The Twins of Suffering Creek Part 25

"Guess any hurtin' Zip gets'll be done by you."

"Ah, no, no!"

The woman reached out wildly for the letter, but James had pa.s.sed swiftly out of the room.

CHAPTER XIII

BIRDIE AND THE BOYS

The derelicts of a mining camp must ever be interesting to the student of human nature, so wide is the field for study. But it were better to be a student, simply, when probing amongst the refuse heaps of life's debris. A sentimentalist, a man of heart, would quickly have it broken with the pity of it all. A city's tragedies often require search to reveal them, but upon the frontier tragedy stalks unsepulchered in the background of nearly every life, ready to leap out in all its naked horror and settle itself leech-like upon the sympathetic heart, stifling it with the burden of its misery.

No, it is not good to delve into the dark pages of such folks' lives too closely, unless armored with impenetrable callousness. But one cannot help wondering whence all those living tragedies come. Look at the men. For the most part strong, able creatures, apparently capable of fighting the l.u.s.ty battle of life with undiminished ardor. Look at the women. They are for the most part thinking women, healthy, capable. And yet--well, nine-tenths of them are not so cut off from their home cities, their friends and relatives, without some more than ordinary reason.

It is a sad sight to see the women plunged headlong into the fight for existence in such places, to witness the cruel iron thrust upon them its searing brand, to watch all the natural softness of their s.e.x harden to the necessary degree for a successful issue to the battle, to witness their frequent uns.e.xing and ultimate degradation. Such results are common enough when a woman enters the lists. It is so often a mere question of time. And when the end is achieved, how awful, how revolting, but how natural.

How Birdie Mason came to find herself the one woman on Suffering Creek--leaving out the later advent of Scipio's wife--it is not for us to ask. Whatever her little tragedy it is hers alone, and does not concern us. All that we need think of is her future, and the pity that so well-favored a woman has not found her lot cast in places where her womanhood has its best chances. However, she is there, living the life of all such hired "helps," drudging from morning till night in one long round of sordid labor, in an atmosphere stinking with the fetid breath of debased humanity.

But as yet the life has made no inroads upon her moral health. Her sunny good nature sets her singing over the most grinding labors. Her smiling face, and ready tongue, give her an air of happiness and joy of life which seems well-nigh invincible. And her popularity contrives her many thrilling moments and advantages which she is too much a woman and a child to deny herself.

Her day's work ends with the after supper "wash up," a dreary routine which might well crush the most ardent spirit. Yet she bends over her tubs full of crockery dreaming her sunny dreams, building her little castles to the clink of enameled tin cups, weaving her romances to the clatter of cutlery, smiling upon the mentally conjured faces of her boys amidst the steaming odors of greasy, lukewarm water. The one blot upon her existence is perhaps the Chinese cook, with whom she has perforce to a.s.sociate. She dislikes him for no other reason than that he is a "yaller-faced doper that ought to been set to herd with a menagerie of measly skunks." But even this annoyance cannot seriously damp her buoyancy, and, with wonderful feminine philosophy, she puts him out of her mind as a "no account feller, anyway."

She was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to the long dining-table, making it ready for the next day's breakfast. It was not an elaborate preparation. She "dumped" a box of knives and forks at each end of it, and then proceeded to chase any odd bits of debris from the last meal on to the floor with a duster. Then, with a hand-broom and pan, she took these up and with them any other rubbish that might be lying about. Finally, she set jugs of drinking water at intervals down the center of the table, and her work was done.

She looked about her, patting her fair hair with that eminently feminine touch which is to be seen in every woman from the millionaire's wife down to the poorest emigrant. Then, with less delicacy, she lifted her ap.r.o.n and wiped the moisture from her round young face.

"Guess that's 'most everything," she murmured, her eyes brightening at the contemplation of her completed task. "I'll just cut out them--"

She went to a cupboard and drew out a parcel of white lawn and paper patterns, which she carefully spread out on the table. And, in a few moments, she was bending absorbedly over the stuff, lost in the intricacies of hewing out an embryonic garment for her personal adornment.

It was at this task that Toby Jenks found her. He was worried to death at the thought that, as a member of the newly formed Zip Trust, it was his duty to gather information concerning the management of children.

However, in the midst of his trouble he hit on the brilliant idea of consulting the only woman of his acquaintance.

Toby wanted to do something startling in the interests of the Trust.

He felt that his members.h.i.+p had been conferred in a rather grudging spirit. And, to his mildly resentful way of thinking, it seemed it would be a good thing if he could surprise his friends with the excellence of his services in the general interests of the concern.

Birdie heard the door open, and raised a pair of startled eyes at the intruder. It was not that such visits were out of order, or even uncommon, but they generally occurred after pre-arrangement, which gave her the opportunity of "fixing herself right."

With a wild grab she scrambled her material, and the pattern, so that its identification would be quite impossible to male eyes, and hugged it in her arms. Turning swiftly she thrust it into the cupboard, and slammed the door. But she had no resentment at the interruption. Toby was quite a new visitor, and, well--the more the merrier.

She turned to him all smiles, and Toby returned her welcome something sheepishly. He cut a quaint figure with his broad, ungainly shoulders supporting his rather pumpkin face. Then his arms were a little too long and terminated in two "leg-of-mutton" hands.

"Evenin', Birdie," he said bashfully. "Guess you were sewin'?"

"Guess again," cried the girl readily, her eyes dancing at the contemplation of a few moments' badinage with a new candidate for her favors.

"Well, you wa'an't playin' the pianner."

But Birdie was quite equal to the best efforts of her candidates.

"My, but ain't you slick?" she cried, allowing her smiling gaze to remain looking straight into his face in a way she knew never failed to confuse her admirers on Suffering Creek. She watched till the st.u.r.dy man's eyes turned away, and knew that he was groping for an adequate retort. This effect was the result of practice with her, a practice she thoroughly enjoyed.

The "leg-of-mutton" hands fumbled their way into the tops of Toby's trousers, and, with a sudden self-a.s.sertion, which fitted him badly, he lurched over to the table, beyond which Birdie was standing. It was his intention to seat himself thereon, but his tormentor had not yet reached the point where she could allow such intimacy.

"Say, I ain't ast you to sit around," she said, with an alluring pout.

"Men-folk don't sit around in a lady's' parlor till they're ast.

'Sides, the table's fixed fer breakfast. And anyway it ain't for settin' on."

Toby moved away quickly, his attempt at ease deserting him with ludicrous suddenness. At sight of his blus.h.i.+ng face Birdie relaxed her austerity.

"Say, ain't you soft?" she declared, with a demure lowering of her lids. "I've allus heerd say, you only got to tell a feller don't, an'

he sure does it quick. Men-folk is that contrary. Now--"

The encouragement brought its reward. Toby promptly sat himself on the table and set it creaking.

"Well, I do declare!" cried Birdie, in pretended indignation. "And I never ast you, neither. I don't know, I'm sure. Some folks has nerve."

But this time Toby was not to be intimidated. Perhaps it was the girl's bright smile. Perhaps, with marvelous inspiration, he saw through her flirtatious methods. Anyway, he remained where he was, grinning sheepishly up into her face.

"Guess you best push me off. I ain't heavy," he dared her clumsily.

"I sure wouldn't demean myself that way," she retorted. "Gee, me settin' hands on a feller like you. It would need a prize-fighter."

The acknowledgment of his size and strength was a subtle tribute which pleased the man, as it was intended to. He preened himself and drew his knees up into his arms, in an att.i.tude intended to be one of perfect ease and to show his confidence.

"I sure ain't much of a feller for strength," he said modestly, eyeing his enormous arms and hands affectionately. "You ought to see Wild Bill. He--he could eat me, an' never worry his digestion."

Birdie laughed happily. She was always ready to laugh at a man's attempt at humor. That was her way.

"You are a queer one," she said, seating herself on the opposite edge of the table, so that she was sufficiently adjacent, and at the requisite angle at which to carry on her flirtation satisfactorily.

"Say," she went on, with a down drooping of her eyelids, "why ain't you in there playin' poker? Guess you're missin' heaps o' fun. I wish I was a 'boy.' I wouldn't miss such fun by sitting around in here."

"Wouldn't you?" Toby grinned, while his brains struggled to find a happy reply. "Well, you see," he hazarded at last, "poker an' whisky ain't to be compared to talkin' to a dandy fine gal with yaller hair an' elegant blue eyes."

He pa.s.sed one of his great hands across his forehead as though his attempt had made him perspire. But he had his reward. Birdie contrived a blush of pleasure, and edged a little nearer to him.

"Gee, you can talk pretty," she declared, her lips parted in an admiring smile. "It makes me kind o' wonder how you fellers learn it."

Then she added demurely, "But I ain't pretty, nor nothing like you fellers try to make out. I'm jest an ord'nary sort of girl."

"No you ain't," broke in Toby, feeling that his initial success had put him on the top of the situation, and that he had nothing now to fear. Besides, he really felt that Birdie was an uncommonly nice girl, and, in a vague way, wondered he had never noticed it before.

"That you ain't," he went on emphatically. Then he added as though to clinch his statement, "not by a sight."

This brought him to a sudden and uncomfortable stop. He knew he ought to go on piling up compliment on compliment to make good his point.

But he had emptied his brain cells by his threefold denial, and now found himself groping in something which was little better than a vacuum. And in his trouble he found himself wis.h.i.+ng he was gifted with Sunny's wit. Wild Bill's force would have carried him through, or even Sandy Joyce's overweening confidence would have kept his head above water. As it was he was stuck. Hopelessly, irretrievably at the end of his resources.