_Private Life_
It seems to me it's highly suitable that I should get to the edge of
telling about Mr. Dallas' misfortunate visitations just as Chapter the
Thirteenth is starting, which, as everybody knows full well already,
thirteen is the unluckiest number there is in the whole alphabet.
When you projects with old Lady Thirteen you flirts with sudden
disaster. With Mr. Dallas, though, his troubles don't come on all at
once, like a stroke; they comes on sort of gradual, one behind the
other, like the symptoms of a lingering complaint.
Up to a certain point everything with us has gone along very lovely, the
same as usual, with parties occurring regular at the apartment and the
Japanee boy cooking up fancy mixtures, and me serving drinks by the
drove. Thanksgiving time we has a special blow-out with twelve setting
down to the table at once.
But Christmas is when we cuts loose and just naturally out-todos all
previous todos. All day long folks is dropping in to sample the
available refreshments and most of 'em likes the sample so well they
camps right there till far into the night. I mingles up a big glass
reservoir full of egg-nog, which it seems to give 'special satisfaction
to one and all. The way these here guests of ours bails it up you'd
think they was in a sinking skiff half a mile from shore. As he ladles
out the first batch Mr. Dallas states that this here egg-nog is made
according to a recipe which has been handed down in his family since
right after the Revolutionizing War. But when she's took the second
helping, Miss O'Brien, who's got a mighty peart way about her of saying
things, allows that it shore must be older even than that--she says
she's willing to bet it had a good deal to do with bringing on the
revolution.
Of all the crowd that Mr. Dallas is in with, I likes her the best. She's
got a powerful high temper and is prone to flare up when matters don't
go to suit her; but it seems like to me she ain't devoting so much of
her time as some of the others is to seeing what she can get for
nothing. Sometimes I catches her looking at Mr. Dallas like as if she's
sort of sorry for him on account of some reason or other. But to look at
him on this Christmas Day, doing his entertainingest best, you'd think
nothing had ever bothered him and that nothing ever would. As long as
that egg-nog holds out he's bound and determined the party shall be a
success. Which it is!
But Mr. Bellows he ain't got no storage room for egg-nogs. Seemingly he
figures that all them eggs and that rich cream and sugar and stuff will
take up space which is needed for chambering the hard liquor. He just
sets off in a corner with a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of squirtwater
handy by, curing his drought, or striving to. He may not be such very
good company but one thing they've got to say for him--he's a man of
regular habits. You may not like the habits, but they certainly is
regular. I hears Mrs. Gaylord saying once that Mr. Bellows can hold any
given number of drinks, sort of pressing her voice down on the word
"given." She don't need to say it twice, neither, so far as I personally
is concerned.
I got her the first time.
It's maybe two or three days after Christmas--anyhow it's somewheres
around the middle of Christmas week--that I first takes notice of a sort
of a change coming over Mr. Dallas' feelings. When there's nobody else
round but just me and him he acts plumb bothered. His appetite is more
picky-and-choosy than it used to be; and by these signs I can tell
something is on his mind a-preying. On New Year's Eve he goes forth with
his friends for a party but first they all stops by our place for what
they calls appetizers and whilst they is gathered together it comes out
that him and Miss Bill-Lee is now engaged. Not no regular announcement
is made but all of a sudden, seems like, everybody present appears to
know how things stand with him and her. Also, Miss Bill-Lee starts in
treating him more or less like he belonged to her. I don't scarcely
know how to state it in words, but it's like as if up until now she's
been holding a piece of property under mortgage but has finally decided
for to foreclose on it and is eager for the papers to be fixed up in
order for to begin making improvements and alterations. She's what you
might call proprietary.
Well, I can't say the news is much of a shock to me, seeing what has
been the general drift of events since last August when we first got
here. But, on the other hand, neither I can't say that, considering
everything, I'm actually overcome with joyfulness on Mr. Dallas'
personal account.
I can't keep from thinking to myself that he's fixing to marry himself
off into a mighty different set of folks from the kind he was born and
brung up amongst. And I can't keep from thinking what a sight of
difference there is betwixt this here Miss DeWitt and Miss Henrietta
Farrell, which, as I said before, he was courting her before we moved to
New York. One of 'em sort of puts me in mind of a rosebud picked out of
the garden in the dew of the morning and the other, which I means by
that, Miss De Witt, reminds me of one of these here big pale magnolia
blooms which has growed on the edge of a swamp. I ain't meaning no
disrespect by having these thoughts; only I can't keep from having 'em.
I reckon it's having them ideas floating round in my head which makes me
study Mr. Dallas 'specially close that New Year's Eve. For all that he's
laughing and joking and carrying on, I figures that way down deep
insides of him he ain't entirely happy over what's come out. By my
calculations, he ain't got the true feelings which a forthcoming
bridegroom should have. As near as I can judge, he ain't hopeful so much
as he's sort of resignated. Also and furthermore, likewise, he's got a
kind of a puzzled-up beflusterated look on his face as if he'd been took
up short by something he wasn't exactly expecting to happen so soon, if
at all. It ain't exactly bewildedment and it ain't exactly
distressfulness; but it's something that's distant kinsfolks to both of
'em.