JOHNNIE GREEN--MATCH-MAKER
Johnnie Green gave an upward jerk to the frying-pan and caught the
flapjack deftly as it descended.
"Fust and last call for breakfast in the dining-cyar. Come and get it,
old-timer," he sang out to Clay.
That young man emerged from his bedroom glowing. He was one or two
shades of tan lighter than when he had reached the city, but the paint
of Arizona's untempered sun still distinguished him from the
native-born, if there are any such among the inhabitants of upper New
York.
"You're one sure-enough cook," he drawled to his satellite. "Some girl
will ce'tainly have a good wife when she gets you. I expect I'd better
set one of these suffragette ladies on yore trail."
"Don't you, Clay," blushed Johnnie. "I ain't no ladies' man. They
make me take to the tall timber when I see 'em comin'."
"That ain't hardly fair to them, and you the best flapjack artist in
Graham County."
"Sho! I don't make no claims, old sock. Mebbe I'm handy with a
fry-pan, mebbe I ain't. Likely you're jest partial to my flapjacks,"
the little man said in order to have his modest suggestion refuted.
"They suit me, Johnnie." And Clay reached for the maple syrup. "Best
flapjacks ever made in this town."
The Runt beamed all over. If he had really been a puppy he would have
wagged his tail. Since he couldn't do that he took it out in grinning.
Any word of praise from Clay made the world a sunshiny one for him.
"This here place ain't Arizona, but o' course we got to make the best
of it. You know I can cook when I got the fixin's," he agreed.
The two men were batching it. They had a little apartment in the Bronx
and Johnnie looked after it for his friend. One of Johnnie's
vices--according to the standard of the B-in-a-Box boys--was that he
was as neat as an old maid. He liked to hang around a mess-wagon and
cook doughnuts and pies. His talent came in handy now, for Clay was no
housekeeper.
After the breakfast things were cleared away Johnnie fared forth to a
certain house adjoining Riverside Drive, where he earned ten dollars a
week as outdoors man. His business was to do odd jobs about the place.
He cut and watered the lawn. He made small repairs. Beatrice had a
rose garden, and under her direction he dug, watered, and fertilized.
Incidentally, the snub-nosed little puncher with the unfinished
features adored his young mistress in the dumb, uncritical fashion a
schoolboy does a Ty Cobb or an Eddie Collins. For him the queen could
do no wrong. He spent hours mornings and evenings at their rooms
telling Clay about her. She was certainly the finest little lady he
ever had seen. In his heart he had hopes that Clay would fall in love
with and marry her. She was the only girl in the world that deserved
his paragon. But her actions worried him. Sometimes he wondered if
she really understood what a catch Clay was.
He tried to tell her his notions on the subject the morning Clay
praised his flapjacks.
She was among the rose-bushes, gloved and hatted, clipping American
Beauties for the dining-room, a dainty but very self-reliant little
personality.
"Miss Beatrice, I been thinkin' about you and Clay," he told her,
leaning on his spade.
"What have you been thinking about us?" the girl asked, snipping off a
big rose.
She liked Johnnie and listened often with amusement to his point of
view. It was so different from that of anybody else she had ever met.
Perhaps this was why she encouraged him to talk. There may have been
another reason. The favorite theme of his conversation interested her.
"How you're the best-lookin' couple that a man would see anywheres."
Into her clear cheeks the color flowed. "If I thought nonsense like
that I wouldn't say it," she said quietly. "We're not a couple. He's
a man. I'm a woman. I like him and want to stay friends with him if
you'll let me."
"Sure. I know that, but--" Johnnie groped helplessly to try to explain
what he had meant. "Clay he likes you a heap," he finished
inadequately.
The eyes of the girl began to dance. There was no use taking offense
at this simple soul. After all he was not a servant, but a loyal
follower whose brain was not quite up to the job of coping with the
knotty problem of bringing two of his friends together in matrimony.
"Does he? I'm sure I'm gratified," she murmured, busy with her
scissors among the roses.
"Yep. I never knowed Clay to look at a girl before. He sure thinks a
heap of you."
She gave a queer little bubbling laugh. "You're flattering me."
"Honest, I ain't." Johnnie whispered a secret across the rose-bushes.
"Say, if you work it right I believe you can get him."
The girl sparkled. Here was a new slant on matrimonial desirability.
Clearly the view of the little cow-puncher was that Clay had only to
crook his fingers to summon any girl in the world that he desired.
"Do you think so--with so many attractive girls in New York?" she
pleaded.
"He don't pay no 'tention to them. Honest, I believe you can if you
don't spill the beans."
"What would you advise me to do?" she dimpled.
"Sho! I dunno." He shyly unburdened himself of the warning he had
been leading up to. "But I'd tie a can to that dude fellow that hangs
around--the Bromfield guy. O' course I know he ain't one two three
with you while Clay's on earth, but I don't reckon I'd take any
chances, as the old sayin' is. No, ma'am, I'd ce'tainly lose him
_pronto_. Clay might get sore. Better get shet of the dude."
Miss Whitford bit her lip to keep from exploding in a sudden gale of
mirth. But the sight of her self-appointed chaperon set her off into
peals of laughter in spite of herself. Every time she looked at
Johnnie she went off into renewed chirrups. He was so homely and so
deadly earnest. The little waif was staring at her in perplexed
surprise, mouth open and chin fallen. He could see no occasion for
gayety at his suggestion. There was nothing subtle about the Runt. In
his social code wealth did not figure. A forty-dollar-a-month bronco
buster was free to offer advice to the daughter of a millionaire about
her matrimonial prospects if it seemed best.
And just now it seemed to Johnnie decidedly best. He scratched his tow
head, for he had mulled the whole thing over and decided reluctantly to
do his duty by the girl. So far as he could make out, Beatrice
Whitford played no favorites in her little court of admirers. Clay
Lindsay and Clarendon Bromfield were with her more than any of the
others. If she inclined to either of the two, Johnnie could see no
evidence of it. She was gay and frank with both, a jolly comrade for a
ride, a dinner dance, or a theater party.
This was what troubled Johnnie. Of course she must be in love with
Clay and want to marry him, since she was a normal human being. But if
she continued to play with Bromfield the Westerner might punish her by
sheering off. That was the reason why the Runt was doing his
conscientious duty this fine morning.
"Clay ain't one o' the common run of cowpunchers, ma'am. You bet you,
by jollies, he ain't. Clay he owns a half-interest in the B-in-a-Box.
O' course it ain't what he's got, but what he is that counts. He's the
best darned pilgrim ever I did see."
"He's all right, Johnnie," the girl admitted with an odd little smile.
"Do you want me to tell him that I'll be glad to drop our family
friends to meet his approval? I don't suppose he asked you to speak to
me about it, did he?"
The little range-rider missed the irony of this. "No, ma'am, I jest
butted in. Mebbe I hadn't ought to of spoke."
The frank eyes of the girl met his fairly. A patch of heightened color
glowed in her soft cheeks. "That would have been better, Johnnie. But
since you have introduced the subject, I'll tell you that Mr. Lindsay
and I are friends. Neither of us has the slightest intention of being
anything more. You may not understand such things."
"No'm," he admitted humbly. "I reckon I'm a plumb idjit."
His attitude was so dejected that she relented.
"You needn't feel badly, Johnnie. There's no harm done--if you don't
say anything about it to Mr. Lindsay. But I don't think you were
intended for a match-maker. That takes quite a little finesse, doesn't
it?"
The word "finesse" was not in Johnnie's dictionary, but he acquiesced
in her verdict.
"I reckon, ma'am, you're right."