been educated in some school for German secret agents. Didn't it show
guile of their kind? I'll never be amazed if he does turn out to be a
spy that's simply went wrong on detail.
Of course he was safe out of town long before Manuel limped from the
hospital looking for him with a knife. And yet Herman seemed so silly!
First thing when he got on the place he wanted to know where the engine
was that pumped the windmill.
Furthermore, if you ask me, that there wine won't be made safe for
democracy until Uncle Henry has been years and years laid away to rest.
XI
CURLS
Ma Pettengill, long morose, for months made hostile of mood by the
shortage of help, now bubbled with a strange vivacity. At her desk in the
Arrowhead living room she cheerfully sorted a jumble of befigured sheets
and proclaimed to one and all that the Arrowhead ranch was once more a
going concern. She'd thought it was gone, and here it was merely going.
She would no longer be compelled to stare ruin in the face till it
actually got embarrassed and had to look the other way. And it was the
swift doings of this here new foreman. He'd not only got us going again
but had put us on a military basis. And at that he was nothing but a poor
old wreck of a veteran from the trenches, aged all of twenty-one, shot to
pieces, gassed, shell-shocked, trench feeted and fevered, and darned bad
with nervous dyspepsia into the bargain.
Thus described, the bargain seemed to me to be a poor one, for I had not
yet viewed this decrepit newcomer or been refreshed with tales of his
prowess. But Ma Pettengill knows men, and positively will not bubble
except under circumstances that justify it, so I considered the matter
worth a question or two.
Very well then! What about this mere shattered bit of flotsam from the
world welter? How could so misused a remnant cope with the manifold cares
of the long-harried Arrowhead ranch?
Why, he just plain coped, that was all. He might be mere shattered
flotsam, but you bet he was still some little coper, take her word for
that! Matter of fact, though, he didn't aim to hold the job for long.
Only until this here smarty of a medical officer, that turned him down
from going back to the trenches, was retired to private life again.
This here new foreman had to be on the ground when this puppet got
out of his uniform and so could be handled proper by the right party
without incurring twenty years in Leavenworth. At this brief meeting the
unfortunate man would be told politely that he had guessed wrong on the
foreman's physical condition, after which the same would be proved to
him then and there, leaving him to wish that he hadn't been so arrogant
telling parties they was unfit for further service and had better go
home and forget all about the war. Yes, sir; he'd be left himself with
something to forget that most likely he'd still be remembering vividly
when folks had got to wondering what them funny little buttons with
"Liberty Loan" on 'em could ever of been used for.
Still, this palsied wreck was with us for a time and had started in that
very morning to carry on. He used but few words, but treated 'em rough if
they come looking for it. First, they was two I.W.W.'s down to the lower
field had struck for three-fifty a day, and had threatened to burn
someone's haystacks when it was coldly refused. So one had been took to
jail and one to the hospital the minute the flotsam slowed up with 'em.
It was a fair enough hospital case for both, but the one for jail could
still walk.
Then two other new hands, two of these here demi-cowboys you have to put
up with, had kept the bunk house noisy every night with a bitter personal
quarrel including loud threats of mutual murder that never seemed to
get any further. So the flotsam, after drinking in some of their most
venomous eloquence, had lined 'em up and commanded 'em to git busy and
fight it out quick. And he had then licked 'em both in a quick and
exaggerated manner when they tried to keep on talking it out with him.
It was a sharply etched impression over the ranch, now shared by its
owner, that this here invalid flotsam would take darned little nonsense
from any one. It was also the owner's own private impression that he had
been expelled from the war for rough behaviour on the field of battle and
not because of wounds or sickness. Most likely they'd told him the latter
because they was afraid to tell him the truth. But that was the real
truth; he was too scrappy and wouldn't let the war go on in peace and
quiet.
Anyway, she and the Army was both satisfied, so let it go at that.
Mebbe after a few more arguments over there, when they'd made a
convinced pro-Ally out of Germany, she might get some more shell-wracked
jetsams like this one, that would step in without regard for the rules of
civilized warfare and make the life of a certain beef-cattle raiser just
one long dream of loveliness with pink rose leaves dreening down on her.
Mebbe so!
I was charmed indeed to hear the gladsome note from one so long dismal.
So I told the woman that the longest war must have its end and that by
this time next year she would be refusing to hire good help at forty-five
dollars a month and found, in place of the seventy-five she was now
lavishing on indolent stragglers.
She said in that happy case she might consent to adorn the cattle
business a few decades longer, but for her part she didn't believe wars
would end. If it wasn't this war it would be another one, because human
beings are undeniably human. As how? Well, I could take it this way. Say
one of these here inventors sets up nights for twenty years inventing a
gun that will shoot through a steel plate sixteen inches thick. All right
so far. But the next day another inventor invents a piece of steel
seventeen inches thick. And it had to begin all over--just a seesaw. From
where she set she couldn't see no end to it. Was she right; or wasn't
she? Of course!
But now, further, about compelling little boys to wear long curls till
maturity, with the idee of blunting their finer instincts and making
hellions of 'em, so's to have some dandy shock troops for the next
war--well, she didn't know. Room for argument there.
This seemed reasonable. I didn't know either. It was an entirely new
idee, come from nowhere. This was the very first moment I had supposed
there could be such an idee. But such is Ma Pettengill. I thought to
inquire as to the origin of this novelty; perhaps to have it more fully
set forth. But I had not to. Already I saw unrelenting continuance in the
woman's quickened eye. There would be, in fact, no stopping her now. So I
might as well leave a one-line space right here to avoid using the double
and single quotation marks, which are a nuisance to all concerned. I will
merely say that Ma Pettengill spoke in part as follows, and at no time
during the interview said modestly that she would prefer not to have her
name mentioned.
Mind you, I don't say war's a good thing, even for them that come out of
it. Of course you can read stories about how good it is in improving the
character. I've read pretty ones in these here sentimental magazines
that get close to the great heart of the people once a month; stories
about how the town tough boy, that robs his gray-haired mother of her
wash money to play pool with, goes into war's purifying flames and comes
out a man, having rescued Marshal Fotch from a shell hole under fire and
got the thanks of the French nation and his home-town paper. Now he don't
hang round the pool parlour any more, running down fifteen balls from the
break, but shuns his low companions, never touches a cue again, marries
the mayor's daughter and becomes the regular Democratic candidate for
county recorder.
These stories may be true. I don't know. Only these same magazines print
stories that have a brave fireman in the picture carrying a fainted girl
down his ladder through the flames, and if you believed them you'd also
believe they had to set a tenement house on fire every time a fireman
wants to get married. And that don't stand to reason. Mebbe the other
stories don't either.
But what about the other side of these same stories? What about the
village good boy that goes through war's purifying flame and comes back
home to be the town tough? Ain't it time someone showed up the moral
ravages war commits on our best young men?
Me? I just had a talk lately with a widowed mother down to Red Gap and
what this beastly war has done to her oldest boy--well, if she could of
looked ahead she would of let the world go right on being unsafe even for
Republicans. She poured her heart out to me. She is Mrs. Arline Plunkett,
one of the sweetest, gentlest mothers that ever guarded a son from every
evil influence. And then to see it all go whoosh! The son's name was
Shelley Plunkett, or it was until he went out into the world to make a
name for himself. He is now largely known as Bugs Plunkett. I leave it
to you if a nice mother would relish having her boy make that name for
himself. And after all the pains she'd took with his moral development
from the cradle up--till he run away from home on account of his curls!
Arline had been left well-off by her husband, who was president of
the Drovers' Trust Company, and her home was about the most refined
home in Red Gap, having full bookcases and pictures of foreign Catholic
churches--though Arline is a Presbyterian--and metal statues of antique
persons, male and female, and many articles of adornment that can't be
had for the ordinary trading stamps. She lived, of course, only for her
two boys, Shelley and Keats. Keats being an infant didn't require much
living for, but Shelley was old enough to need a lot of it.
He was eight years old when I first seen him, with long golden curls to
his shoulders and lace on his velvet pants. He came in when I was calling
on his ma and acted the perfect little gentleman. He was so quiet and
grown-up he made me feel right awkward. He had the face of a half-growed
angel framed in these yellow curls, and his manners was them of Sir
Galahad that he read stories about. He was very entertaining this day.
His mother had him show me a portrait of himself and curls that had been
printed in a magazine devoted to mothers and watermelon-rind pickles, and
so forth, and he also brought me the new book his pastor had presented
him with on his eighth birthday.
It was a lovely bound book, having a story about a sheepman that had a
hundred head out on the range and lost one and left the other ninety-nine
unprotected from the coyotes and went out into the brush looking for the
lost one, which is about the brains of the average sheepman; but it was a
pretty book, and little Shelley told me prettily all about the story, and
showed me how his dear pastor had wrote in it for him. He had wrote: "To
Shelley Vane Plunkett, who to the distinction of his name unites a noble
and elevated nature." I wonder if Bugs Plunkett ever looks at that
writing now and blushes for his lost angel face? Anyway, I thought this
day that he was the loveliest, purest child in the world, with his
delicate beauty and sweet little voice and perfect manners, all set
off by the golden curls.
A couple days later I was going through that same street and when I
turned a corner next to the Plunkett house, here was little Shelley
addressing a large red-faced man on the back of an ice wagon that had
stopped there. It was some shock to my first notions of the angel child.
I gathered with no trouble whatever that the party on the ice wagon had
so far forgot his own manners as to call little Shelley a sissy. It was a
good three-to-one bet he was now sorry he spoke. Little Shelley was using
language beyond his years and words that had never been taught him by his
lady mother. He handled them words like they was his slaves. Three or
four other parties stopped to listen without seeming to. I have heard
much in my time. I have even been forced to hear Jeff Tuttle pack a mule
that preferred not to be packed. And little Shelley was informing, even
to me. He never hesitated for a word and was quick and finished with the
syllables.
The ice-wagon man was peeved, as he had a right to be, and may of been
going to talk back, but when he saw the rest of us getting Shelley he
yelled to the man in the front to drive on. It was too late, quick as
he went, to save the fair repute of himself and family, if Shelley's
words was to be took seriously. Shelley had invaded the most sacred
relationship and pretended to bare a hideous scandal. Also the iceman
himself couldn't possibly of done half the things Shelley hotly urged
him to do.
Us people that had seemed to linger walked right on, not meeting each
other's eye, and Shelley again become the angel child, turning in at his
gate and walking up the path in a decorous manner with his schoolbooks
under his arm. I first wondered if I shouldn't go warn Arline that her
child had picked up some words that would get him nowhere at all with his
doting pastor. Little could the fond woman dream, when she tucked him in
after his prayers at night, that talk such as this could come from his
sweet young lips. How much mothers think they know of their sons and how
darned little they do know! But I decided to keep out of it, remembering
that no mother in the world's history had ever thanked a person for
anything but praise of her children.
Still, I couldn't help but worry about Shelley's future, both here and
hereafter. But I talked to other people about it and learned that he was
already known as a public character to everyone but his own dear mother.
It was these here curls that got him attacked on every hand by young and
old, and his natural vigour of mind had built him up a line of repartee
that was downright blistering when he had time to stop and recite it all.
Even mule skinners would drive blocks out of their way just to hear
little Shelley's words when someone called him sissy or girl-boy.
It seems Shelley never took any of these troubles to his mother, because
he was right manly and he regarded curls as a natural infirmity that
couldn't be helped and that his poor ma shouldn't be blamed for. He'd
always had curls, just as other unfortunates had been disfigured or
maimed from birth, so he'd took it as a cross the Lord had give him to
bear. And he was willing to bear it in silence if folks would just let
him alone. Otherwise, not. Oh, most surely not!
I kind of kept watch on Shelley's mad career after that. It was mad most
of the time. He had already begun to fight as well as to use language,
and by the time he was ten he was a very nasty scrapper. And ready--it
soon got so that only boys new-come to town would taunt him about his
golden locks. And unless they was too much out of Shelley's class he made
believers of 'em swiftly. From ten to twelve he must of had at least one
good fight a day, what with the new ones and the old ones that still
couldn't believe a boy in velvet pants with curls on his shoulders could
really put it over on 'em. His mother believed his clothes was tore and
his face bunged up now and then in mere boyish sports, and begged him not
to engage in such rough games with his childish playmates. And Shelley,
the little man, let her talk on, still believing he was like little Paul
McNamara, that had a crooked foot. He wasn't going to shame his mother as
well as himself.
I don't know just how Shelley ever got his big illumination that curls
was not a curse put on him by his Maker. But he certainly did get it when
he was round twelve. After two years of finish fights he suddenly found
out that curls is optional, or a boy's own fault, if not his mother's,
and that they may be cured by a simple and painless operation. He'd come
to the observing age. They say he'd stand in front of Henry Lehman's
barber shop every chance he'd get, watching the happy men getting their
hair cut. And he put two and two together.
Then he went straight to his mother and told her all about his wonderful
and beautiful discovery. He was awful joyous about it. He said you only
had to go to Mr. Lehman's barber shop with thirty-five cents, and the
kind Mr. Lehman would cut the horrible things off and make him look like
other boys, so please let him have the thirty-five.
Then Shelley got a great shock. It was that his mother wanted him to wear
them things to please her. She burst into tears and said the mere thought
of her darling being robbed of his crowning glory by that nasty old Henry
Lehman or any one else was breaking her heart, and how could he be so
cruel as to suggest it?
The poor boy must of been quite a bit puzzled. Here was a way out of
something he had thought was incurable, and now his mother that loved him
burst into tears at the thought of it. So he put it out of his mind. He
couldn't hurt his mother, and if cutting off his disgrace was going to
hurt her he'd have to go on wearing it.
Shelley was getting lanky now, with big joints and calf knees showing
below his velvet pants; and he was making great headway, I want to tell
you, in what seemed to be his chosen profession of pugilism. He took to
going out of his class, taking on boys two or three years older. I never
had the rare pleasure of seeing him in action, but it was mere lack of
enterprise on my part. Before he found out that curls could be relieved
by a barber he had merely took such fights as come to him. But now he
went out of his way looking for 'em, and would start the action himself.
It got so that boys used to travel in bands--them that had criticized his
appearance so he'd hear it--but he'd lie in wait for stragglers that was
left behind by the convoy, and it would be the same old sad story. You
can know what it meant when I tell you that the last year Shelley went to
school they say he could come onto the playground with his long yellow
curls floating in the breeze, and not a word would be heard from the
fifty boys that might be there.
And so it went till he was thirteen. One succession of fights and a
growing collection of words that would of give his fond pastor something
to think about. Of course word of the fights would get to Shelley's ma
from mothers whose little ones he had ravaged, but she just simply didn't
believe it. You know a woman can really not believe anything she don't
wish to. You couldn't tell that lady that her little boy with the angel
face and soft voice would attack another boy unless the other boy begun
it. And if the other boy did begin it it was because he envied Shelley
his glorious curls. Arline was certainly an expert in the male
psychology, as they call it.
But at thirteen Shelley was losing a lot of the angel out of his face.
His life of battle had told on him, I guess. But he was still obedient
and carried the cross for his mother's sake. Poor thing! He'd formed the
habit of obedience and never once suspicioned that a woman had no right
to impose on him just because she was his mother. Shelley just took to
fighting a little quicker. He wouldn't wait for words always. Sometimes
mere looks of disgust would start him.
Then, when he got to near fourteen, still with the beautiful curls, he
begun to get a lovely golden down on his face; and the face hadn't hardly
a trace of angel left in it. The horrible truth was that Shelley not only
needed a haircut but a shave. And one day, goaded by certain taunts, he
told his mother this in a suddenly bass voice. It must of startled
Arline, having this roar come out of her child when his little voice had
always been sweet and high. So she burst into some more tears and Shelley
asked her forgiveness, and pretty soon she was curling his hair again. I
guess he knew right then it was for the last time on earth, but nothing
warned the mother.
These new taunts that had finally made a man of Shelley was no taunts
from boys, which he could handle easy, but the taunts of heedless girls,
who naturally loathed a boy with curls even more than male humans of any
age loathe him; and girls can be a lot tauntier when they start out to.
Well, Shelley couldn't lick girls, and he had reached an age when their
taunts cut into his hide like whiplashes, so he knew right well he had
to do something desperate.
Then he went out and run away from the refining influences of his
beautiful home. He took to the hills and landed way up on the north
fork of the Kulanche where Liver-eating Johnson has a sheep ranch.
Liver-eating, who is an unsavory character himself, had once heard
Shelley address a small group of critics in front of the post office,
and had wanted to adopt him right there. He still cherished the fondest
memories of Shelley's flow of language, so he was tickled to death to
have him drop along and stop, seeing that though but a lad in years he
was a man and brother in speech, even if he did look like a brother that
had started out to be a sister and got mixed.
Liver-eating took him in and fed him and cut his hair with a pair of
sheep shears. It was a more or less rough job, because shearing sheep
does not make a man a good human barber by any means. But Shelley
looked at his head in the glass and said it was the most beautiful
haircut in the world. Fussy people might criticize it here and there,
but they could never say it hadn't really been cut.
He was so grateful to Liver-eating that he promised to stay with him
always and become a sheep herder. And he did hide out there several
months till his anguished mother found out where he was. After having
every pond dragged and every bit of woods searched for her boy's body
she had believed he'd been carried off by kidnappers on account of his
heavenly beauty, and she'd probably have to give ten thousand dollars
for his release. She was still looking for a letter from these fiends
when she learned about his being with Liver-eating Johnson and that
this wretch had committed sacrilege on him.
It was a harsh blow to know that her pet had consorted with such a
person, who was not only a sheepman but had earned his nickname in a
way that our best people thought not nice. He'd gone home one day years
ago and found his favourite horse had been took by an Injun. Being a
simple-mannered man of few words, he just said that by sundown to-morrow
he would of et the liver of the Injun that done the stealing. I don't
know, personally, what happened, except that he did come back the next
night with his horse. Anyway no one ever begrudged him his title after
that. And here was Shelley Vane Plunkett, who had been carefully raised
on fruits and cereals, taking up with such a nauseous character as a
social equal.
Arline had the sheriff out at once for her darling, but Shelley got word
and beat it farther. He finally got to Seattle, where he found various
jobs, and kept his mother guessing for three years. He was afraid she'd
make him start the curls again if he come home. But finally, when he was
eighteen, he did come, on her solemn promise to behave. But he was no
longer the angel-faced darling that had left, and he still expected at
least one fight a day, though no longer wearing what would cause fights.
He'd formed the habit and just couldn't leave off. A body could hardly
look at him without starting something unpleasant. He was round like a
barrel now, and tough and quick, and when anything did happen to be
started he was the one that finished it. Also, he'd have his hair cut
close every five or six days. He always looked like a prisoner that had
started to let it grow about a week before he left the institution.
Shelley was taking no chances, and he used to get a strange, glittering
look in his eye when he regarded little Keats, his baby brother, who was
now coming on with golden curls just as beautiful as Shelley's had ever
been. But he done nothing sinister.
In time he might of settled down and become a useful citizen, but right
then the war broke out, so no more citizen stuff for Shelley. It was
almost too good to be true that he could go to a country where fighting
was legal; not only that, but they'd give him board and lodging and a
little spending money for doing the only thing he'd ever learned to do
well. It sure looked like heaven. So off he went to Canada and enlisted
and got sent across and had three years of perfect bliss, getting changed
over to our Army when we finally got unneutral so you could tell it.
Of course his mother was almost more anguished about his going to war
than about having his curls fixed with the sheep shears. She said even
if he wasn't shot he would be sure to contract light habits in France,
consisting of native wine and dancing, and so forth, and she hoped at
least he could be a drummer boy or something safe.