FRESH TROUBLE DAILY
The following morning the daylight creeping into section number one
found Ira and Anne staring at each other. Ira was tousled and Anne was
unkempt, but her blush still gave her cheek at least an Indian summer
glow.
After a violent effort to reach the space between her shoulder blades,
she was compelled to appeal to her new master to act as her new maid.
"Oh, Mr. Lathrop," she stammered--"Ira," she corrected, "won't you
please hook me up?" she pleaded.
Ira beamed with a second childhood boyishness: "I'll do my best, my
little ootsum-tootsums, it's the first time I ever tried it."
"Oh, I'm so glad," Anne sighed, "it's the first time I ever was hooked
up by a gentleman."
He gurgled with joy and, forgetting the poverty of space, tried to
reach her lips to kiss her. He almost broke her neck and bumped his
head so hard that instead of saying, as he intended, "My darling," he
said, "Oh, hell!"
"Ira!" she gasped. But he, with all the proprietorship he had assumed,
answered cheerily: "You'll have to get used to it, ducky darling. I
could never learn not to swear." He proved the fact again and again by
the remarks he addressed to certain refractory hooks. He apologized,
but she felt more like apologizing for herself.
"Oh, Ira," she said, "I'm so ashamed to have you see me like this--the
first morning."
"Well, you haven't got anything on me--I'm not shaved."
"You don't have to tell me that," she said, rubbing her smarting
cheek. Then she bumped her head and gasped: "Oh--what you said."
This made them feel so much at home that she attained the heights of
frankness and honesty by reaching in her handbag for a knob of
supplementary hair, which she affixed dextrously to what was
homegrown. Ira, instead of looking shocked, loved her for her honesty,
and grinned:
"Now, that's where you have got something on me. Say, we're like a
couple of sardines trying to make love in a tin can."
"It's cosy though," she said, and then vanished through the curtains
and shyly ran the gauntlet of amused glances and over-cordial "Good
mornings" till she hid her blushes behind the door of the women's room
and turned the key. If she had thought of it she would have said, "God
bless the man that invented doors--and the other angel that invented
locks."
The passengers this morning were all a little brisker than usual. It
was the last day aboard for everybody and they showed a certain extra
animation, like the inmates of an ocean liner when land has been
sighted.
Ashton was shaving when Ira swaggered into the men's room. Without
pausing to note whom he was addressing, Ashton sang out:
"Good morning. Did you rest well?"
"What!" Ira roared.
"Oh, excuse me!" said Ashton, hastily, devoting himself to a gash his
safety razor had made in his cheek--even in that cheek of his.
Ira scrubbed out the basin, filled it and tried to dive into it,
slapping the cold water in double handfuls over his glowing face and
puffing through it like a porpoise.
Meanwhile the heavy-eyed Fosdick was slinking through the dining-car,
regarded with amazement by Dr. Temple and his wife, who were already
up and breakfasting.
"What's the matter with the bridal couples on this train, anyway?"
said Dr. Temple.
"I can't imagine," said his wife, "we old couples are the only normal
ones."
"Some more coffee, please, mother," he said.
"But your nerves," she protested.
"It's my vacation," he insisted.
Mrs. Temple stared at him and shook her head: "I wonder what mischief
you'll be up to to-day? You've already been smoking, gambling,
drinking--have you been swearing, yet?"
"Not yet," the old clergyman smiled, "I've been saving that up for a
good occasion. Perhaps it will rise before the day's over."
And his wife choked on her tea at the wonderful train-change that had
come over the best man in Ypsilanti.
By this time Fosdick had reached the stateroom from which he had been
banished again at the Nevada state-line. He knocked cautiously. From
within came an anxious voice: "Who's there?"
"Whom did you expect?"
Mrs. Fosdick popped her head out like a Jill in the box. "Oh, it's
you, Arthur. Kiss me good morning."
He glanced round stealthily and obeyed instructions: "I guess its
safe--my darling."
"Did you sleep, dovie?" she yawned.
"Not a wink. They took off the Portland car at Granger and I had to
sleep in one of the chairs in the observation room."
Mrs. Fosdick shook her head at him in mournful sympathy, and asked:
"What state are we in now?"
"A dreadful state--Nevada."
"Just what are we in Nevada?"
"I'm a bigamist, and you've never been married at all."
"Oh, these awful divorce laws!" she moaned, then left the general for
the particular: "Won't you come in and hook me up?"
Fosdick looked shocked: "I don't dare compromise you."
"Will you take breakfast with me--in the dining-car?" she pleaded.
"Do we dare?"
"We might call it luncheon," she suggested.
He seized the chance: "All right, I'll go ahead and order, and you
stroll in and I'll offer you the seat opposite me."
"But can't you hook me up?"
He was adamant: "Not till we get to California. Do you think I want to
compromise my own wife? Shh! Somebody's coming!" And he darted off to
the vestibule just as Mrs. Jimmie Wellington issued from number ten
with hair askew, eyes only half open, and waist only half shut at the
back. She made a quick spurt to the women's room, found it locked,
stamped her foot, swore under her breath, and leaned against the wall
of the car to wait.
About the same time, the man who was still her husband according to
the law, rolled out of berth number two. There was an amazing clarity
to his vision. He lurched as he made his way to the men's room, but it
was plainly the train's swerve and not an inner lurch that twisted
the forthright of his progress.
He squeezed into the men's room like a whole crowd at once, and sang
out, "Good morning, all!" with a wonderful heartiness. Then he paused
over a wash basin, rubbed his hands gleefully and proclaimed, like
another Chantecler advertising a new day:
"Well--I'm sober again!"
"Three cheers for you," said his rival in radiance, bridegroom
Lathrop.
"How does it feel?" demanded Ashton, smiling so broadly that he
encountered the lather on his brush.
While he sputtered Wellington was flipping water over his hot head and
incidentally over Ashton.
"I feel," he chortled, "I feel like the first little robin redbreast
of the merry springtime. Tweet! Tweet!"
When the excitement over his redemption had somewhat calmed, Ashton
reopened the old topic of conversation:
"Well, I see they had another scrap last night."
"They--who?" said Ira, through his flying toothbrush.
"The Mallorys. Once more he occupied number three and she number
seven."
"Well, well, I can't understand these modern marriages," said Little
Jimmie, with a side glance at Ira. Ira suddenly remembered the plight
of the Mallorys and was tempted to defend them, but he saw the young
lieutenant himself just entering the washroom. This was more than
Wellington saw, for he went on talking from behind a towel:
"Well, if I were a bridegroom and had a bride like that, it would take
more than a quarrel to send me to another berth."
The others made gestures which he could not see. His enlightenment
came when Mallory snapped the towel from his hands and glared into his
face with all the righteous wrath of a man hearing his domestic
affairs publicly discussed.
"Were you alluding to me, Mr. Wellington?" he demanded, hotly.
Little Jimmie almost perished with apoplexy: "You, you?" he mumbled.
"Why, of course not. You're not the only bridegroom on the train."
Mallory tossed him the towel again: "You meant Mr. Lathrop then?"
"Me! Not much!" roared the indignant Lathrop.
Mallory returned to Wellington with a fiercer: "Whom, then?"
He was in a dangerous mood, and Ashton came to the rescue: "Oh, don't
mind Wellington. He's not sober yet."
This inspired suggestion came like a life-buoy to the hard-pressed
Wellington. He seized it and spoke thickly: "Don't mind me--I'm not
shober yet."
"Well, it's a good thing you're not," was Mallory's final growl as he
began his own toilet.
The porter's bell began to ring furiously, with a touch they had
already come to recognize as the Englishman's. The porter had learned
to recognize it, too, and he always took double the necessary time to
answer it. He was sauntering down the aisle at his most leisurely gait
when Wedgewood's rumpled mane shot out from the curtains like a lion's
from a jungle, and he bellowed: "Pawtah! Pawtah!"
"Still on the train," said the porter.
"You may give me my portmanteau."
"Yassah." He dragged it from the upper berth, and set it inside
Wedgewood's berth without special care as to its destination. "Does
you desire anything else, sir?"
"Yes, your absence," said Wedgewood.
"The same to you and many of them," the porter muttered to himself,
and added to Marjorie, who was just starting down the aisle: "I'll
suttainly be interested in that man gittin' where he's goin' to git
to." Noting that she carried Snoozleums, he said: "We're comin' into a
station right soon." Without further discussion she handed him the
dog, and he hobbled away.
When she reached the women's door, she found Mrs. Wellington waiting
with increasing exasperation: "Come, join the line at the box office,"
she said.
"Good morning. Who's in there?" said Marjorie, and Mrs. Wellington,
not noting that Mrs. Whitcomb had come out of her berth and fallen
into line, answered sharply:
"I don't know. She's been there forever. I'm sure it's that cat of a
Mrs. Whitcomb."
"Good morning, Mrs. Mallory," snapped Mrs. Whitcomb.
Mrs. Wellington was rather proud that the random shot landed, but
Marjorie felt most uneasy between the two tigresses: "Good morning,
Mrs. Whitcomb," she said. There was a disagreeable silence, broken
finally by Mrs. Wellington's: "Oh, Mrs. Mallory, would you be angelic
enough to hook my gown?"
"Of course I will," said Marjorie.
"May I hook you?" said Mrs. Whitcomb.
"You're awfully kind," said Marjorie, presenting her shoulders to Mrs.
Whitcomb, who asked with malicious sweetness: "Why didn't your husband
do this for you this morning?"
"I--I don't remember," Marjorie stammered, and Mrs. Wellington tossed
over-shoulder an apothegm: "He's no husband till he's hook-broken."
Just then Mrs. Fosdick came out of her stateroom. Seeing Mrs.
Whitcomb's waist agape, she went at it with a brief, "Good morning,
everybody. Permit me."
Mrs. Wellington twisted her head to say "Good morning," and to ask,
"Are you hooked, Mrs. Fosdick?"
"Not yet," pouted Mrs. Fosdick.
"Turn round and back up," said Mrs. Wellington. After some
maneuvering, the women formed a complete circle, and fingers plied
hooks and eyes in a veritable Ladies' Mutual Aid Society.
By now, Wedgewood was ready to appear in a bathrobe about as gaudy as
the royal standard of Great Britain. He stalked down the aisle, and
answered the male chorus's cheery "Good morning" with a ramlike "Baw."
Ira Lathrop felt amiable even toward the foreigner, and he observed:
"Glorious morning this morning."
"I dare say," growled Wedgewood. "I don't go in much for
mawnings--especially when I have no tub."
Wellington felt called upon to squelch him: "You Englishmen never had
a real tub till we Americans sold 'em to you."
"I dare say," said Wedgewood indifferently. "You sell 'em. We use 'em.
But, do you know, I've just thought out a ripping idea. I shall have
my cold bath this mawning after all."
"What are you going to do?" growled Lathrop. "Crawl in the icewater
tank?"
"Oh, dear, no. I shouldn't be let," and he produced from his pocket a
rubber hose. "I simply affix this little tube to one end of the
spigot and wave the sprinklah hyah over my--er--my person."
Lathrop stared at him pityingly, and demanded: "What happens to the
water, then?"
"What do I care?" said Wedgewood.
"You durned fool, you'd flood the car."
Wedgewood's high hopes withered. "I hadn't thought of that," he
sighed. "I suppose I must continue just as I am till I reach San
Francisco. The first thing I shall order to-night will be four cold
tubs and a lemon squash."
While the men continued to make themselves presentable in a huddle,
the hook-and-eye society at the other end of the car finished with the
four waists and Mrs. Fosdick hurried away to keep her tryst in the
dining-car. The three remaining relapsed into dreary attitudes. Mrs.
Wellington shook the knob of the forbidding door, and turned to
complain: "What in heaven's name ails the creature in there. She must
have fallen out of the window."
"It's outrageous," said Marjorie, "the way women violate women's
rights."
Mrs. Whitcomb saw an opportunity to insert a stiletto. She observed to
Marjorie, with an innocent air: "Why, Mrs. Mallory, I've even known
women to lock themselves in there and smoke!"
While Mrs. Wellington was rummaging her brain for a fitting retort,
the door opened, and out stepped Miss Gattle, as was.
She blushed furiously at sight of the committee waiting to greet her,
but they repented their criticisms and tried to make up for them by
the excessive warmth with which they all exclaimed at once: "Good
morning, Mrs. Lathrop!"
"Good morning, who?" said Anne, then blushed yet redder: "Oh, I can't
seem to get used to that name! I hope I haven't kept you waiting?"
"Oh, not at all!" the women insisted, and Anne fled to number Six,
remembered that this was no longer her home, and moved on to number
One. Here the porter was just finishing his restoring tasks, and
laying aside with some diffidence two garments which Anne hastily
stuffed into her own valise.
Meanwhile Marjorie was pushing Mrs. Wellington ahead:
"You go in first, Mrs. Wellington."
"You go first. I have no husband waiting for me," said Mrs.
Wellington.
"Oh, I insist," said Marjorie.
"I couldn't think of it," persisted Mrs. Wellington. "I won't allow
you."
And then Mrs. Whitcomb pushed them both aside: "Pardon me, won't you?
I'm getting off at Reno."
"So am I," gasped Mrs. Wellington, rushing forward, only to be faced
by the slam of the door and the click of the key. She whirled back to
demand of Marjorie: "Did you ever hear of such impudence?"
"I never did."
"I'll never be ready for Reno," Mrs. Wellington wailed, "and I haven't
had my breakfast."
"You'd better order it in advance," said Marjorie. "It takes that chef
an hour to boil an egg three minutes."
"I will, if I can ever get my face washed," sighed Mrs. Wellington.
And now Mrs. Anne Lathrop, after much hesitation, called timidly:
"Porter--porter--please!"
"Yes--miss--missus!" he amended.
"Will you call my--" she gulped--"my husband?"
"Yes, ma'am," the porter chuckled, and putting his grinning head in at
the men's door, he bowed to Ira and said: "Excuse me, but you are sent
for by the lady in number One."
Ashton slapped him on the back and roared: "Oh, you married man!"
"Well," said Ira, in self-defence, "I don't hear anybody sending for
you." Wedgewood grinned at Ashton. "I rather fancy he had you theah,
old top, eh, what?"
Ira appeared at number One, and bending over his treasure-trove, spoke
in a voice that was pure saccharine: "Are you ready for breakfast,
dear?"
"Yes, Ira."
"Come along to the dining-car."
"It's cosier here," she said. "Couldn't we have it served here?"
"But it'll get all cold, and I'm hungry," pouted the old bachelor, to
whom breakfast was a sacred institution.
"All right, Ira," said Anne, glad to be meek; "come along," and she
rose.
Ira hesitated. "Still, if you'd rather, we'll eat here." He sat down.
"Oh, not at all," said Anne; "we'll go where you want to go."
"But I want to do what you want to do."
"So do I--we'll go," said Anne.
"We'll stay."
"No, I insist on the dining-car."
"Oh, all right, have your own way," said Ira, as if he were being
bullied, and liked it. Anne smiled at the contrariness of men, and Ira
smiled at the contrariness of women, and when they reached the
vestibule they kissed each other in mutual forgiveness.
As Wedgewood stropped an old-fashioned razor, he said to Ashton, who
was putting up his safety equipment: "I say, old party, are those
safety razors safe? Can't you really cut yourself?"
"Cut everything but hair," said Ashton, pointing to his wounded chin.
Mallory put out his hand: "Would you be kind enough to lend me your
razor again this morning?"
"Sure thing," said Ashton. "You'll find your blade in the box there."
Mallory then negotiated the loan of one more fresh shirt from the
Englishman, and a clean collar from Ashton. He rejoiced that the end
of the day would bring him in touch with his own baggage. Four days of
foraging on the country was enough for this soldier.
Also he felt, now that he and Marjorie had lived thus long, they could
survive somehow till evening brought them to San Francisco, where
there were hundreds of ministers. And then the conductor must ruin his
early morning optimism, though he made his appearance in the washroom
with genial good mornings for all.
Mallory acknowledged the greeting, and asked offhandedly: "By the way,
how's she running?"
The conductor answered even more offhandedly: "About two hours
late--and losin'."
Mallory was transfixed with a new fear: "Good Lord, my transport sails
at sunrise."
"Oh, we ought to make 'Frisco by midnight, anyway."
"Midnight, and sail at daylight!"
"Unless we lose a little more time."
Mallory realized that every new day managed to create its own
anxieties. With the regularity of a milkman, each morning left a fresh
crisis on his doorstep.