AND HETTY COMES TO BADGER TO LIVE
"Where is she?" she asked.
"Who? This wife? Oh, over beyond. Not so very far from here. You won't
never see her," was the careless reply.
Again she appeared to ponder what he said. A slight shiver was quickly
repressed. At last: "So that's what he is? You reckon--"
"Where's your outfit, ma'am?" the sheriff interrupted.
"My trunk? It's here. I've taken a room."
They were in the parlor of the Fashion, one flight above the street. It
was sumptuously furnished, the proprietor taking pride in his
establishment--a red plush sofa, a table, three chairs, and a
cottage-organ. On the wall was a chromo lithograph of a girl clinging to
a wave-swept pillar of stone. This was entitled "Rock of Ages."
Thereupon she told him her story. Of course Lafe did not believe half of
what she said, although he gave ear gravely to her direct manner of
replying to his questions. The girl's self-possession and cool disregard
of the extremity to which she was reduced, suggested only one
explanation to his mind--ripe experience. He had never encountered these
traits among ladies of domestic virtues.
Her name was Hetty Ferrier, and Miss Ferrier had exactly eleven dollars
and seventy cents. She had lived in Eau Claire, but went to Chicago to
make a fortune and to marry a rich, handsome youth, as girls starting
out in the world invariably do. There she got a job in a department
store, where they paid her four dollars and a half a week to keep soul
and body together, though subsequently little consideration was shown
for her soul. When she parried the assistant manager's attentions she
was removed from the lace counter to the hardware department, but she
did not care. Then she fell ill; for breakfast foods, wetted with watery
milk and eaten in a room opening on hot, slate roofs, are not a
sustaining diet when one stands all day on one's feet. So she was sent
back home from the hospital. And her parents were miserably poor. Her
father had borrowed the money to bring her home. She began reading
advertisements again, and finally answered one of the matrimonial
variety.
That was all. This man Jackson replied to her, and his letters were very
nice--those of a perfect gentleman, Miss Ferrier assured the sheriff.
Then he sent the money, and she journeyed to El Paso. He was not what
she had expected, but he treated her decently when he met her at the
train. Furthermore, he could be very amusing and "splendid company," she
said; so she went through a ceremony with him. After that he went away
to get tickets, and when he came back, he was drunk. She was frightened
and sat up all night in a day coach, and he went to sleep in a Pullman,
waking up sometimes to order the porter to tell her to go to sleep at
once. When they got out, he said they would take the stage to Badger,
where he had some business to transact, and then go on to Nogales.
The sheriff pressed for fuller information. Had she no friends while
working in the city? Yes, she knew some of the girls, but they were
always scheming for a good time, and she never had any money. The nicest
ones lived at home, but not all of them. Several young men had been kind
to her and had taken her to theaters. But they usually tried to get
fresh, said Miss Ferrier. Some appeared to have heaps of money, but
others worked for it as she did, only they spent it with princely
recklessness on pay night.
There was one--she came to a full stop. Yes, she would tell him about
that one, too. He was very poor. Indeed, he dressed so shabbily that the
girls tittered when he called to meet her at the employes' entrance. No;
he treated her all right and was always respectful. She liked him
because he was very good, and different. He was a student and was
working his way through college by waiting in a dining-hall. They had
hoped to marry some day. Then she got sick and went home. It would have
taken years, anyway. She seemed never to have regarded the prospect
with much hope.
"Uh-huh!" said the sheriff, when she had finished. "And what do you aim
to do now?"
"I don't know. What can I do? Get a job as waitress, I guess."
She appeared undistressed by the prospect, but it was the apathy of
countless failures and physical exhaustion.
"No," he said with decision. "You're a heap too pretty for that."
"You think so?" she asked indifferently.
"You bet I do." It was Lafe Johnson who was talking now, and not the
sheriff of Badger. They were alone in the parlor. He watched her for a
moment. Her profile was turned to him and her attitude was one of tired
acquiescence with the stress of her situation. He hitched his chair
forward close to hers.
"Say," he said, lowering his voice, "you forget this here Harris and all
that, and throw in with me. I'll treat you good."
"How--throw in with you?"
"Why, you know. I'll take you over to a li'l' place I've got beyond the
Willows. It's right pretty. We'll--"
"I wonder," said Miss Ferrier, without a trace of resentment, "I wonder
if there's more than one man on earth who isn't a brute?"
"I don't take you, ma'am."
"What difference is there between you and the others? How're you better
than this fellow you ran off--this Jackson?" she demanded, with her
first display of animation. "You've got nothing on him."
"Say, you quit that. Quit that right now. I don't make my living--"
"And neither do I, Mr. Johnson. So put that in your pipe and smoke it."
She jumped to her feet and went out before he could prevent her. Johnson
heard the bolt of her room jerked into place, and then he went
downstairs, whistling a casual air. The barkeeper brought a tried
judgment to bear on these symptoms and furtively closed one eye at the
proprietor.
"Humph," said Lafe, when he was outside and walking toward the cattle
company's corral. "She can give any woman I ever done met up with, cards
and spades at a bluff."
Yet he was seized of qualms. It was the first time in his tenure of
office that the man had triumphed over the official in any respect
whatsoever. He had done his work with a single eye to duty, and without
prejudice; and he had done it well. Nor was he given to pursuit of this
nature. The girl made a tremendous physical appeal to him, and of course
all that about the assistant manager and those other fellows was pure
fiction. Lafe knew women of her stamp better than that.
He was low in spirits all afternoon, and about sunset invaded the bar of
the Cowboys' Rest.
"I'm going to get pickled," he announced, "not real drunk, you
understand. Nothing vulgar, but just nice and quiet. Here's my gun. I
reckon Badger'll run itself for a day or two."
"It's sure a-coming to you, Lafe," said the landlord. "You've been sober
for a right smart spell."
In the morning he felt very rocky, for the refreshment they provide in
Badger would stagger the oldest man in the world; and he could hear
bands playing in unlooked-for places. So he gave over in disgust all
thought of further carnival and went to the Fashion for breakfast,
knowing of old that a hearty meal would set him right.
Miss Ferrier waited on him. So she had secured the job! The barkeeper
told Lafe that she got it so quick it made his hair curl, and she was
sure a waitress.
"She's got the rollers under the ol' man," he said. "He'll eat out of
her hand. Say, business ought to pick up. Don't you reckon?"
Assuredly it did. All the unattached men of Badger developed a taste for
the corncakes served at the Fashion. One of the Anvil boys happened to
ride into town for a new pair of boots, and took dinner there. What he
narrated on his return kept an entire outfit sleepless far into the
night, planning methods of getting a day off, and it is on record that
twenty-seven extra meals were served in as many days to gentlemen who
smelled healthily of horse and walked to a merry jingle of spurs. Hetty
treated all alike and was a paragon of waitresses. All aspired to be
admirers. The majority were shy and ill at ease, given to staring at the
menu with glassy, uncomprehending eyes; but there did not lack doughty
ones. They lost their courage completely, however, when it came to
finishing what they began, in face of her calmly amused smile.
Yet she did not come off scatheless. They were lavish in their
invitations, and horses were thrust at her as gifts, like so many boxes
of chocolates. She was anxious to learn to bestride a horse, and when
she had acquired the knack, Hetty readily accepted several proposals for
rides up the valley. Then she abruptly discontinued them; for, fired by
what they had heard, her escorts grew bold. Two she repulsed
successfully, and followed that up with lashings of a quirt, but the
third achieved her waist and lips. He got small satisfaction for his
trouble. Her chilling surrender to his kiss when she felt herself
helpless, took all the eagerness of the conqueror out of him. The cowboy
was miserably penitent on the way home and later announced that he would
bet everything he had, inclusive of socks, that Miss Ferrier was the
finest girl in town and could lay it over any lady of his acquaintance.