I made a fool of myself, that’s what I did. I said my name was Walter
Mathers from Marietta, Ohio, and then I told all three of them the
smashingest lie you ever heard. What I said was that my father owned
the horse About Ben Ahem, and that he had let him out to this Bob
French for racing purposes, because our family was proud and had
never gone into racing that way, in our own name, I mean. Then I had
got started and they were all leaning over and listening, and Miss
Lucy Wessen’s eyes were shining, and I went the whole hog.
I told about our place down at Marietta, and about the big stables
and the grand brick house we had on a hill, up above the Ohio River,
but I knew enough not to do it in no bragging way. What I did was to
start things and then let them drag the rest out of me. I acted just
as reluctant to tell as I could. Our family hasn’t got any barrel
factory, and, since I’ve known us, we’ve always been pretty poor, but
not asking anything of anyone at that, and my grandfather, over in
Wales--but never mind that.
We set there talking like we had known each other for years and
years, and I went and told them that my father had been expecting
maybe this Bob French wasn’t on the square, and had sent me up to
Sandusky on the sly to find out what I could.
And I bluffed it through I had found out all about the 2.18 pace in
which About Ben Ahem was to start.
I said he would lose the first heat by pacing like a lame cow and
then he would come back and skin ’em alive after that. And to back up
what I said I took thirty dollars out of my pocket and handed it to
Mr. Wilbur Wessen and asked him would he mind, after the first heat,
to go down and place it on About Ben Ahem for whatever odds he could
get. What I said was that I didn’t want Bob French to see me and none
of the swipes.
Sure enough the first heat come off and About Ben Ahem went off his
stride, up the back stretch, and looked like a wooden horse or a sick
one, and come in to be last. Then this Wilbur Wessen went down to
the betting place under the grand stand and there I was with the two
girls, and when that Miss Woodbury was looking the other way once,
Lucy Wessen kinda, with her shoulder you know, kinda touched me. Not
just tucking down, I don’t mean. You know how a woman can do. They
get close, but not getting gay either. You know what they do. Gee
whizz.
And then they give me a jolt. What they had done when I didn’t know,
was to get together, and they had decided Wilbur Wessen would bet
fifty dollars, and the two girls had gone and put in ten dollars each
of their own money, too. I was sick then, but I was sicker later.
About the gelding, About Ben Ahem, and their winning their money, I
wasn’t worried a lot about that. It come out O.K. Ahem stepped the
next three heats like a bushel of spoiled eggs going to market before
they could be found out, and Wilbur Wessen had got nine to two for
the money. There was something else eating at me.
Because Wilbur come back after he had bet the money, and after that
he spent most of his time talking to that Miss Woodbury, and Lucy
Wessen and I was left alone together like on a desert island. Gee, if
I’d only been on the square or if there had been any way of getting
myself on the square. There ain’t any Walter Mathers, like I said to
her and them, and there hasn’t ever been one, but if there was, I bet
I’d go to Marietta, Ohio, and shoot him tomorrow.
There I was, big boob that I am. Pretty soon the race was over, and
Wilbur had gone down and collected our money, and we had a hack
downtown, and he stood us a swell dinner at the West House, and a
bottle of champagne beside.
And I was with that girl and she wasn’t saying much, and I wasn’t
saying much either. One thing I know. She wasn’t stuck on me because
of the lie about my father being rich and all that. There’s a way you
know.... Craps amighty. There’s a kind of girl you see just once in
your life, and if you don’t get busy and make hay then you’re gone
for good and all and might as well go jump off a bridge. They give
you a look from inside of them somewhere, and it ain’t no vamping,
and what it means is--you want that girl to be your wife, and you
want nice things around her like flowers and swell clothes, and you
want her to have the kids you’re going to have, and you want good
music played and no ragtime. Gee whizz.
There’s a place over near Sandusky, across a kind of bay, and it’s
called Cedar Point. And when we had had that dinner we went over
to it in a launch, all by ourselves. Wilbur and Miss Lucy and that
Miss Woodbury had to catch a ten o’clock train back to Tiffin, Ohio,
because when you’re out with girls like that you can’t get careless
and miss any trains and stay out all night like you can with some
kinds of Janes.
And Wilbur blowed himself to the launch and it cost him fifteen cold
plunks, but I wouldn’t ever have knew if I hadn’t listened. He wasn’t
no tin horn kind of a sport.
Over at the Cedar Point place we didn’t stay around where there was a
gang of common kind of cattle at all.
There was big dance halls and dining places for yaps, and there was
a beach you could walk along and get where it was dark, and we went
there.
She didn’t talk hardly at all and neither did I, and I was thinking
how glad I was my mother was all right, and always made us kids learn
to eat with a fork at table and not swill soup and not be noisy and
rough like a gang you see around a race track that way.
Then Wilbur and his girl went away up the beach and Lucy and I set
down in a dark place where there was some roots of old trees the
water had washed up, and after that, the time, till we had to go back
in the launch and they had to catch their trains, wasn’t nothing at
all. It went like winking your eye.
Here’s how it was. The place we were setting in was dark, like I
said, and there was the roots from that old stump sticking up like
arms, and there was a watery smell, and the night was like--as if you
could put your hand out and feel it--so warm and soft and dark and
sweet like a orange.
I most cried and I most swore and I most jumped up and danced, I was
so mad and happy and sad.
When Wilbur come back from being alone with his girl, and she saw him
coming, Lucy she says, “we got to go to the train now,” and she was
most crying, too, but she never knew nothing I knew, and she couldn’t
be so all busted up. And then, before Wilbur and Miss Woodbury got up
to where she was, she put her face up and kissed me quick and put her
head up against me and she was all quivering and--Gee whizz.
Sometimes I hope I have cancer and die. I guess you know what I mean.
We went in the launch across the bay to the train like that, and it
was dark too. She whispered and said it was like she and I could get
out of the boat and walk on the water, and it sounded foolish, but I
knew what she meant.
And then quick, we were right at the depot, and there was a big gang
of yaps, the kind that goes to the fairs, and crowded and milling
around like cattle, and how could I tell her? “It won’t be long
because you’ll write and I’ll write to you.” That’s all she said.