Concerning an Omelet
There was a confused babel of sound in Jim's ears when he awoke
Wednesday morning; hammering and clanging and the squeak of ropes,
shouting and cursing, and now and then the roar or yell of some
protesting animal.
He was lying on a narrow bunk in a tent, and opposite him a
husky-looking individual was climbing into a pair of checked trousers
and yawning vociferously.
Jim's head ached confoundedly, and he was stiff and sore, but his mind
cleared rapidly from the mists of slumber. What sort of a place was
this, and how had he got there? Then all at once he remembered, and
there came a horrifying thought. What had become of Lou?
"Where's Lou? M--my sister?" he demanded, sitting bolt upright.
"Hello, there! Come out of it all right, did you?" The occupant of the
tent hitched a suspender over one shoulder and grinned cheerfully. "The
kid's took care of! She's with Ma Billings. That was a nasty header you
took last night. O. K. now? We gotter pull out in an hour."
"Oh, I'm all right; but say, did I pull that bonehead stuff out there
before all of them?" Jim reddened beneath his tan at the thought. "Fall
off the horse like that, I mean?"
"In the ring? No, you made a grand exit, and then slumped; nobody saw it
but the little girl, and she beat it right down to the ring and out
after you. Fit like a wildcat, too, when we tried to keep her away from
you till we could find out what had struck you." The other grinned once
more.
"Some sister, ol'-timer! When we found that big muscle bruise on your
side, and she told us that you had been tossed by a bull a couple of
days ago, we didn't wonder you keeled over."
Jim sat up dizzily.
"It was mighty good of you people to take us in for the night," he said.
"Who is Ma Billings?"
"Marie LaBelle she used to be; worked up on the flyin' rings until she
got too hefty," his companion explained. "Now she takes care of the
wardrobes and sort of looks out that the Human Doll don't get lost in
the shuffle; the midget, you know. Now peel, and I'll give you a
rub-down with some liniment."
Jim tried to protest, but the husky individual only grinned the broader.
"You may be some boy when it comes to bronco-bustin', but I'm the Strong
Man in the sideshow, and you haven't a chance."
Meekly Jim submitted to his companion's kindly ministrations, and then
dressing quickly, made his way out into the glare of the early morning
sun.
The big top was down, and poles and animal cages were being loaded on
long trucks as he emerged. An appetizing odor of fried pork floated upon
the air from the direction of the cook tent, and people seemed to be
rushing all over the lot in wildest confusion, but Jim caught a glimpse
of a bit of pink-and-white check through the melee, and headed for it.
Lou was sitting on the grass in cordial confab with a
melancholy-looking, lantern-jawed man, but at his approach she jumped up
precipitately and ran to him.
"Oh, Jim, you feelin' all right?" There was a little tremble in her
voice. "I knew it was you the minute you rode past an' picked up that
handkerchief Mr. Perkins give you yesterday, an' when you pitched off
that horse I thought you was dead. You hadn't no call to take any chance
like that with your back hurt an' that long tramp an' all; but it was
splendid."
She paused, breathless, and he patted her shoulder. Somehow she didn't
look so downright homely this morning, or else he was growing used to
her little, turned-up nose. Her tow-colored hair was looser about her
face, and where the sun struck a strand of it, it shone like spun gold.
"I'm fine," he assured her. "But who was that man you were talking to
just now?"
"Him? Oh, that was the clown," Lou replied. "He says the old man is just
crazy 'bout your ridin', an' if you'll stay along with the show he can
teach me to stand still for the knife-thrower; the last girl got scared,
an' quit just because she got a little scratch on the neck. The clown
says I got the nerve for it, an' I guess I have, only they ain't goin'
towards New York."
She added the last almost reluctantly, and Jim shuddered. The
knife-thrower! What wouldn't the little dare-devil be willing to try
next?
"I guess you have got the nerve," he admitted grimly. "But we're going
to be in New York by Saturday night, remember. As soon as I get my
quarter from the stout gentleman over there with the striped vest, we'll
be on our way."
But it was nearly an hour before they took to the road again. The boss
insisted on starting them off with a hearty breakfast, and there were
good-bys to be said to the rough, kindly folk who had taken them in as
friends. Except for the litter of hand-bills and peanut-shells, the last
vestiges of the circus were being removed from the lot as they finally
departed, and what had been to Lou a wondrous, glittering pageant had
become but a memory.
"I dunno but I'd as lief join a circus," she observed, meditatively,
after they had traveled a mile or more. "Maybe I could learn in New York
how to do some of them tricks. I could git the hang of that business up
on them swings in no time, only I don't like the way that girl
dressed----"
"Nonsense!" Jim snapped, and wondered at his own indignation. "We'll
find something suitable for you to do, or you can go to school----"
"School!" she interrupted him in her turn. "I--I'd like to learn things
an' be like other folks, but I ain't--I mean I'm not--goin' to any
institootion."
He glanced at her curiously. This was the first time she had made any
conscious effort to correct herself, the first evidence she had given
that she had noted the difference between his speech and hers.
"I didn't mean an institution, but a real school, Lou," he explained
gently. "One where you'll have no uniform to wear, and no work to do
except to learn."
"I quit learnin' when I was twelve." There was an unconscious note of
wistfulness in her tones. "I kin read an' do a little figgerin', but I
don't know much of anythin' else. I couldn't go to school an' begin
again where I left off, Jim; I'd be sort of ashamed. Oh, look at that
big wagon drivin' out of that gate! Maybe we'll git a lift."
She had turned at the creak of wheels, and now, as the cart loaded with
crates and pulled by two lean, sorry-looking horses passed, she gazed
expectantly at the driver. He was as lean as his team, with a sharp nose
and a tuft of gray hair sticking out from his chin, and his close-set
eyes straight ahead of him, as though he were determined not to see to
the two wayfarers.
"He looks kinder mean, don't he?" Lou remarked. Then impulsively she ran
after the wagon: "Say, mister, will you give us a lift?"
The old man pulled in his horses and regarded her sourly.
"What'll you pay?" he demanded.
"What's in them crates," she parried.
"Eggs." The response was laconic. "What you gittin' at, sis?"
"Who unloads them when you git to where you're goin'?" Lou persisted.
"At the Riverburgh dock? I do, unless I'm late, an' then I have to give
a couple o' them loafers around there a quarter apiece to help. I'm late
to-day, an' if you ain't got any money to ride--Giddap!"
But Lou halted him determinedly.
"If you'll give me and Jim--I mean my brother--a ride, he'll unload the
crates for you for nothin' when we git there. You'll be savin' fifty
cents, and the ride won't cost you nothin'."
"Well"--the old man considered for a moment--"I'll do it, if it's only
to spite them fellers that's allus hangin' 'round the docks. Reg'lar
robbers, they be. Quarter apiece, an' chicken-feed gone up the way't is.
Git in."
Jim had overtaken the wagon in time to hear the end of the brief
conversation, and he wasted no further time in parley, but hoisted Lou
up over the wheel and climbed in beside her.
As the reluctant horses started off once more the driver turned to him:
"Hope you're a hustler, young man; got to git them eggs off the wagon in
a jiffy when we git to Riverburgh, in time to ketch the boat. Don't you
try no scuttlin' off on me after I give you the ride; Riverburgh's a
reg'lar city, an' they's a policeman on the docks."
"I'll keep the bargain my sister made for me," Jim answered shortly. He
had observed the poultry-farm from which the old man had started, with
its miserable little hovel of a house and immense spread of
chicken-runs, and drawn his own conclusions as to the character of its
owner. "You needn't be afraid I'll shirk."
"Well," grumbled the other, "I don't hold with pickin' up tramps in the
road, but I'm sick of handin' out good money to them loafers at the dock
to unload, an' I ain't got a hired man to take along no more; they're
allus lazy, good-for-nothin' fellers that eat more'n they work out, let
alone their wages goin' sky-hootin'!"
"But you must be making a handsome profit, with the price of eggs going
up, too, all the time," Jim remarked.
The old man gave him a sly glance.
"That's how you look at it," he replied. "They oughter go up twice the
price they be. My wife's doin' the hired man's work now, an' she's allus
pesterin' me to git an incubator, but them things cost a powerful sight
of money, an' I don't hold with new-fangled notions; too much resk to
them. You can allus sell hens when they git too old to set or lay, but
what're you going to do with a wore-out incubator?"
He cackled shrilly at his own witticism and then grew morose again. "The
way things is, there ain't no profit skeercely in nothin'."
They jogged along drowsily through the slumberous heat, while the old
man continued his harangue against the cost of everything except his own
commodity, and the underfed horses strained to drag their burden over
the hilly road. The mountains had been left behind, and all over the
rolling hillsides about them on either hand the vineyards stretched in
undulating lines, each heavy with the load of purpling grapes.
Mile after mile passed slowly beneath the creaking wheels of the wagon;
noon came, and still Riverburgh remained tantalizingly ahead. At last,
on the rise of a hill, the old man pulled up and pointed with his whip
to the spreading sweep of brick buildings fronting on the river's edge
below.
"There's the town," he announced, adding, with a touch of regret: "We're
ahead of time, after all, an' I could have unloaded by myself. Well, it
don't matter noways except for the extra drag on the horses. Giddap!"
"There's--there's an ottermobile comin' up behind," Lou ventured. "They
been tootin' at you for some time, mister."
"Let 'em," the old man cackled shrilly once more. "I've been drivin' on
these roads afore them things was heard of, an' I don't calc'late to
turn out for 'em."
The warning of the siren sounded again disturbingly close, and the rush
of the oncoming car could be plainly heard. Jim glanced at the old man,
and, noting the stubborn set of his jaw, said nothing; but Lou spoke
again, and her voice held no note of alarm, but rather indignation at
the obvious lack of fair play.
"But they got a right; you're on their side of the road," she exclaimed.
"If you'd give them their half, mister, they could pass easy."
"Don't calc'late to let 'em," he responded obstinately. "Ain't goin' to
take their dust if I kin help it."
Deliberately he tugged on the left reins and headed the team straight
across the road. Lou gave a quick glance over the side of the wagon and
behind, and then gripped Jim's arm. He turned and caught one glimpse of
her set face, and then with a roar and a grinding crash they both felt
themselves lifted into the air and landed in some golden, slimy fluid in
the ditch.
"Lou, are you hurt?" Jim tried to wipe the clinging stuff from his eyes
and ears with his sleeve. "Where are you?"
The rapidly diminishing clatter of horses' hoofs down the hill, and the
old man's vigorously roared recriminations assured him of the safety of
the rest of the entourage even before Lou replied.
"Not hurt a mite, but I'm laughin'!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "Oh,
Jim, you--you should have seen it. That ottermobile hit square in the
middle of the wagon, and there ain't--isn't--a single egg----"
"Here, you!" the old man, dripping from head to foot with the golden
slime, rushed up and tugged excitedly at Jim's arm. "Come on an' help me
to ketch them horses! What'd I bring you along for? Let the girl be, I
don't ker if her neck's broke! I got to lodge a complaint against them
rascals, an' have 'em stopped! You're my witnesses that they run into
me, an' I'll make 'em pay a pretty penny----"
"I care whether my sister's neck is broken or not!" Jim retorted grimly.
"Go after your own horses. I engaged to unload eggs, and it looks as if
the job was finished. Lou, are you sure you're all right?"
The old man danced up and down in the road, spattering flecks of egg
about him.
"We'll see about that," he shrilled. "You come along with me! You're my
witnesses----"
"We'll be your witnesses that you were on the wrong side of the road,
and knew it," Jim helped Lou to her feet. "They warned you, and you
wouldn't turn out."
With an outburst of inarticulate rage the old man dashed off down the
road, and Lou, helpless with laughter, clung to Jim's slippery sleeve.
"Don't mind him," she gasped. "Old skinflint! Oh, Jim, you l-look like
an omelet."