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The Big-Town Round-Up, a fiction by William MacLeod Raine |
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Chapter 17. Johnnie Makes A Joke |
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_ CHAPTER XVII. JOHNNIE MAKES A JOKE As Kitty stepped from the cab she was trembling violently. "Don't you be frightened, li'l' pardner. You've come home. There won't anybody hurt you here." The soft drawl of Clay's voice carried inexpressible comfort. So too did the pressure of his strong hand on her arm. She knew not only that he was a man to trust, but that so far as could be he would take her troubles on his broad shoulders. Tears brimmed over her soft eyes. The Arizonan ran her up to his floor in the automatic elevator. "I've got a friend from home stayin' with me. He's the best-hearted fellow you ever saw. You'll sure like him," he told her without stress as he fitted his key to the lock. He felt her shrink beneath his coat, but it was too late to draw back now. In another moment Lindsay was introducing her casually to the embarrassed and astonished joint proprietor of the apartment. The Runt was coatless and in his stockinged-feet. He had been playing a doleful ditty on a mouth-organ. Caught so unexpectedly, he blushed a beautiful brick red to his neck. Johnnie ducked his head and scraped the carpet with his foot in an attempt at a bow. "Glad to meet up with you-all, Miss. Hope you're feelin' tol'able." Clay slipped the coat from her shoulders and saw that the girl was wet to the skin. "Heat some water, Johnnie, and make a good stiff toddy. Miss Kitty has been out in the rain." He lit the gas-log and from his bedroom brought towels, a bathrobe, pajamas, a sweater, and woolen slippers. On a lounge before the fire he dumped the clothes he had gathered. He drew up the easiest armchair in the room. "I'm goin' to the kitchen to jack up Johnnie so he won't lay down on his job," he told her cheerily. "You take yore time and get into these dry clothes. We'll not disturb you till you knock. After that we'll feed you some chuck. You want to brag on Johnnie's cookin'. He thinks he's it when it comes to monkeyin' 'round a stove." When her timid knock came her host brought in a steaming cup. "You drink this. It'll warm you good." "What is it?" she asked shyly. "Medicine," he smiled. "Doctor's orders." While she sipped the toddy Johnnie brought from the kitchen a tray upon which were tea, fried potatoes, ham, eggs, and buttered toast. The girl ate ravenously. It was an easy guess that she had not before tasted food that day. Clay kept up a flow of talk, mostly about Johnnie's culinary triumphs. Meanwhile he made up a bed on the couch. Once she looked up at him, her throat swollen with emotion. "You're good." "Sho! We been needin' a li'l' sister to brace up our manners for us. It's lucky for us I found you. Now I expect you're tired and sleepy. We fixed up yore bed in here because it's warmer. You'll be able to make out with it all right. The springs are good." Clay left her with a cheerful smile. "Turn out the light before you go to bed, Miss Colorado. Sleep tight. And don't you worry. You're back with old home folks again now, you know." They heard her moving about for a time. Presently came silence. Tired out from tramping the streets with out food and drowsy from the toddy she had taken, Kitty fell into deep sleep undisturbed by troubled dreams. The cattleman knew he had found her in the nick of time. She had told him that she had no money, no room in which to sleep, no prospect of work. Everything she had except the clothes on her back had been pawned to buy food and lodgings. But she was young and resilient. When she got back home to the country where she belonged, time would obliterate from her mind the experiences of which she had been the victim. It was past midday when Kitty woke. She heard a tuneless voice in the kitchen lifted up in a doleful song:
"You didn't." Kitty, clinging shyly to the side of the doorway, tried to gain confidence from his unease. "I was already awake. Is it a range song you were singing?" "Yes'm. Cattle range, not kitchen range." A wan little smile greeted his joke. The effect on Johnnie himself was more pronounced. It gave him confidence in his ability to meet the situation. He had not known before that he was a wit and the discovery of it tickled his self-esteem. "'Course we didn't really clean up no Indians nor drink all the alkali. Tha's jes' in the song, as you might say." He began to bustle about in preparation for her breakfast. "Please don't trouble. I'll eat what you've got cooked," she begged. "It's no trouble, ma'am. If the's a thing on earth I enjoy doin' it's sure cookin'. Do you like yore aigs sunny side up or turned?" "Either way. Whichever you like, Mr. Green." "You're eatin' them," Johnnie reminded her with a grin. "On one side, then, please. Mr. Lindsay says you're a fine cook." "Sho! I'm no great shakes. Clay he jes' brags on me." "Lemme eat here in the kitchen. Then you won't have to set the table in the other room," she said. The puncher's instinct was to make a spread on the dining-table for her, but it came to him with a flash of insight that it would be wise to let her eat in the kitchen. She would feel more as though she belonged and was not a guest of an hour. While she ate he waited on her solicitously. Inside, he was a river of tears for her, but with it went a good deal of awe. Even now, wan-eyed and hollow-cheeked, she was attractive. In Johnnie's lonesome life he had never before felt so close to a girl as he did to this one. Moreover, for the first time he felt master of the situation. It was his business to put their guest at her ease. That was what Clay had told him to do before he left. "You're the doctor, ma'am. You'll eat where you say." "I--I don't like to be so much bother to you," she said again. "Maybe I can go away this afternoon." "No, ma'am, we won't have that a-tall," broke in the range-rider in alarm. "We're plumb tickled to have you here. Clay he feels thataway too." "I could keep house for you while I stay," she suggested timidly. "I know how to cook--and the place does need cleaning." "Sure it does. Say, wha's the matter with you bein' Clay's sister, jes' got in last night on the train? Tha's the story we'll put up to the landlord if you'll gimme the word." "I never had a brother, but if I'd had one I'd 'a' wanted him to be like Mr. Lindsay," she told his friend. "Say, ain't he a go-getter?" cried Johnnie eagerly. "Clay's sure one straight-up son-of-a-gun. You'd ought to 'a' seen how he busted New York open to find you." "Did he?" Johnnie told the story of the search with special emphasis on the night Clay broke into three houses in answer to her advertisement. "I never wrote it. I never thought of that. It must have been--" "It was that scalawag Durand, y'betcha. I ain't still wearin' my pinfeathers none. Tha's who it was. I'm not liable to forget him. He knocked me hell-west and silly whilst I wasn't lookin'. He was sore because Clay had fixed his clock proper." "So you've fought on account of me too. I'm sorry." There was a little break in her voice. "I s'pose you hate me for--for bein' the way I am. I know I hate myself." She choked on the food she was eating. Johnnie, much distressed, put down the coffee-pot and fluttered near. "Don't you take on, ma'am. I wisht I could tell you how pleased we-all are to he'p you. I hope you'll stay with us right along. I sure do. You'd be right welcome," he concluded bashfully. "I've got no place to go, except back home--and I've got no folks there but a second cousin. She doesn't want me. I don't know what to do. If I had a woman friend--some one to tell me what was best--" Johnnie slapped his hand on his knee, struck by a sudden inspiration. "Say! Y'betcha, by jollies, I've got 'er--the very one! You're damn--you're sure whistlin'. We got a lady friend, Clay and me, the finest little pilgrim in New York. She's sure there when the gong strikes. You'd love her. I'll fix it for you--right away. I got to go to her house this afternoon an' do some chores. I'll bet she comes right over to see you." Kitty was doubtful. She did not want to take any strange young women into her confidence until she had seen them. More than one good Pharisee had burned her face with a look of scornful contempt in the past weeks. "Maybe we better wait and speak to Mr. Lindsay about it," she said. "No, ma'am, you don't know Miss Beatrice. She's the best friend." He passed her the eggs and a confidence at the same time. "Why, I shouldn't wonder but what she and Clay might get married one o' these days. He thinks a lot of her." "Oh." Kitty knew just a little more of human nature than the puncher. "Then I wouldn't tell her about me if I was you. She wouldn't like my bein' here." "Sho! You don't know Miss Beatrice. She grades 'way up. I'll bet she likes you fine." When Johnnie left to go to work that afternoon he took with him a resolution to lay the whole case before Beatrice Whitford. She would fix things all right. No need for anybody to worry after she took a hand and began to run things. If there was one person on earth Johnnie could bank on without fail it was his little boss. _ |
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