Side-stepping with Shorty Part 33

"Guess you need it," says I. "You look like the trey of spades."

Then Pinckney shows up in the gym., and he no sooner sees us at work with the basket ball than he begins to peel off. "I say there!" says he. "Count me in on some of that, or I'll be pulled into another rubber."

About an hour later, after they'd jollied me into stayin' all night, I puts on a sweater and starts out for some hoof exercise in the young blizzard that was makin' things white outside. Sadie holds me up at the door. Her cheeks was blazin', and I could see she was holdin' the Sullivan temper down with both hands.

"h.e.l.lo!" says I. "What's been stirrin' you up?"

"Bridge!" snaps she. "I guess if you'd been glared at for two hours, and called stupid when you lost, and worse names when you won, you'd feel like throwing the cards at some one."

"Well, why didn't you?" says I.

"I did," says she, "and there's an awful row on; but I don't care! And if you don't stop that grinnin', I'll----"

Well, she does it. That's the way with Sadie, words is always too slow for her. Inside of a minute she's out chasin' me around the front yard and peltin' me with snow b.a.l.l.s.

"See here," says I, diggin' a hunk of snow out of one ear, "that kind of sport's all to the merry; but if I was you I'd dress for the part.

s...o...b..llin' in slippers and silk stockin's and a lace dress is a pneumonia bid, even if you are such a warm one on top."

"Who's a red head?" says she. "You just wait a minute, Shorty McCabe, and I'll make you sorry for that!"

It wa'n't a minute, it was nearer fifteen; but when Sadie shows up again she's wearin' the slickest Canuck costume you ever see, all blanket stripes and red ta.s.sels, like a girl on a gift calendar.

"Whe-e-e!" says she, and the snow begins to fly in chunks. It was the damp, packy kind that used to make us go out and soak the tall hats when we was kids. And Sadie hasn't forgot how to lam 'em in, either.

We was havin' it hot and lively, all over the lawn, when the first thing I knows out comes Mrs. Purdy Pell and Pinckney and a lot of others, to join in the muss. They'd dragged out a whole raft of toboggan outfits from the attic, and the minute they gets 'em on they begins to act as coltish as two-year-olds.

Well say, you wouldn't have thought high rollers like them, that gets their fun out of playin' the gla.s.s works exhibit at the op'ra, and eatin' one A. M. suppers at Sherry's, and doublin' no trumps at a quarter a point, could unbuckle enough to build snow forts, and yell like Indians, and cut up like kids generally. But they does--washed each other's faces, and laughed and whooped it up until dark. Didn't need the dry Martinis to jolly up appet.i.tes for that bunch when dinner time come, and if there was anyone awake in Rockywold after ten o'clock that night it was the butler and the kitchen help.

I looked for 'em to forget it all by mornin' and start in again on their punky card games; but they was all up bright and early, plannin'

out new stunts. There'd been a lot of snow dropped durin' the night, and some one gets struck with the notion that buildin' snow men would be the finest sport in the world. They couldn't hardly wait to eat breakfast before they gets on their blanket clothes and goes at it.

They was rollin' up snow all over the place, as busy as 'longsh.o.r.emen--all but Pinckney. He gives out that him and me has been appointed an art committee, to rake in an entrance fee of ten bones each and decide who gets the purse for doin' the best job.

"G'wan!" says I. "I couldn't referee no such fool tournament as this."

"That's right, be modest!" says he. "Don't mind our feelings at all."

Then Sadie and Mrs. Pell b.u.t.ts in and says I've just got to do it; so I does. We gives 'em so long to pile up their raw material, and half an hour after that to carve out what they thinks they can do best, nothin'

barred. Some starts in on Teddy bears, one gent plans out a cop; but the most of 'em don't try anything harder'n plain snow men, with lumps of coal for eyes, and pipes stuck in to finish off the face.

It was about then that Count Skiphauser moves out of the background and begins to play up strong. He's one of these big, full blooded pretzels that's been everywhere, and seen everything, and knows it all, and thinks there ain't anything but what he can do a little better'n anybody else.

"Oh, well," says he, "I suppose I must show you what snow carving really is. I won a prize for this sort of thing in Berlin, you know."

"It's all over now," says I to Pinckney. "You heard Skippy pickin'

himself for a winner, didn't you?"

"He's a bounder," says Pinckney, talkin' corner-wise--"lives on his bridge and poker winnings. He mustn't get the prize."

But Skiphauser ain't much more'n blocked out a head and shoulders 'fore it was a cinch he was a ringer, with nothin' but a lot of rank amateurs against him. Soon's the rest saw what they was up against they all laid down, for he was makin' 'em look like six car fares. Course, there wa'n't nothin' to do but join the gallery and watch him win in a walk.

"Oh, it's a bust of Bismarck, isn't it?" says one of the women. "How clever of you, Count!"

At that Skippy throws out his chest and begins to chuck in the flourishes. That kind of business suited him down to the ground. He c.o.c.ks his head on one side, twists up his lip whiskers like Billy the Tooth, and goes through all the motions of a man that knows he's givin'

folks a treat.

"Hates himself, don't he?" says I. "He must have graduated from some tombstone foundry."

Pinckney was wild. So was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell, on account of the free-for-all bein' turned into a game of solitaire.

"I just wish," says Sadie, "that there was some way of taking him down a peg. If I only knew of someone who----"

"I do, if you don't," says I.

Say, what do you reckon had been cloggin' my thought works all that time. I takes the three of 'em to one side and springs my proposition, tellin' 'em I'd put it through if they'd stand for it. Would they?

They're so tickled they almost squeals.

I gets Swifty Joe at the Studio on the long distance and gives him his instructions. It was a wonder he got it straight, for sometimes you can't get an idea into his head without usin' a brace and bit, but this trip he shows up for a high brow. Pretty quick we gets word that it's all O. K. Pinckney bulletins it to the crowd that, while Sadie's pulled out of the compet.i.tion, she's asked leave to put on a sub, and that the prize awardin' will be delayed until after the returns are all in.

Meantime I climbs into the sleigh and goes down to meet the express.

Sure enough, Cornelia Ann was aboard, a bit hazy about the kind of a stunt that's expected of her, but ready for anything. I don't go into many details, for fear of givin' her stage fright; but I lets her know that if she's got any sculpturin' tricks up her sleeve now's the time to shake 'em out.

"I've been tellin' some friends of mine," says I, "that when it comes to clay art, or plaster of paris art, you was the real lollypop; and I reckoned that if you could do pieces in mud, you could do 'em just as well in snow."

"Snow!" says she. "Why, I never tried."

Maybe I'd banked too much on Cornelia, or perhaps she was right in sayin' this was out of her line. Anyway, it was a mighty disappointed trio that sized her up when I landed her under the porte cochere.

When she's run her eye over the size and swellness of the place I've brought her to, and seen a sample of the folks, she looks half scared to death. And you wouldn't have played her for a fav'rite, either, if you'd seen the cheap figure she cut, with them big eyes rollin' around, as if she was huntin' for the nearest way out. But we give her a cup of hot tea, makes her put on a pair of fleece lined overshoes and somebody's Persian lamb jacket, and leads her out to make a try for the champions.h.i.+p.

Some of 'em was sorry of her, and tried to be sociable; but others just stood around and snickered and whispered things behind their hands.

Honest, I could have thrown brickbats at myself for bein' such a mush head. That wouldn't have helped any though, so I gets busy and rolls together a couple of chunks of snow about as big as flour barrels and piles one on top of the other.

"It's up to you, Cornie," says I. "Can't you dig something or other out of that?"

She don't say whether she can or can't, but just walks around it two or three times, lookin' at it dreamy, like she was in a trance. Next she braces up a bit, calls for an old carvin' knife and a kitchen spoon, and goes to work, the whole push watchin' her as if she was some freak in a cage.

I pipes off her motions for awhile real hopeful, and then I edges out where I could look the other way. Why say, all she'd done was to hew out something that looks like a lot of soap boxes piled up for a bonfire. It was a case of funk, I could see that; and maybe I wa'n't feelin' like I'd carried a gold brick down to the subtreasury and asked for the acid test.

Then I begins to hear the "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" come from the crowd.

First off I thought they was guyin' her, but when I strolls back near enough for a peek at what she was up to, my mouth comes open, too.

Say, you wouldn't believe it less'n you'd seen it done, but she was just fetchin' out of that heap of snow, most as quick and easy as if she was unpackin' it from a crate, the stunningest lookin' altogether girl that I ever see outside a museum.

I don't know who it was supposed to be, or why. She's holdin' up with one hand what draperies she's got--which wa'n't any too many--an' with the other she's reachin' above her head after somethin' or other--maybe the soap on the top shelf. But she was a beaut, all right. And all Cornelia was doin' to bring her out was just slas.h.i.+n' away careless with the knife and spoon handle, hardly stoppin' a second between strokes. She simply had 'em goggle eyed. I reckon they'd seen things just as fine and maybe better, but they hadn't had a front seat before, while a little ninety-pound cinnamon top like Cornelia Ann stepped up and yanked a whitewashed angel out of a snow heap.

"It's wonderful!" says Mrs. Purdy Pell.

"Looks to me like we had Skippy fingerin' the citrus, don't it?" says I.

The Count he's been standin' there with his mouth open, like the rest of us, only growin' redder 'n' redder.