JOHNNIE MAKES A JOKE
As Kitty stepped from the cab she was trembling violently.
"Don't you be frightened, li'l' pardner. You've come home. There
won't anybody hurt you here."
The soft drawl of Clay's voice carried inexpressible comfort. So too
did the pressure of his strong hand on her arm. She knew not only that
he was a man to trust, but that so far as could be he would take her
troubles on his broad shoulders. Tears brimmed over her soft eyes.
The Arizonan ran her up to his floor in the automatic elevator.
"I've got a friend from home stayin' with me. He's the best-hearted
fellow you ever saw. You'll sure like him," he told her without stress
as he fitted his key to the lock.
He felt her shrink beneath his coat, but it was too late to draw back
now. In another moment Lindsay was introducing her casually to the
embarrassed and astonished joint proprietor of the apartment.
The Runt was coatless and in his stockinged-feet. He had been playing
a doleful ditty on a mouth-organ. Caught so unexpectedly, he blushed a
beautiful brick red to his neck.
Johnnie ducked his head and scraped the carpet with his foot in an
attempt at a bow. "Glad to meet up with you-all, Miss. Hope you're
feelin' tol'able."
Clay slipped the coat from her shoulders and saw that the girl was wet
to the skin.
"Heat some water, Johnnie, and make a good stiff toddy. Miss Kitty has
been out in the rain."
He lit the gas-log and from his bedroom brought towels, a bathrobe,
pajamas, a sweater, and woolen slippers. On a lounge before the fire
he dumped the clothes he had gathered. He drew up the easiest armchair
in the room.
"I'm goin' to the kitchen to jack up Johnnie so he won't lay down on
his job," he told her cheerily. "You take yore time and get into these
dry clothes. We'll not disturb you till you knock. After that we'll
feed you some chuck. You want to brag on Johnnie's cookin'. He thinks
he's it when it comes to monkeyin' 'round a stove."
When her timid knock came her host brought in a steaming cup. "You
drink this. It'll warm you good."
"What is it?" she asked shyly.
"Medicine," he smiled. "Doctor's orders."
While she sipped the toddy Johnnie brought from the kitchen a tray upon
which were tea, fried potatoes, ham, eggs, and buttered toast.
The girl ate ravenously. It was an easy guess that she had not before
tasted food that day.
Clay kept up a flow of talk, mostly about Johnnie's culinary triumphs.
Meanwhile he made up a bed on the couch.
Once she looked up at him, her throat swollen with emotion. "You're
good."
"Sho! We been needin' a li'l' sister to brace up our manners for us.
It's lucky for us I found you. Now I expect you're tired and sleepy.
We fixed up yore bed in here because it's warmer. You'll be able to
make out with it all right. The springs are good." Clay left her with
a cheerful smile. "Turn out the light before you go to bed, Miss
Colorado. Sleep tight. And don't you worry. You're back with old
home folks again now, you know."
They heard her moving about for a time. Presently came silence. Tired
out from tramping the streets with out food and drowsy from the toddy
she had taken, Kitty fell into deep sleep undisturbed by troubled
dreams.
The cattleman knew he had found her in the nick of time. She had told
him that she had no money, no room in which to sleep, no prospect of
work. Everything she had except the clothes on her back had been
pawned to buy food and lodgings. But she was young and resilient.
When she got back home to the country where she belonged, time would
obliterate from her mind the experiences of which she had been the
victim.
It was past midday when Kitty woke. She heard a tuneless voice in the
kitchen lifted up in a doleful song:
"There's hard times on old Bitter Creek
That never can be beat.
It was root hog or die
Under every wagon sheet.
We cleared up all the Indians,
Drank all the alkali,
And it's whack the cattle on, boys--
Root hog or die."
Kitty found her clothes dry. After she dressed she opened the door
that led to the kitchen. Johnnie was near the end of another stanza of
his sad song:
"Oh, I'm goin' home
Bull-whackin' for to spurn;
I ain't got a nickel,
And I don't give a dern.
'T is when I meet a pretty girl,
You bet I will or try,
I'll make her my little wife--
Root hog--"
He broke off embarrassed. "Did I wake you-all, ma'am, with my fool
singin'? I'm right sorry if I did."
"You didn't." Kitty, clinging shyly to the side of the doorway, tried
to gain confidence from his unease. "I was already awake. Is it a
range song you were singing?"
"Yes'm. Cattle range, not kitchen range."
A wan little smile greeted his joke. The effect on Johnnie himself was
more pronounced. It gave him confidence in his ability to meet the
situation. He had not known before that he was a wit and the discovery
of it tickled his self-esteem.
"'Course we didn't really clean up no Indians nor drink all the alkali.
Tha's jes' in the song, as you might say." He began to bustle about in
preparation for her breakfast.
"Please don't trouble. I'll eat what you've got cooked," she begged.
"It's no trouble, ma'am. If the's a thing on earth I enjoy doin' it's
sure cookin'. Do you like yore aigs sunny side up or turned?"
"Either way. Whichever you like, Mr. Green."
"You're eatin' them," Johnnie reminded her with a grin.
"On one side, then, please. Mr. Lindsay says you're a fine cook."
"Sho! I'm no great shakes. Clay he jes' brags on me."
"Lemme eat here in the kitchen. Then you won't have to set the table
in the other room," she said.
The puncher's instinct was to make a spread on the dining-table for
her, but it came to him with a flash of insight that it would be wise
to let her eat in the kitchen. She would feel more as though she
belonged and was not a guest of an hour.
While she ate he waited on her solicitously. Inside, he was a river of
tears for her, but with it went a good deal of awe. Even now, wan-eyed
and hollow-cheeked, she was attractive. In Johnnie's lonesome life he
had never before felt so close to a girl as he did to this one.
Moreover, for the first time he felt master of the situation. It was
his business to put their guest at her ease. That was what Clay had
told him to do before he left.
"You're the doctor, ma'am. You'll eat where you say."
"I--I don't like to be so much bother to you," she said again. "Maybe
I can go away this afternoon."
"No, ma'am, we won't have that a-tall," broke in the range-rider in
alarm. "We're plumb tickled to have you here. Clay he feels thataway
too."
"I could keep house for you while I stay," she suggested timidly. "I
know how to cook--and the place does need cleaning."
"Sure it does. Say, wha's the matter with you bein' Clay's sister,
jes' got in last night on the train? Tha's the story we'll put up to
the landlord if you'll gimme the word."
"I never had a brother, but if I'd had one I'd 'a' wanted him to be
like Mr. Lindsay," she told his friend.
"Say, ain't he a go-getter?" cried Johnnie eagerly. "Clay's sure one
straight-up son-of-a-gun. You'd ought to 'a' seen how he busted New
York open to find you."
"Did he?"
Johnnie told the story of the search with special emphasis on the night
Clay broke into three houses in answer to her advertisement.
"I never wrote it. I never thought of that. It must have been--"
"It was that scalawag Durand, y'betcha. I ain't still wearin' my
pinfeathers none. Tha's who it was. I'm not liable to forget him. He
knocked me hell-west and silly whilst I wasn't lookin'. He was sore
because Clay had fixed his clock proper."
"So you've fought on account of me too. I'm sorry." There was a
little break in her voice. "I s'pose you hate me for--for bein' the
way I am. I know I hate myself." She choked on the food she was
eating.
Johnnie, much distressed, put down the coffee-pot and fluttered near.
"Don't you take on, ma'am. I wisht I could tell you how pleased we-all
are to he'p you. I hope you'll stay with us right along. I sure do.
You'd be right welcome," he concluded bashfully.
"I've got no place to go, except back home--and I've got no folks there
but a second cousin. She doesn't want me. I don't know what to do.
If I had a woman friend--some one to tell me what was best--"
Johnnie slapped his hand on his knee, struck by a sudden inspiration.
"Say! Y'betcha, by jollies, I've got 'er--the very one! You're
damn--you're sure whistlin'. We got a lady friend, Clay and me, the
finest little pilgrim in New York. She's sure there when the gong
strikes. You'd love her. I'll fix it for you--right away. I got to
go to her house this afternoon an' do some chores. I'll bet she comes
right over to see you."
Kitty was doubtful. She did not want to take any strange young women
into her confidence until she had seen them. More than one good
Pharisee had burned her face with a look of scornful contempt in the
past weeks.
"Maybe we better wait and speak to Mr. Lindsay about it," she said.
"No, ma'am, you don't know Miss Beatrice. She's the best friend." He
passed her the eggs and a confidence at the same time. "Why, I
shouldn't wonder but what she and Clay might get married one o' these
days. He thinks a lot of her."
"Oh." Kitty knew just a little more of human nature than the puncher.
"Then I wouldn't tell her about me if I was you. She wouldn't like my
bein' here."
"Sho! You don't know Miss Beatrice. She grades 'way up. I'll bet she
likes you fine."
When Johnnie left to go to work that afternoon he took with him a
resolution to lay the whole case before Beatrice Whitford. She would
fix things all right. No need for anybody to worry after she took a
hand and began to run things. If there was one person on earth Johnnie
could bank on without fail it was his little boss.