Sol's Matrimonial Mix-Up
For the few days following, the robbery and the rounding-up of the
thieves were the talk of the district; but despite this, it was
surprising how little _The Vernock and District Advertiser_ had to say
about it.
Phil openly commented on the peculiarity, but Jim just stuck his
tongue in his cheek.
Neither McLean nor the wounded half-breed were seriously hurt, and in
a week both were well again--the one going lamely about his business
and the other in jail beside his fellows.
The trial was placed on the calendar for the next Assizes which had
been arranged for the following month, when most of the Fall crops
would be in and shipped, thereby leaving twelve good men and true free
to devote some of their time to the requirements of law and justice.
Jim went back again to the Court House as Government Agent Thompson's
assistant. Phil kept to the forge, serious and tremendously earnest in
following the calling he had been so strangely thrust into.
He could not fail to notice, day by day, the gradual change that was
coming over Sol Hanson. Sol had not been drunk for weeks. He dressed
himself much more neatly than formerly, although what it was exactly
that gave him the smarter appearance, Phil could not make out until
Smiler led him to understand by signs and grimaces that Sol now washed
his face and hands mornings and evenings, instead of every Sunday
morning as formerly.
But there was something else.
Sol's blue eyes had contracted a habit of gazing into the heart of the
fire while he leaned abstractedly on the bellows handle. He became
interested in the train arrivals. He posted letters and called every
day at the post office for mail. Whether he got any or not Phil was
unable to say definitely. But he got a sneaking suspicion after a
while, that the soft-hearted, simple, big fellow was either answering
letters through the Seattle _Matrimonial Times_, or corresponding with
some lady friend. He felt convinced that Sol was badly, or rather,
madly in love.
He probed the big Swede with the sharp end of a question now and
again, but Sol was wonderfully impervious.
One day, Jim and Phil were strolling leisurely up Main Street from the
Kenora Hotel where they had been having an early lunch together. The
north train had just come in and a few drummers, some incoming
Chinamen and a number of straggling passengers were spreading
themselves for their different destinations, carrying grips and canvas
bags with their samples and their belongings as the case might be.
Neither Jim nor Phil was paying any heed to what was a daily
occurrence, until they were stopped by a buxom, fair-haired, blue-eyed
maiden, with a pleasant smile on her big, innocent face. She was
cheaply but becomingly dressed and filled her clothes with attractive
generosity. As she laid down her two hand-bags, her smile broadened
and beamed until it broke into a merry dimple on each of her cheeks
and parted her ruddy lips to the exposure of a mouthful of fresh,
creamy-looking, well-formed teeth.
There was no gainsaying who was the object of her smiles:--it was Jim
Langford and Jim alone, and there was nothing left for either him or
Phil to do but to doff their hats and wait the lady's good pleasure.
She seemed in no hurry to speak.
As Jim gazed at her in surprise, waiting; her fingers--hard, red
fingers they were--began to twist a little nervously about the
painfully new gloves she carried, and her eyes dropped, looked up, and
dropped again.
"Guess you don't know me!" she ventured at last.
"No! I'm sorry! I can't remember ever meeting you before," he
answered.
"Ho, ho!" muttered Phil under his breath.
"See you later, Jim!" he said loudly, making to move off.
"Here, you piker! You wait a minute." Jim grabbed Phil's coat sleeve.
The young lady's cheeks began to take on the added attractiveness of a
blush.
"You ain't ever met me before, I know," she said. "But don't you know
me by my picture?"
Jim shook his head in perplexity.
"I'd a-knowed you any place."
For the first time in Phil's experience of Jim, the latter stood
abashed.
"You might have come to meet me at the train though. Guess you was
just comin'. I wrote you three days since."
"You did, eh! Well,--I never got your letter," bantered Jim,
recovering his composure.
She was a pretty piece of femininity, despite her poor language and
her somewhat tawdry finery.
"I think you're stringing me. But say!--I'm awful hungry, and I've
been two days in the train.
"Ain't you goin' to get me some eats, Sol?"
"Sol!" exclaimed Jim with a gulp that spoke intense relief. "Why, my
good girl, my name's not Sol!"
"Oh, yes it is!" she answered bravely, with the smile fading. "I tell
you I'd a-knowed you anywheres."
"You're making a mistake, dear lassie. My name is certainly not Sol."
A glimmer of light was beginning to break in on Phil, but he kept that
glimmer miserly to his inmost self.
"Yes it is! Oh, yes it is!" she said again, putting her hand on Jim's
arm, but with a peculiar little expression of uncertainty in her
eyes.
"You can't fool me, Sol Hanson,--and, say boy!--I've come a long ways
for you, and I'm awful tired."
"Hanson! Good Lord!" blurted out Jim. "Me--Sol Hanson! Lassie, lassie,
I didna think I was so good looking. Are ye looking for Sol Hanson?"
The girl did not answer. A moisture began to gather in her big, blue
eyes, and a tear toppled over.
Jim was all baby at once.
"Dinna greet!--there's a good lass! Dinna greet here in the street,"
he coaxed. "If it is Sol Hanson ye want, we can soon help ye to get
him."
The girl bent down and opened up one of her hand-bags, bringing out a
large photograph, pasted on a creamy-coloured, gay-looking cardboard
mount. She handed it to Jim, searching his face with her tear-dimmed
eyes.
Jim gazed at it in bewilderment. Then he scratched his head and gazed
again.
"Ain't that your picture?" the young lady asked. "Don't tell me that
it ain't, for it wouldn't be true; and I came all this way because you
wrote so nice and looked so big and good. I--I didn't think you was a
bluffer like--like other men."
Her breath caught and she began to sob.
"My dear lassie,--I am bewildered,--confounded. I--I----That is my
photo, but where in all the world did ye get it from?"
The girl looked at him a little angrily, for she had pluck in plenty.
"Where do you think? I ain't stole it. You sent it to me. Where else
could I get it?"
Jim stood foolishly.
"I certainly never sent it. Why, woman!--I never saw ye before. I
don't know your name even. I--I----
"There, there! Dinna start to greet again. We'll fix you up, if you'll
only tell Phil and me your trouble."
"--And your name ain't Sol Hanson?" she queried, with a trembling
lip.
"No!--I am sorry to say it is not!"
From her grip, the girl picked out a bundle of envelopes, well filled,
and done up in lavender-coloured ribbon.
"--And--and you never wrote them letters to me?"
Jim looked at the writing and shook his head.
"No,--I never did!"
"--And--and you don't know my name's Betty Jornsen?"
"I didn't, but I do now, Betty," gallantly answered Jim, while Phil
was beside himself trying to stifle his amusement one moment, and
endeavouring to keep back his feelings of sympathy for the girl, the
next.
Several passers-by turned round and stared in open interest at the
strange meeting.
"Shut up your bag, lassie! Don't show us any more o' your gear,"
appealed Jim in perturbation at the thought of what might come out
next.
The buxom, fair-haired woman began to sob again. She turned and
appealed to Phil.
"Oh, what am I to do, mister? I had a good job at Nixon's Cafe in
Seattle. Sol wrote to me through the _Matrimonial Times_. I wrote
back to him. I sent him my picture and he sent me his--this one--and
now he says he ain't him."
"That isn't his photo, woman,--it is mine," interrupted Jim.
"But he's you," she whimpered.
"Then who the mischief am I?" asked Jim in perplexity.
"You told me you had a house, and fruit trees, and a blacksmith's
shop, and plenty of money and, if I came to Canada, we'd get married.
I throwed up my good job and I've come and now you say you ain't him,"
she sailed on breathlessly, her ample bosom labouring excitedly.
"Phil," said Jim, aside. "How the devil do you suppose that big idiot
got my photo? It looks like one taken off one I used to have, and
lost."
"I guess that is just what it is," grinned Phil.
"Well,--we've got to see this little woman right, and incidentally
give Sol Hanson the biggest fright he ever got in his natural.
"Miss--Miss Jornsen,--there's a mistake somewhere. My name is Jim
Langford, and that is my photograph; but I never sent it to you. We
happen to know Sol Hanson though. He lives here all right. This
gentleman works with him.
"Sol is a Swede?"
"Yes,--yes!" put in Betty, "same as I am."
"I'm thinking he was afraid he wasn't good-looking enough and he was
scared to take chances, so he sent you my photo instead of one of his
own," he went on, without even a blush of conceit.
"And--and he ain't such a good-looker as you?" she queried.
"Well,--well, of course, tastes differ. You might like him fine," he
grinned, with becoming modesty.
"But he's got a house, and fruit trees, and a blacksmith shop, and he
can work?" she asked.
"You bet! He's well fixed. Come along and we'll see him now. He will
never be able to resist you."
Betty perked up at the compliment.
Then nervously and timidly she set herself to rights, finally
consenting to allow Jim and Phil to escort her to the smithy.
"You wait here!" instructed Jim at the corner of the block. "We'll go
and break the news to Sol. We'll come back for you.
"Give me that picture, though. I have a word to say in his ear about
that."
Betty opened her bag, gazed fondly on Jim's photo, then at him, before
she slowly delivered it up.
Phil went into the smithy, hung up his coat, put on his apron and
started in to work.
Jim followed him a few minutes later.
Sol Hanson was busy shoeing a horse. Jim went over to him.
"Here, Sol," he cried, "come over and see this."
The good-natured big fellow stopped his work and followed Jim to the
dust-begrimed window.
Jim stuck the photograph under Sol's nose.
"Do you know who that is?"
"Ya,--sure thing! You bet! Dam-good picture too, Jim!" he commented,
with an innocence well assumed.
"Yes,--you certainly seem to like it. I can't say it is very like you,
you son-of-a-gun."
"Me? No! Pretty like you though, Jim," Sol stammered.
"Look here, you big lump of humanity;--what the devil do you mean by
sending my photo all over the country and saying it is yours?"
"Me?--I ain't--I didn't--I----"
"Cut it out, you big bluffer! You couldn't lie decently to save your
neck."
Sol laughed at last.
"You not been goin' for to get mad, Jim. Just a little joke I have on
some girl. See!"
"Oh,--it was! Darned good joke for me--and you too!"
"Ya!--you see I find it one day on floor here. You drop it some time.
I ain't much of a swell looker for girls. All girls like face like
yours. I get Vancouver man make me twelve pictures all same as this
one. I send them just for little joke to girls I write to some time."
Jim clutched at his own hair despairingly, as Phil furiously worked
the bellows in his mirth.
"Great jumping Caesar! Twelve! Are you going to start a harem?"
"Ach, no! Just have a little fun,--that's all. You don't go and been
for to get mad at that."
"Great fun! Great joke!" commented Jim, "but you've put your foot in
it this time, old cock. One of these women is in town, looking for
your scalp. She is asking everybody in Vernock where Sol Hanson hangs
out."
Sol's big face grew a shade paler and his jaw dropped. He became
excited.
"You--you didn't been for to tell her,--Jim?"
"Sure I did! Why not? You're going to marry her,--aren't you? She's
telling everybody that."
Sol, who had been standing with his big hands spread on his leather
apron and his mouth agape, now showed signs of anxiety.
"But,--I--I--Which one is it, Jim? What she call herself?"
"Oh,--there are several, you blooming Mormon?"
Sol ran to his coat and pulled a bundle of letters and miscellaneous
photographs from the pocket. He handed them to Jim.
"Look at them," he cried in excitement. "Tell me quick which one
come."
He mopped the perspiration from his brow. "By hell!--I guess I been
got in a bad fix this time for sure."
Jim slowly went over the documents and photographs.
"No! No! No! No!" he exclaimed, as he handed them back to Sol one by
one.
"Not one,--by gosh, Jim! That pretty funny. Must be one, though. Sure
you look at every one?"
"She's not there, Sol. Trot out the others, old man."
"I ain't got no more, Jim. Honest! That every dam-one,--honest!
"Say,--maybe she tell you her name? Is it--is it Gracie Peters?"
"No!"
"Is it Sal Larigan?"
"No!"
"Betty----"
"Yes,--that's it! Betty--Betty Jornsen!"
"What? Betty she come? Jumpin' Yiminy! Let me get my hat and coat.
Where is she now? By gosh, Jim,--she dam-fine little peach."
Sol became more and more excited. "I got her picture here. You miss it
up. See!"
He ran over the photographs.
"There," he exclaimed, holding it up admiringly.
It was Betty's photograph, and a perfectly charming little picture she
made too. But Jim had intentionally passed it over, for he was not
through with Sol Hanson. He had still his pound of flesh to exact.
"Ain't that dam-fine girl?" Sol went on. "See that, Phil! I been going
to marry her. You bet! Tra-la-la!" he half sang. "Come on!--let's go
and find her, Jim. Come on!"
"Wait a bit!--Bide a wee!" returned canny Scot Langford. "That isn't
the picture of the woman who is here for you."
Sol's face fell.
"What? But you say her name's Betty Jornsen?"
"Yes! That is what she told me."
"Well!--that's Betty;--that's her."
"Oh, no it isn't! Don't you fool yourself, mister man. You're mixed up
in your women, Sol."
"No siree! You look on back," Sol returned triumphantly. "See that!
'With love and kisses to Sol from Betty Jornsen.'"
Jim stood for a moment in silence.
"She nice little girl;--come up, maybe, to your shoulder?" queried
Sol.
"No, Sol!--she's six feet high if she is an inch."
"She got fair hair and blue eyes; nice white teeth?"
"No, laddie!--she has carroty red hair; and her eyes, I mean her
eye--for she has only one--is a bleary, grey colour."
Sol commenced to perspire afresh, and to hop from one foot on to the
other.
"Aw, you foolin' me, Jim!"
"Devil a fool! It is too serious for that. She's big; she's got one
eye; she's lost her teeth in front and she is evidently a widow or she
has three kids with her, two at her skirts and one in her arms."
"Good Christopher Columbus!" exclaimed Sol, pulling at his hair.
"And, and, Sol,--she is coming here for you, in five minutes."
The big blacksmith was in desperation.
"Sol,--you're done;--you're done brown," Jim went on relentlessly,
"and it serves you darned well right."
"But, Jim,--you been a lawyer. She can't go make me marry her?"
"Yes she can!"
"But she lie to me. She send me picture of nice girl and say it
her and she Betty Jornsen. I tell her to come to me, from her
picture,--see!"
"You big, blue-eyed, innocent baby! You're done;--you're in the
soup;--your goose is cooked. Take it from me,--she's got you, and got
you good.
"Didn't you send her my photo and say it was yours?"
Sol stood aghast.
"Aw,--that just a joke!" he persisted.
"Hadn't she a perfect right to do the same thing to you? Well--evidently
she has done it. Poor Sol!"
"But--but----"
"It's no good. There aren't any _buts_ to this. She is here. She is
expecting Sol Hanson to be a fine looking fellow like me, and the poor
thing is going to get a pie-faced, slop-eyed individual like
yourself.
"Now, you're expecting a pretty little blonde and you're
getting,--well,--something totally different."
Jim slapped Sol on the back.
"Too bad! Take your medicine, though, old man! Be a sport! You're
distinctly up against it."
Phil was metaphorically in knots by the furnace fire.
Sol rushed for his coat.
"No dam-fear!" he cried. "I go to coop first. She ain't been going to
run any bluff on Sol Hanson,--see! You tell her, and her carrots-hair,
and her one eye, and her three dam-kids, to go plumb toboggan to
hell.
"I come back sometime--maybe."
Sol made a dart for the front door. Then he changed his mind and made
for the back one. But he guessed the wrong one--or, perhaps after
all, it was the right one.
As he was going out, Betty Jornsen, with her two grips, came in and
blocked up his exit.
She had evidently wearied of waiting at the corner, and had determined
to investigate matters for herself.
Sol made to brush past. Suddenly he stopped. He looked at Betty. He
stared. His eyes became big and nearly popped out of his head in his
amazement.
Betty looked up at him in surprise.
They gaped thus at each other for a few seconds, then Sol staggered to
the side of the door and leaned against it, breathing hard as if he
had run a mile.
At last he found his tongue and himself, and straightened up.
"Betty,--by gosh! Betty,--little Betty, by Yiminy!" he exclaimed,
throwing his long arms about her, knocking her grips aside and sending
her hat awry. He lifted her up high and kissed her fair on the mouth.
He swung her round and round the smithy, all oblivious of his amused
spectators.
Meantime, Betty kicked and struggled, and finally succeeded in
smacking his face loudly with a free hand.
Sol set her down and rubbed his cheek foolishly, white she stamped her
foot at him.
"You great big--great big--boob!" she cried.
Jim stepped out from the shadow.
"Miss Jornsen,--allow me to introduce you to Mr. Sol Hanson!"
Betty looked at Jim querulously, and then at Sol who was standing
nervously by, gazing at her.
Slowly and shyly she sidled up to the big blacksmith. She put her
hands on the lapels of his ill-fitting coat and slid her fingers down
them tenderly; then she laid her head on his chest, while his big arms
went about her again.
"Come on, Phil!" said Jim, "this is no place for the proverbial
parson's son."
Sol's eyes took on a new light.
"Jim,--by gosh!--maybe it been no place for a parson's son," he
grinned, "but it a dam-fine place for a parson. What you think, eh,
Betty?"
"You fellows wait. We all go together, get it over right now. What you
think, my little Betty?"
"Sure! There ain't no good in waitin'," answered Betty. "And say,
Mister--Mister Langford!--I ain't tryin' to be insultin', nor anything
like that, but if you think you're a better looker than my big Sol,
then you've got another think comin'."
Sol's head went up and his chest went out, as they were entitled to
do, for Jim was considered quite a handsome fellow in his own way.