gingerly pulling at his whiskers. "So fer as I know, it ain't been
violated up here."
"What's the harm, anyway? You was sayin' yourself only the other day
that it's a crime the way the young fellers in this town _never_ git
married. Just set around the parlour stoves all winter holdin' hands,
and on the front steps all summer----"
"Like as not the gosh-derned cowards heard what I said and got up spunk
enough to tackle matrimony," interrupted the venerable town marshal.
"June seems to be a good month fer weddin's everywhere else in the world
except right here in Tinkletown. The last one we had was in December,
and that was two years ago. Annie Bliss and Joe Hodges. Now we're goin'
to have 'em so thick and fast there won't be an unmarried man in the
place, first thing you know. Up to date, me and Mrs. Crow have had
seventeen printed invitations, and I don't know how many by word o'
mouth. Fellers that never even done any courtin', so fer as I know, are
gittin' married to girls that ain't had a beau since the Methodist
revival in nineteen-ten. They all got religion then, male and female,
and there's nothin' like religion to make people think they ought to
have somebody to share their repentance with."
"George Hoover's been goin' with Bessie Slayback ever sence McKinley
beat Bryan in 'ninety-six. Swore he'd never git married till we had
another democratic president. We've had one fer more'n four years and
now he says he never dreamed there'd be another one, so he didn't think
it was worth while to save up enough to git married on. You don't happen
to have a bid there fer his weddin', have you, Anderson? That would be
too much to expect, I guess."
"How old do you make out Bessie is, Alf?" asked Mr. Crow, shuffling the
envelopes until he found the one he wanted. He removed the card, printed
neatly by the _Tinkletown Banner_ Press, and squinted at it through his
spectacles.
"Forty-nine," said Alf, promptly. "Twenty-sixth of last January."
"Well, poor old George'll have to do his settin' in Sofer's store after
the third o' June," said the other, chuckling. "She has threw him over,
as my daughter would say."
"What's that?"
"Yep. Bessie's goin' to be married next Sunday to Charlie Smith."
"Fer the Lord's sake!" gasped Alf. "How c'n that be? Charlie's got a
wife an' three grown children."
"'Tain't old Charlie. It's young Charlie," said Anderson, looking hard
at the invitation. "'Charles Elias Smith, Junior,' it says."
Alf was speechless. He merely stared while the town marshal made mental
calculations.
"She's twenty-six years older'n he is, Alf."
"There must be some mistake," muttered Alf.
"Not if you're sure she's forty-nine," said Anderson. "Subtract
twenty-three from forty-nine and you have twenty-six, with nothin' to
carry. Besides, old Charlie's middle name is Bill."
"Well, I'll be dog-goned," said Alf, in a weak voice.
"And here's another'n'," said Anderson, passing a card to his companion.
Alf read: "'The son and daughter of Mrs. Ellen Euphemia Ricketts request
the pleasure of your company at the marriage of their mother to Mr.
Pietro Emanuel Cocotte, on June 1, 1917, at twelve o'clock noon at the
family residence, No. 17 Lincoln Street, Tinkletown, New York.' Well,
I'll be--" Alf interrupted himself to repeat one of the names. "Who is
this Pietro Emanuel Cocotte? I never heard of--"
"Petey Sickety," said Anderson.
"The sprinklin'-cart driver?"
"The same," said the marshal, his lips tightening. He had once tried to
arrest the young man for "disturbing the peace," and had been obliged to
call upon the crowd for help.
"Why, good gosh, he don't earn more'n ten dollars a week and he sends
half of that back to Sweden," said Alf.
"Europe," corrected Anderson, patiently. He had put up with a good deal
of ignorance on the part of Alf during a long and watchful
acquaintanceship.
"Anyhow," said the town drunkard, arising in some haste, "I guess I'll
be gittin' home. Maybe I ain't too late." He was moving off with
considerable celerity.
"Too late for what?" called out Anderson.
"That measley, good-fer-nothin' Gates boy dropped in to see my girl
Queenie last night. First time he's ever done it, but, by criminy, the
way they're speedin' things up around here lately there's no tellin'
what c'n happen in twenty-four hours."
"Hold on a minute, Alf. I'll walk along with you. Now, see here,
Alf,"--Mr. Crow laid a kindly, encouraging hand on the other's shoulder
as they ambled down the main street of the village--"no matter what
happens, you mustn't let it git the best of you. Keep straight, old
feller. Don't touch a drop o'--"
Mr. Reesling stopped short in the middle of the sidewalk. "Dog-gone it,
Anderson--leggo of my arm. Do you want everybody to think you're takin'
me to jail, or home to my poor wife, or somethin' like that? It'll be
all over town in fifteen minutes if you--"
"'Tain't my fault if you've got a reputation, Alf," retorted the town
marshal sorrowfully.
"Well, it ain't my fault either," declared Alf. "Look at me. I ain't had
a drink in twenty-three years, and what good does it do me? Every time a
stranger comes to town people point at me an' say, 'There goes the town
drunkard.' Oh, I've heerd 'em. I ain't deef. An' besides, ain't they
always preachin' at me an' about me at the Methodist an' Congregational
churches? Ain't they always tellin' the young boys that they got to be
careful er they'll be like Alf Reesling? An' what's it all come from?
Comes from the three times I got drunk back in the fall of
'ninety-three when my cousin was here from Albany fer a visit. I _had_
to entertain him, didn't I? An' there wasn't any other way to do it in
this jerk-water town, was there? An' ever since then the windbags in
this town have been prayin' fer me an' pityin' my poor wife. That's what
a feller gits fer livin' in a--"
"Now, now!" admonished Anderson soothingly. "Don't git excited, Alf. You
deserve a lot o' credit. Ain't many men, I tell you, could break off
sudden like that, an'--"
"Oh, you go to grass!" exclaimed Alf hotly.
Anderson inspected him closely. "Lemme smell your breath, Alf Reesling,"
he commanded.
"What's the use?" growled Alf. "Wouldn't last fer twenty-three years,
would it?"
"Well, you talk mighty queer," said the marshal, unconvinced. He
couldn't imagine such a thing as a strictly sober man telling him to go
to grass. He was the most important man in Tinkletown.
Further discussion was prevented by the approach of Mr. Crow's daughter,
Susie, accompanied by a tall, pink-faced young man in a resplendent
checked suit and a dazzling red necktie. They came from Brubaker's
popular drugstore and ice-cream "parlour," two doors below.
"Hello, Pop," said Susie gaily, as the couple sauntered past their
half-halting seniors.
"H'are you, Mr. Crow?" was the young man's greeting, uttered with the
convulsive earnestness of sudden embarrassment. "Fine day, ain't it?"
Mr. Crow said that it was, and then both he and Alf stopped short in
their tracks and gazed intently at the backs of the young people. Even
as they stared, a fiery redness enveloped the ears of Susie's companion.
A few steps farther on he turned his head and looked back. Something
that may be described as sheepish defiance marked that swift,
involuntary glance.
Mr. Reesling broke the silence. There was a worried, sympathetic note in
his voice.
"Got on his Sunday clothes, Anderson, and this is only Wednesday. Beats
the Dutch, don't it?"
"I wonder--" began Mr. Crow, and then closed his lips so tightly and so
abruptly that his sparse chin whiskers stuck out almost horizontally.
He started off briskly in the wake of the young people. Alf, forgetting
his own apprehensions in the face of this visible manifestation,
shuffled along a few paces behind.
Miss Crow and her companion turned the corner below and were lost to
view.
"By gosh," said Alf, suddenly increasing his speed until he came abreast
of the other; "you better hurry, Anderson. Justice Robb's in his office.
I seen his feet in the winder a little while ago."
"They surely can't be thinkin' of--" Mr. Crow did not complete the
sentence.
"Why not?" demanded Alf. "Everybody else is. And it would be just like
that Schultz boy to do it without an invitation. Ever since this war's
been goin' on them Schultzes have been blowin' about always bein'
prepared fer anything. German efficiency's what they're always throwin'
up to people. I bet he's been over to the county seat an' got a license
to--"
Anderson interrupted him with a snort. He put his hand on his right hip
pocket, where something bulged ominously, and quickened his pace.
"I been watchin' these Schultzes fer nearly a year," said he, "an' the
whole caboodle of 'em are spies."
They turned the corner. Susie and her companion were on the point of
disappearing in a doorway fifty yards down Sickle Street.
Anderson slowed up. He removed his broad felt hat with the gold cord
around it, and mopped his forehead.
"That's the tin-type gallery," he said, a little out of breath.
"Worse an' more of it," said Alf. "That's the surest sign I know of. It
never fails. Mollie an' me had our'n taken the day before we was married
an'--an'--why, it's almost the same as a certificat', Anderson."
"Now, you move on, Alf," commanded the marshal. "How many times I got to
tell you not to loiter aroun' the streets? Move on, I say."
"Aw, now, Anderson--"
"I'll have to run you in, Alf. The ord'nance is very p'ticular, an' that
notice stuck up on the telephone pole over there means you more'n
anybody else. No loiterin'."
"If you need any evidence ag'in that Schultz boy, just call on me," said
Alf generously. "I seen him commit an atrocity last week."
"What was it?"
"He give that little Griggs girl a lift in his butcher wagon," said Alf
darkly.
Anderson scowled. "The sooner we run these cussed Germans out o' town
the better off we'll be."
Alf ambled off, casting many glances over his shoulder, and the marshal
crossed the street and entered Hawkins's Undertaking and Embalming
establishment, from a window of which he had a fair view of the
"studio."
Presently Susie and young Schultz emerged, giggling and snickering over
the pink objects they held in their hands. They sauntered slowly,
shoulder to shoulder, in the direction of Main Street.
Mr. Hawkins was in the middle of one of his funniest stories when
Anderson got up and walked out hurriedly. The undertaker had a
reputation as a wit. He was the life of the community. He radiated
optimism, even when most depressingly employed. And here he was telling
Anderson Crow a brand-new story he had heard at a funeral over in
Kirkville, when up jumps his listener and "lights out" without so much
as a word. Mr. Hawkins went to the door and looked out, expecting to see
a fight or a runaway horse or a German airplane. All he saw was the
marshal not two doors away, peering intently into a show-window, while
from across the street two young people regarded him with visible
amusement. For a long time thereafter the undertaker sat in his office
and stared moodily at the row of caskets lining the opposite wall. Could
it be possible that he was losing his grip?
Miss Crow and Mr. Otto Schultz resumed their stroll after a few moments,
and the marshal, following their movements in the reflecting
show-window, waited until they were safely around the corner. Then he
retraced his steps quickly, passed the undertaker's place, and turned
into the alley beyond. Three minutes later, he entered Main Street a
block above Sickle Street, and was leaning carelessly against the Indian
tobacco sign in front of Jackson's cigar store, when his daughter and
her companion bore down upon his left flank.
Mr. Alf Reesling was a few paces behind them.
As they came within earshot, young Schultz was saying in a suspiciously
earnest manner:
"You better come in and have anodder sody, Susie."
Just then their gaze fell upon Mr. Crow.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Susie, startled.
"By cheminy!" fell from Otto's wide-open mouth. He blinked a couple of
times. "Is--is that you?" he inquired, incredulously.
"You mean _me_?" asked Anderson, with considerable asperity.
"Sure," said Otto, halting.
"Can't you see it's me?" demanded Mr. Crow.
"But you ain'd here," said the perplexed young man, getting pinker all
the time. "You're aroundt in Sickle Street."
"Alf!" called out Anderson. "Look here a minute. Is this me?" He spoke
with biting sarcasm.
Mr. Reesling regarded him with some anxiety.
"You better go home, Anderson," he said. "This sun is a derned sight
hotter'n you think."
"Didn't we see you a minute ago around in Sickle Street, Pop?" inquired
Susie. "Looking in that hair-dresser's window?"
"Maybe you did and maybe you didn't," replied Mr. Crow, shrewdly. Then,
with thinly veiled significance: "I'm purty busy lookin' into a good
many things nowadays." He favoured Otto with a penetrating glance. "Ever
sence the U. S. A. declared war on Germany, Mr. Otto Schultz."
"How aboudt that sody, Miss Susie?" said Otto, in a pained sort of
voice.
"You'd better be saving your money, Otto," she advised, with such
firmness that her father looked at her sharply.
"Oh, spiffles!" said Otto, getting still redder.
Mr. Crow was all ears. Alf Reesling burned his fingers on a match he
held too long in the hot, still air some six or eight inches from the
bowl of his pipe.
"Well, getting married is no joke," said Susie, shaking her pretty head
solemnly.
Otto took a deep breath. "You bet you it ain'd," he said, with feeling.
That seemed to give him courage. He took off his straw hat, and, as he
ran his finger around the moist "sweat-band," he blurted out: "I don't
mind if you tell your fadder, Susie. Go and tell him."
"Tell him yourself," said Susie.
"As I was saying a few minutes ago," said Otto ingenuously, "the only
obchection I had to your tellin' your fadder was that I didn't want
everybody in town to know it before I could get home and tell my mother
yet."
"Don't go away, Alf," said Mr. Crow, darkly. "I'll need you as a
witness. I hereby subpoena you as a witness to what's goin' to happen in
less'n no time. Now, Mr. Otto Schultz, spit it out."
Otto disgorged these cyclonic words:
"I'm going to get married, Mr. Crow, that's all."
Mr. Crow was equally explicit and quite as brief.
"Only over my dead body," he shouted, and then turned upon Susie. "You
go home, Susan Crow! Skedaddle! Get a move on, I say. I'll nip this
blamed German plot right in the beginning. Do you hear me, Susan--"
Susan stared at him. "Hear you?" she cried. "They can hear you up in
the graveyard. What on earth's got into you, Pop? What--"
"You'll see what's got into me, purty derned quick," said Anderson, and
pointed his long, trembling forefinger at the amazed Mr. Schultz, who
had dropped his hat and was stooping over to retrieve it without taking
his eyes from the menacing face of the speaker.
It had rolled in the direction of Mr. Alf Reesling. That gentleman
obligingly stopped it with his foot. After removing his foot, he
undertook to return the hat without stooping at all, the result being
that it sped past Otto and landed in the middle of the street some
twenty feet away.
"So you think you c'n git married without my consent, do you?" demanded
Anderson, witheringly. "You think you c'n sneak around behind my back
an'--"
"I ain'd sneakin' aroundt behind anybody's back," broke in Otto,
straightening up. "I don't know what you are talking aboud, Mr.
Crow,--and needer do you," he added gratuitously. "What for do I haf to
get your consent to get married for? I get myself's consent and my
girl's consent and my fadder's consent--Say!" His voice rose. "Don't you
think I am of age yet?"
"If you talk loud like that, I'll run you in fer disturbin' the peace,
young feller," warned Anderson, observing that a few of Tinkletown's
citizens were slowly but surely surrendering squatter's rights to
chairs and soap-boxes on the shady side of the block. "Just you keep a
civil tongue in--"
"You ain'd answered my question yet," insisted Otto, with increased
vigour.
"Here's your hat, Otto," said Alf Reesling in a conciliatory voice. He
was brushing the article with the sleeve of his coat. "A horse must'a'
stepped on it or somethin'. I never see--"
"Ain'd I of age, Mr. Crow?" bellowed Otto. "Didn't I vote for you at the
last--"
"That ain't the question," interrupted Anderson sharply. "The question
is, is the girl of age?" He favoured his sixteen-year-old daughter with
a fiery glance.
Otto Schultz's broad, flat face became strangely pinched. There was
something positively apoplectic in the hue that spread over it.
"Oh, Pop!" shrieked Susie, a peal of laughter bursting from her lips.
Instantly, however, her two hands were pressed to her mouth, stifling
the outburst.
Otto gave her a hurt, surprised--and unmistakably horrified--look. Then
a silly grin struggled into existence.
"Maybe she don'd tell the truth aboud her age yet, Mr. Crow," he said
huskily. "Women always lie aboud their ages. Maybe she lie aboud hers."
Anderson flared. "Don't you dare say my daughter lies about her age--or
anything else," he roared.
"Whose daughter?" gasped Otto.
"Mine!"
"But she ain'd your daughter."
"_What!_ Well, of all the--"
Words failed Mr. Crow. He looked helplessly, appealingly at Alf
Reesling, as if for support.
[Illustration: _Words failed Mr. Crow_]
Mr. Reesling rose to the occasion.
"Do you mean to insinuate, Otto Schultz, that--" he began as he started
to remove his coat.
By this time Susie felt it was safe to trust herself to speech. She
removed her hands from her mouth and cried out:
"He isn't talking about me, Pop," she gasped. "It's Gertie Bumbelburg."
"Sure," said Otto hastily.
Mr. Crow still being speechless, Alf suspended his belligerent
preparations, and cocking one eye calculatingly, settled the matter of
Miss Bumbelburg's age with exasperating accuracy.
"Gertie's a little past forty-two," he announced. "Born in March, 1875,
just back o' where Sid Martin's feed-store used to be."
The marshal had recovered his composure.
"That's sufficient," he said, accepting Alf s testimony with a profound
air of dignity. "There ain't no law against anybody marryin' a woman old
enough to be his mother."
"Everybody in town give Gertie up long ago," added Alf, amiably. "Only
goes to show that while there's life there's hope. I'd 'a' swore she
was on the shelf fer good. How'd you happen to pick her, Otto?"
"She's all right," growled Otto uncomfortably. Then he added, with
considerable acerbity: "I'm goin' to tell her you said she was
forty-two, Alf Reesling."
"Well, ain't she?" demanded Alf, bristling.
"No, she ain'd," replied Otto. "She's twendy-nine."
"Come, come," put in Anderson sternly. "None o' this now! Move on, Alf!
No scrappin' on the public thoroughfares o' Tinkletown. You're gettin'
more and more rambunctious every day, Alf."
"He ought to be ashamed of himself, speakin' by a lady when he knows
he's in such a condition," said Otto, turning from the unfortunate Alf
to Miss Crow. "Ain'd that so, Susie?"
"Don't answer, Susie," said Mr. Crow, quickly. "This is no time to side
in with Germany."
"I'm as good an American as you are already," cried Otto, goaded beyond
endurance.
Mr. Crow smiled tolerantly. "Git out! Let's hear you say 'vinegar'."
"Winegar," said Otto triumphantly. "I can say it as good as you can
yet."
Anderson nudged Mr. Reesling, and chuckled.
"That's the way to spot 'em," he said significantly.
"There's a better way than that," said Alf.
"How's that?"
Alf whispered in the marshal's ear.
Anderson shook his head. "But where are you goin' to get the weenywurst,
Alf?"
"Come on, Otto," said Susie, impatiently. "I have an engagement."
They moved off rapidly, passing the ice-cream parlour without
hesitating.
"D'you hear that?" said Alf, after a moment. "She said she was engaged."
That night Anderson Crow, town marshal, superintendent of streets, chief
of the fire department, post-commander of the G. A. R., truant officer,
dog-catcher, member of the American Horse-thief Detective Association,
member of the Universal Detective Bureau, chairman of Tinkletown
Battlefield Society, etc., lay awake until nearly nine o'clock, seeking
a solution to the astonishing problem that confronted Tinkletown and its
environs.
* * * * *
Late reports, received by telephone just before retiring, ran the number
of prospective marriages up to twenty-eight. His daughters, Susie and
Caroline--the latter the eldest of a family of six and secretly
approaching the age of thirty-two--confided to him that they had had
eleven and three proposals respectively. A singular feature of the craze
was the unanimity of impulse affecting men between the ages of twenty
and thirty, and the utter absence of concentration on the part of the
applicants. It was of record that some of them proposed to as many as
five or six young women before being finally accepted. Rashness appeared
to be the watchword. The matrimonial stampede swept caution and
consequences into a general heap, and delivered a community of the
backwardness that threatened to become a menace to posterity.
As Anderson Crow lay in his bed, he tried to enumerate on his fingers
the young men who remained unpledged. Starting with his thumb he got as
far as the third finger of his left hand and then, being sleepy and the
effort a trying one, he lost track of those already counted and had to
begin all over again, with the maddening result that he could go no
further than the second finger. One of the eligibles had slipped his
mind completely. The whole situation was harrowing.
"Fer instance," he ruminated aloud, oblivious of the fact that his wife
was sound asleep, "what is a feller like Newt Blossom goin' to keep a
wife on, I'd like to know. He c'n hardly keep himself in chewin'
tobaccer as it is, an' as fer the other necessities of life he wouldn't
have any of 'em if his mother wasn't such a dern' fool about him. The
idee of him tryin' to get our Susie to marry him--an' Carrie too, fer
that matter--w'y, I git in a cold sweat every time I think of it."
He shook his wife vigorously.
"Say, Ma," he said, yawning, "I just thought o' somethin' I want you to
remember in the mornin'. Wake up."
"All right," she mumbled, sleepily. "What is it?"
But Mr. Crow was now fast asleep himself.
* * * * *
Early the next morning he entered the kitchen, where he found Caroline
helping her mother with the breakfast.
Mrs. Crow paused in the act of paring slices from a side of bacon. She
eyed her husband inimically.
"See here, Anderson, you just got to put a stop to all this
foolishness."
"Don't bother me. Can't you see I'm thinkin'?" said he.
"Well, it's time you did somethin' more than think. That Smathers boy
was here about ten minutes ago, red as a beet, askin' fer Susie. Carrie
told him she wasn't up yet, and what do you think the little
whipper-snapper said?"
Anderson blinked, and shook his head.
"He said, 'Well, I guess you'll do, Caroline. Would you mind steppin'
outside fer a couple of minutes? I got somethin' I want to say to you in
private.'"
Caroline sat down and laughed unrestrainedly.
"Well, by geminy crickets!" gasped Anderson, aghast. Then he added
anxiously: "You--you didn't go an' do anything foolish, did you,
Carrie?"
"Not unless you'd call throwing a pail of cold water on him foolish,"
said Carrie, wiping her eyes.
"Somethin's got to be done, Anderson," said his wife, compressing her
lips.
Susie came in at that juncture. She was the apple of Anderson's eye--the
prettiest girl in town. Mr. Crow hurried to the kitchen door.
"Go back upstairs," he ordered, casting a swift, uneasy glance around
the back yard.
"What's the matter, Pop?"
Mr. Crow did not respond. His keen, roving eye had descried a motionless
figure at the mouth of the alley.
Caroline explained.
"Can you beat it?" cried Susie, inelegantly, but with a very proper
scorn. "I told him yesterday he ought to be ashamed of himself, trying
to coax Fanny Burns away from Ed Foster."