justwant you to read me the balance sheet."

  "Well, then, I spent thirty-eight dollars, and I've got twenty-ninedollars left."

  "Stand up."

  Hiram did so.

  "Turn round."

  Hiram wheeled slowly.

  Tweet studied him from every angle, and as Hiram turned he noted thetwinkles which came and went in his slate-blue eyes. Without anotherword Tweet left him standing there, went back and sat down, and hid hisface behind his paper.

  Hiram waited a minute, then slowly sank to the edge of his chair.After a little he asked pleadingly:

  "Ain't they all right?"

  Tweet's paper trembled. A bit of this, then Tweet lowered it andpresented a countenance which seemed never to have known a smile.

  "Hiram," he remarked, "I don't wanta hurt your feelin's, but the parto' true friendship calls for me to use the surgeon's knife. Hiram, Iwouldn't wear that outfit to a funeral. D'ye get me?"

  Hiram's blue eyes blazed. "Yes, I get you," he began coldly, thencurbed a threatening outburst. "I know they're not the best in theland," he concluded sensibly, "but I feel better in 'em."

  "There's somethin' in that," Tweet propounded sagely. "There's a wholelot in gettin' that feel. Good clothes kinda brace a fella up and givehim the nerve to buck on in the big game. Hiram, if your new outfitgives you the _feel_, it's the goods. When you get next a little it'llcost you more money to get that feel outa clothes. After all, now,when that tin-roof look wears off of 'em you won't appear sowhittled-out in that suit. But now, layin' all jokes aside, are theyjust the thing for drivin' old Jack and Ned on the railroad grade?And didn't this sudden lavishness kinda set the company back on itshaunches?"

  Hiram looked out the window. "Did you see the fire?" he asked absently.

  "Yes--walked round the block to get outa the crowd. But----"

  "I just had to kinda spruce up a bit, Mr. Tweet. I felt sokinda--well, kinda countrified and--and lost, you might say."

  "What's the fire got to do with that? And call me Playmate, too."

  "Nothin', I suppose."

  "Right across from the restaurant wasn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "M'm-m--I'd 'a' made a good lawyer, wouldn't I, Hiram?"

  "I don't know--why?"

  "Why, talkin' about sprucin' up, as you call it, you drift to a firethat occurred across the street from the place where there's afrowsy-topped waitress that's got you goin'. Well, le's foget it. Dowe go to southern California together, or not? Our pile's dwindlin' onaccount o' this butterfly life you're leadin'."

  "I--I'd like to, but---- Well, I left home to get a start in the city,and I think I oughta---- Really, I wanta go, but----" Hiram gave itup, and his lean face flushed.

  "Go on--I didn't interrupt you."

  "Well, I--that's all. I want to go to work here."

  Tweet laughed with a little snort. "Now looky here," he said, "I thinkI savvy you pretty well. If I was to go to work and tell you outrightthat you couldn't win Lucy, you'd get bull-headed and try to show me.But le'me tell you this: You ain't goin' to win her till you get nextto yourself. Now, Lucy's a pretty popular dame with the fellas aboutthe restaurant. I've seen her joy-ridin' with fellas I know are therewith the coin, and savvy more in a minute than you ever knew. Now,wait a minute!--don't get excited. All this ain't your fault. It'sthe fault o' your past environment. You're a hick, and you can't helpit. You get out and learn somethin' and gather up a few beans. Thencome back and, if you still want the kid, go get her.

  "Now, you see this Lucy this afternoon and tell her you're bound outinto the Great Unknown to make your fortune, but that you're comin'back to see her. Put emphasis on who you're comin' back to see. Thenflee from temptation. Come now--le's swallow this awful pill like aman."

  Hiram thought a long time, looking out the window. In the midst ofthis Tweet resumed his paper.

  The sensible thing to do was for Hiram to sacrifice love to thefriendship that promised him a start, in order to gain love back moreconclusively in the end. Yes, he loved her--he loved her madly!

  Boiling the present situation right down to facts, he had littleconfidence in Tweet's boasted powers. He could not reconcile Tweet'spresent impecunious condition with his hints of past affluence. But heliked him instinctively, which, after all, is more human andsatisfactory than liking a person after analyzing him and weighing hisgood qualities against his shortcomings. So it was the thought ofTweet's friendship which finally prompted him to say: "I guess I'll gowith you."

  "Good!" Tweet dropped his paper. "This afternoon?"

  "No--to-morrow."

  "Not on your life! This afternoon."

  "Well, I'll tell you in an hour or so. Now--now it's about noon. Youwait here a little, while I go down in the street. Then I'll comeback, and we'll go eat."

  Tweet looked at him long and steadily. "Got a date with Lucy, eh?" hesaid at last.

  "Ye-yes--I saw her at the fire this morning. She said she wanted tosee me when she went off watch at noon--I'll be right back--probably."

  Tweet frowned, then laughed. "Go ahead, Hooker," he relented testily;"go ahead. Got a date with her, eh? I thought maybe you'd just godown there and gape at her through the window. Go to it--but don'tforget!"

  Hiram hurried out.

  Again his feet seemed palsied as he neared the restaurant. Was he tosuffer such pangs of stage fright always when about to meet her?

  He had not long to dwell on the query. Before he knew it he was faceto face with her. She had been looking in the jeweler's window whileshe waited for him, and had turned as he came abreast.

  She was smiling. "You're a minute late," she scolded, pointing to thejeweler's brass clock.

  "Yes, ma'am--I was kept."

  "Oh, don't look so serious. A minute's nothing."

  "No, ma'am--not much."

  Silence claimed them for a time.

  "Well, what'll we do?" she finally asked a little petulantly, andturned her back on him to look into the window.

  "I dunno," he began; then a sudden wild idea struck him. He had seenalong the curbs automobiles bearing signs which read "For Hire--FourDollars an Hour." It was worth it, if only to break this humiliatingsituation. "We might take a little spin in a machine," he finishedwith a tottery tone of indifference.

  "Oh, I'd like that," she said instantly. "But I gotta dress. We'llget a car and ride 'round to where I
room."

  They walked to the corner, where was a taxi stand. Hiram engaged a carby the hour, and they entered. She directed the driver to her roominghouse, and they were off.

  The car presently drew up to the curb, and the driver swung the dooropen for his passengers. Into a dark, musty little parlor the girl ledHiram of the butterfly life.

  "Sit down," she invited; "and excuse me a minute."

  She went back into the hall, and Hiram heard the tattoo of her feet onthe stairs.

  It was a grand parlor, Hiram thought. There was a piano, a phonograph,a whatnot filled with specimens of quartz, and four cloth-coveredcushion rockers. With rattlesnake fairness the one Hiram chosesqueaked a warning before it tried to land him on the back of his neck.

  Hiram sat there round-eyed and dreaming, while outside the hired carpurred on, indifferent to the flight of time.

  Twenty minutes later Hiram's dream was broken by the clatter of Lucy'shigh heels on the stairs. Lucy entered, dressed in silk and furs andwearing a large picture hat. The savings of many months were on Lucy'sback, and Hiram felt further removed from her than ever.

  "Where'll we go?" he asked miserably as he clumsily helped her into thecar.

  "Golden Gate Park, Mr. Hooker," she said.

  The driver, having heard, touched his cap, and they rolled away.

  "How'd you know my name?" The burden of keeping this question had beenoverriding Hiram's bashfulness since she had spoken it.

  Lucy laughed. "You didn't think I'd go so far as to invite you homewith me if I didn't know you, did you? At least kinda know you?"

  "I hadn't thought about that at all, ma'am. But when you said 'Mr.Hooker' it gave me a jolt."

  "I'll bet it did. Well, didn't you stand in front of the jewelry shopfor over a quarter of an hour before the fire this morning?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "And you didn't see your friend come out of the restaurant while youwere there?"

  "Who, Tweet? No, ma'am--I didn't."

  "Well, he did. He'd been in talking with me. I didn't know his name,though. Is that it? Tweet? Heavens above! Say, he's a funny guy.Well, he'd been in talking about you. He said you were out in front ofthe jeweler's shop and wondered if he could get out without you seeinghim."

  Hiram only stared and waited.

  "He told me your name was Hiram Hooker, and that you had just come fromMendocino County. That's how I knew."

  For quite a time she was silent. Then she said:

  "He appears to be sort of butting in, it seems to me."

  Hiram waited again.

  "He came in and says: 'Say, Lucy, your lifeline and mine are gettingtangled. You're crossing my path and frustrating my plans.' You knowhow he talks!

  "'How d'ye get that way?' I says. 'Spring it.'

  "'Why, your many charms are leading my business partner from the pathof duty,' he says.

  "'Go on,' I told him, 'and talk sense, if you've got anything to say.'

  "Then he told me that you two were partners, and were going down tosouthern California together to 'get a toehold,' he said; and that youwere keeping the thing back by--by--by wanting to hang around Frisco.He said you two had a good thing and that you were spoiling it, andthat you were nearly broke and getting more so every minute.

  "I kind of like him. He's funny, but I'll bet he's right. And he saidfor me to give you the cold shoul--well, what he meant was for me toadvise you to hurry up and get out with him.

  "But now listen: If I'd intended to do that I wouldn't have told youthat he told me to, would I? Of course not. I wanted to see you aboutsomething else. Two things: First, I promised to tell you about themoving picture you helped me with this morning. Then the other thingis Mendocino." She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Listen, I'mfrom Mendocino County," she finished. "I've been away three years.I'm nearly dying to talk to some one from up there!"