_Country Side_
For instances, now, take this here Saturday last past. Down home Mr.
Dallas would a-been down to that there oil-office of his bright and
early shaking hands with the paying customers and helping boss the
clerks whilst they drawed off the oil, and all. But nothing like that
don't happen here with us--no sir, not none whatsomever. He lays in bed
until it's going on pretty near ten o'clock and then he gets up and I
packs him, and along about dinner-time, which they calls it lunch-time
round this town, we puts out in the car to the country for a week-end.
Only, for the amount of baggage we totes with us you'd a-thought it was
going to be a month-end. I'm tooken along to look after his clothes and
to do general valetting for him.
We takes Mr. Raynor and Mr. Bellows and the permanent-wavy lady, Mrs.
Gaylord, along with us. Miss DeWitt and Miss O'Brien is also headed for
the same place we is, but they comes in the blue runabout traveling
close behind us. By now, I has done learned not to expect Mrs. Gaylord
to bring a husband with her. It seems like she can get 'em, but she
can't keep 'em. She's been married three times in all; but from what I
can hear, her first husband hauled off and died on her and the second
one kind of strayed off and never come back. I ain't heard 'em say what
happened to the present incumbent but since he ain't never been
produced, I judge he must've got mislaid someway, so now she's
practically all out of husbands again. Still, she seems to be bearing up
very serene at all times. If she misses 'em she don't let on.
Well, we loads up the car with the white folks, and with valises and
golf-sacks and one thing and another and starts for the country. But I
must say for it that it's totally unsimilar to any country like what I
has been used to heretofore. The front yards which we passes all looks
like the owners must take 'em in at nights and in the mornings brush
'em off good and put 'em back outdoors again; and most of the residences
is a suitable size to make good high-school buildings or else
feeble-mind institutes, and even the woodlots has a slicked-up
appearance like as if they'd just come back that same day from the
dry-cleaner's. In more'n an hour's steady travel I don't see a single
rail fence nor a regulation weed-patch nor a lye kettle nor an
ash-hopper nor a corn-crib nor a martin-box nor a hound-dog nor a
smoke-house nor scarcely anything which would signify it to be
sure-enough country. I thinks to myself that if a cotton-tail rabbit was
aiming to camp out here he'd naturally be obliged to pack his bedding
along with him.
When we arrives where we is headed for I is still further surprised
because, beforehand, Mr. Dallas tells me we is going to stop at a
country-place, but it looks to me more like a city-hall which has done
strayed far off from its functions and took root in a big clump of trees
alongside the river. Why, it's got more rooms in it than our new county
infirmary's got and grounds around it all beautiful like a cemetery. It
belongs to a very spry-acting lady named Mrs. Banister, which she is a
friend of Mrs. Gaylord's. There's a Mr. Banister, too, but as far as I
can judge, the lady is the sole proprietor and his job is just being
Mrs. Banister's Mr. and helping with the drinks when the butler is busy
doing something else. I hears the cook saying out in the kitchen that he
can also mix a very tasty salad-dressing. Well, that's what he looks
like to me, just a natural-born salad-dressing mixer.
But we don't arrive there until it's getting towards four o'clock by
reason of us stopping for quite a sojourn at a tea-house along the road.
Leastwise, they calls it a tea-house, but its principalest functions, so
far as I can note, is to provide accommodations for folks to dance and
to drink up the refreshments which they've fetched along with 'em in
pocket flasks; and you might call that tea if you prefers to, but it's
the kind of tea which now sells by the case for cash down and is
delivered at your house after dark.
That's mainly what our outfit does there--dance and refresh themselves
with what the gentlemen brought along on their hips. From where I'm
setting in the car outside I can see 'em weaving in and out amongst the
tables whilst a string-band plays jazzing tunes for 'em to dance by. But
Mr. Dallas don't appear to be getting the hang of it so very well and
the chauffeur, who's setting there with me, he allows probably the boss
ain't caught on to these here new dances yet.
I says to him, I says:
"Huh! Does you call 'at a new dance?"
He says:
"Sure--the newest one of 'em all. That's the Reitzenburger Grapple--it's
just hit town."
And I says:
"Then it shore must a-been a long time on the road, gittin' yere; 'cause
niggers down my way," I says, "wuz dancin' 'at air dance fully ten yeahs
ago--only they done so behind closed doors," I says, "bein' 'feared the
police mout claim disawd'ly conduct an' stop 'em frum it."
He says:
"Did you ever dance it?"
I says to him:
"Who, me? Many's a time. But not lately," I says.
"What made you stop?" he says.
"I got religion," I says.
There was also considerable careless dancing done at the Banister place
that night and early the following morning. In fact, there was
considerable of a good many things done there that Saturday and
Sunday--tennis and golf and horseback-riding and billiards and pool and
going in swimming in a private lake on the premises and playing a card
game which they calls it auction-bridge, and eating and drinking and
smoking. Everybody is so busy all day changing clothes for the next
event they ain't got very much time for the thing that's on at the time
being. But when the night-time comes the ladies strips down to
full-dress and all hands just settles in for the three favorite sports,
which is dancing and cards and drinks, both long and short. I has seen
thirsty gentlemen before in my day but to the best of my recollection I
ain't never encountered no ladies that seemed so parched-like as one or
two of these here ladies was. I'm thinking in particular of Mrs.
Gaylord. She certainly is suffering from a severe attack of the genuine
parchments. But I'll say this much for her--she's doing her level best
to get shut of it by taking the ordained treatment. That Saturday
evening whilst I is upstairs in Mr. Dallas' room laying out his
dress-clothes, the guests, about a dozen of 'em is out in the front yard
setting round little tables where I can see 'em from the window, and
every time I passes the window and looks out it seems like she's being
served with a little bit more. She carries it just beautiful, though;
she certainly has my deep personal admirations for her capacity. But
next day when she comes down stairs she acts dauncy and low-spirited for
awhile. She's got on a fresh complexion, to be sure, but even so she
looks sort of weather-beaten 'round the eyes. You take 'em when they is
either prematurely old or else permanently young and the morning is
always the most tellingest time on 'em. Well, several of those present
ain't feeling the best in the world, seemingly, that Sunday when they
strolls forth for late breakfast 'long about half past eleven. It was
after three o'clock before they dispersed and some of 'em ain't entirely
got over it yet--they is still kind of dispersed-looking, if you gets my
meaning.
Well, all day Sunday is just like Saturday evening was, only if
anything, more so; and late Sunday night the party busts up and scatters
and we starts back to town. Mr. Dallas he elects for to ride back in the
runabout with Miss Bill-Lee so that throws Miss O'Brien, the one which
they calls Pat for short, into the big car with the rest of our crowd.
Starting off she quarrels right peart with Mrs. Gaylord. I gathers that
they was partners at the bridging game part of the time and they can't
get reconciled with one another over the way each one of 'em handled her
cards. The more they scandalizes about it the more onreconciled they
gets, too. It seems like each one thinks the other don't scarcely know
how to deal, let alone play the hands after she gets 'em. Setting there
listening to 'em carrying on I thinks to myself these here Northern
white folks must hate to lose even a little bit of money. I knows these
two ladies couldn't a-lost much neither--I heard Mr. Raynor saying
beforehand they was going to play five cents a point. But to overhear
'em debating now, you'd a-thought it had been a real stiff game, like
dollar-limit poker, say, or set-back at six bits a corner.
After awhile Miss Pat she quits argufying and drops off to sleep and Mr.
Bellows he likewise drifts off into a doze and that leaves Mrs. Gaylord
and Mr. Raynor talking together in the back seat kind of confidential.
But the hood of the car being over 'em it seems like it throws their
voices forward, and setting up with the chauffeur I can't keep from
eavesdropping on part of what they is confabbing about.
Presently I hears Mr. Raynor saying:
"Well, you never can guess in advance what a sap will like, can you? You
would have thought he'd fall for a kiddo with a good, strong up-to-date
tomboy line, like little Patsy here. But no--not at all! He takes one
look into those languishing eyes of our other friend and goes down and
out for the count. Funny--eh, what? Well, it only goes to show that
while the vamp stuff is getting a trifle old-fashioned it still pays
dividends--if only you pick the right customer."
Then I hears Mrs. Gaylord saying:
"Her system may be a bit _passe_ but you can't say she doesn't work fast
once she gets under way. Clever, I call it."
"Clever?" he says, "you bet! She works fast and she works clean, tidying
up as she goes along and burying her own dead. I always did say for her
that when it came to being a gold-digger she had the original
Forty-niners looking like inmates of the Bide-a-Wee Home. Fast? I'll say
so!"
"She has need to be fast, working opposition to you, Herby, dear," says
Mrs. Gaylord. "Speaking of expert blood-suckers, I shouldn't exactly
call you a vegetarian."
"Hush, honey," he says, "let's not talk shop out of business hours. And
anyhow," he says, "I don't mind a little healthy competition on the
side. It stimulates trade under the main tent--if it's done in
moderation."
"You should know, Herby," she says sort of laughing; "with your
experience you should know if anybody does."
Then he laughs, too, a kind of a low and meaning chuckle, and they goes
to talking about something else.
But I has done heard enough to set me to studying mighty earnest.
Neither one of 'em ain't specifying who they means by "he" and "she" but
I can guess. Once more I says to myself, I says:
"_Uh huh, uh huh!_"