The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories by Owen Wister (the best novels to read TXT) 📗

“Concord, New Hampshire,” I corrected; but neither lady heard me.

“How splendid for Leola!” cried Mrs. Mattern, instantly. “Leola! Oh, Leola! Come right out here!”

Mrs. Jeffries has been more prompt. She was already in her house, and now came from it, bringing a pleasant-looking boy of sixteen, it might be. The youth grinned at me as he stood awkwardly, brought in shirtsleeves from the performance of some household work.

“This is Guy,” said his mother. “Guy took the prize last year. Guy hopes—”

“Shut up, mother,” said Guy, with entire sweetness. “I don't hope twice—”

“Twice or a dozen times should raise no hard feelings if my son is Sharon's best speaker,” cried Mrs. Jeffries, and looked across the fence viciously.

“Shut up, mother; I ain't,” said Guy.

“He is a master of humor recitations,” his mother now said to me. “Perhaps you know, or perhaps you do not know, how high up that is reckoned.”

“Why, mother, Leola can speak all around me. She can,” Guy added to me, nodding his head confidentially.

I did not believe him, I think because I preferred his name to that of Leola.

“Leola will study in Paris, France,” announced Mrs. Mattern, arriving with her child. “She has no advantages here. This is the gentleman, Leola.”

But before I had more than noted a dark-eyed maiden who would not look at me, but stood in skirts too young for her figure, black stockings, and a dangle of hair that should have been up, her large parent had thrust into my hand a scrap-book.

“Here is what the Santa Fe Observer says;” and when I would have read, she read aloud for me. “The next is the Los Angeles Christian Home. And here's what they wrote about her in El Paso: 'Her histrionic genius for one so young'—it commences below that picture. That's Leola.” I now recognized the black stockings and the hair. “Here's what a literary lady in Lordsburg thinks,” pursued Mrs. Mattern.

“Never mind that,” murmured Leola.

“I shall.” And the mother read the letter to me. “Leola has spoke in five cultured cities,” she went on. “Arvasita can depict how she was encored at Albuquerque last Easter-Monday.”

“Yes, sir, three recalls,” said Arvasita, arriving at our group by the fence. An elder sister, she was, evidently. “Are you acquainted with 'Camill'?” she asked me, with a trifle of sternness; and upon my hesitating, “the celebrated French drayma of 'Camill',” she repeated, with a trifle more of sternness. “Camill is the lady in it who dies of consumption. Leola recites the letter-and-coughing scene, Act Third. Mr. Patterson of Coloraydo Springs pronounces it superior to Modjeska.”

“That is Leola again,” said Mrs. Mattern, showing me another newspaper cut—hair, stockings, and a candle this time.

“Sleep-walking scene, 'Macbeth,'” said Arvasita. “Leola's great night at the church fair and bazar, El Paso, in Shakespeare's acknowledged masterpiece. Leola's repetwar likewise includes 'Catherine the Queen before her Judges,' 'Quality of Mercy is not Strained,' 'Death of Little Nell,' 'Death of Paul Dombey,' 'Death of the Old Year,' 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' and other standard gems suitable for ladies.”

“Leola,” said her mother, “recite 'When the British Warrior Queen' to the gentleman.”

“No, momma, please not,” said Leola, and her voice made me look at her; something of appeal sounded in it.

“Leola is that young you must excuse her,” said her mother—and I thought the girl winced.

“Come away, Guy,” suddenly snapped little Mrs. Jeffries. “We are wasting the gentleman's time. You are no infant prodigy, and we have no pictures of your calves to show him in the papers.”

“Why, mother!” cried the boy, and he gave a brotherly look to Leola.

But the girl, scarlet and upset, now ran inside the house.

“As for wasting time, madam,” said I, with indignation, “you are wasting yours in attempting to prejudice the judges.”

“There!” said Guy.

“And, Mrs. Mattern,” continued, “if I may say so without offense, the age (real or imaginary) of the speakers may make a difference in Albuquerque, but with our committee not the slightest.”

“Thank you, I'm sure,” said Mrs. Mattern, bridling.

“Eastern ideas are ever welcome in Sharon,” said Mrs. Jeffries. “Good-morning.” And she removed Guy and herself into her house, while Mrs. Mattern and Arvasita, stiffly ignoring me, passed into their own door.

“Come have a drink,” said Stuart to me. “I am glad you said it. Old Mother Mattern will let down those prodigy skirts. The poor girl has been ashamed of them these two years, but momma has bulldozed her into staying young for stage effect. The girl's not conceited, for a wonder, and she speaks well. It is even betting which of the two widows you have made the maddest.”

Close by the saloon we were impeded by a rush of small boys. They ran before and behind us suddenly from barrels and unforeseen places, and wedging and bumping between us, they shouted: “Chicken-legs! Ah, look at the chicken-legs!”

For a sensitive moment I feared they were speaking of me; but the folding slat-doors of the saloon burst open outward, and a giant barkeeper came among the boys and caught and shook them to silence.

“You want to behave,” was his single remark; and they dispersed like a Sunday-school.

I did not see why they should thus describe him. He stood and nodded to us, and jerked big thumb towards the departing flock. “Funny how a boy will never think,” said he, with amiability. “But they'll grow up to be about as good as the rest of us, I guess. Don't you let them monkey with you, Josey!” he called.

“Naw, I won't,” said a voice. I turned and saw, by a barrel, a youth in knee-breeches glowering down the street at his routed enemies. He was possibly eight, and one hand was bound in a grimy rag. This was Chickenlegs.

“Did they harm you, Josey?” asked the giant.

“Naw, they didn't.”

“Not troubled your hand any?”

“Naw, they didn't.”

“Well, don't you let them touch you. We'll see you through.” And as we followed him in towards our drink through his folding slat-doors he continued discoursing to me, the newcomer. “I am against interfering with kids. I like to leave 'em fight and fool just as much as they see fit. Now them boys ain't malicious, but they're young, you see, they're young, and misfortune don't appeal to them. Josey lost his father last spring, and his mother died last month. Last week he played with a freight car and left two of his fingers with it. Now you might think that was enough hardship.”

“Indeed yes,” I