The Heart of the Range Part 20

There were two barrel chairs on the porch. Miss Blythe picked up a piece of embroidery on a frame from the seat of one of the chairs and sat down. Molly Dale seated herself in the other chair, crossed her knees, and swung a slim, booted leg. From the breast pocket of her boy's gray flannel s.h.i.+rt she produced a long, narrow strip of white to which appeared to be fastened a small dark object. She held the strip of white in her left hand. Her right hand held the dark object and with it began to make a succession of quick, wavy, hooky dabs at one end of the strip of white.

"First time I ever seen anybody trying to knit without needles," said the perplexed Swing.

"That ain't knitting," said the superior Racey. "That's tatting."

"Tatting?"

"Tatting."

"What's it for?"

"Lingery." Racey p.r.o.nounced the word to rhyme with "clingery."

"Lingery?"

"Lingery."

"What's lingery?"

"Lingery is clo'es."

"Clo'es, huh. h.e.l.luva funny name for clo'es. Why don't you say clo'es then instead of this here now lingery?"

"Because lingery is a certain _kind_ of clo'es, you ignorant Jack.

Petticoats, and the like o' that. Don't you know nothin'?"

"I know yo're lying, that's what I know. Yo're bluffing, you hear me whistlin'. You dunno no more about it than I do. You can't tell me petticoats is made out of a strip of white stuff less'n a half-inch wide. I've seen too many was.h.i.+n's hangin' on the lines, I have. Yeah.

And done too many. When I was a young one my ma would tie an ap.r.o.n round my neck, slap me down beside a tubful of clo'es, and tell me to fly to it. Petticoats! Petticoats, feller, is made of yards and yards and yards like a balloon."

"Who said they wasn't, you witless Jake? They don't _make_ petticoats of this tatting stuff. They use it for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g like."

"Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g on the petticoats?"

"_And_ the lingery."

"But you just now said petticoats and lingery was the same thing."

"Oh, my Gawd! They are! They are the same thing. Don't y' understand?

Petticoats is always lingery, but lingery ain't always petticoats.

See?"

"I don't. I don't see a-tall. I think yo're goin' crazy. That's what I think. Nemmine. Nemmine. If you say _lingery_ at me again I won't let you introduce me to yore girl."

"She ain't my girl," denied Racey, reddening.

"But you'd like her to be, huh? Sh.o.r.e. What does she think about it?

Which one of 'em is she?"

"I didn't say neither of 'em was. You always did take too much for granted, Swing."

"I ain't taking too much for granted with you blus.h.i.+ng thataway. Which one? Tell a feller. C'mon, stingy."

"Shucks," said Racey, "I should think you could tell. The best-looking one, of course."

"But they's two of 'em, feller, and they both look mighty fine to me.

Take that one with the white s.h.i.+rt and the slick brown hair. She's as pretty as a li'l red wagon. A reg'lar doll baby, you bet you."

"Doll baby! Ain't you got any eyes? That brown-haired girl--and I want to say right here I never did like brown hair--is Joy Blythe, Bill Derr's girl. Of course, Bill's a good feller and all that, and if he likes that style of beauty it ain't anything against him. But that other girl now. Swing, you purblind bat, when it comes to looks, she lays all over Joy Blythe like four aces over a bobtailed flush."

"She does, huh? You got it bad. Here's hoping it ain't catchin'. I've liked girls now and then my own self, but I never like one so hard I couldn't see nothing good in another one. Now, humanly speaking, either of them two on the porch would suit me."

"And neither of 'em ain't gonna suit you, and you can gamble on that, Swing Tunstall."

"Oh, ain't they? We'll see about that. You act like I never seen a girl before. Lemme tell you I know how to act all right in company. I ain't any hilltop Reuben."

"If you ain't, then pin up yore s.h.i.+rt where I tore the b.u.t.tons off.

You look like the wrath o' Gawd."

"You ain't something to write home about yore own self. I can b.u.t.ton up my vest and look respectable, but they's hayseeds and shuttlin's all over you, and besides I got a necktie, and _yore_ handkerchief is so sloshed up you can't tie it round yore neck. Yo're a fine-lookin'

specimen to go a-visitin'. A fi-ine-lookin' specimen. And anyway yo're drunk. You can't go."

"h.e.l.l I can't," snapped Racey, brus.h.i.+ng industriously. "They never seen me."

"But Luke Tweezy did," chuckled Swing.

"What's Luke got to do with it?" Racey inquired without looking up.

"If you'd slant yore eyes out through the door you'd see what Luke Tweezy's gotta do with it."

Racey Dawson looked up and immediately sat down on the hay and spoke in a low tone.

Swing nodded with delight. "You'll cuss worse'n that when I go over and make Luke introduce me," he said. "He's been out there on the porch with 'em the last five minutes, and you was so busy argufyin'

with me you never looked up to see him. And you talk of going over and doing the polite. Yah, you make me laugh. This is sh.o.r.e one on you, Racey. Don't you wish now you hadn't made out to be so drunk? Lookit, Luke. He's a-offerin' 'em something in a paper poke. They're a-eatin'

it. He musta bought some candy. I'll bet they's all of a dime's worth in that bag. The spendthrift. How he must like them girls. It's yore girl he's s.h.i.+ning up to special, Racey. Ain't he the lady-killer? Look out, Racey. You won't have a chance alongside of Luke Tweezy."

"Swing," said Racey, in a voice ominously calm and level, "if you don't shut yore trap I'll sh.o.r.e wrastle you down and tromp on yore stummick."

So saying he reached for Swing Tunstall. But the latter, watchful person that he was, eluded the clutching hands and hurried through the doorway.

Racey, seething with rage, could only sit and hug his knees while Swing went up on the porch and was introduced to the two girls. It was some balm to his tortured soul to see how ill Luke Tweezy took Swing's advent. Did Luke really like Molly Dale? The old goat! Why, the man was old enough to be her father.

And did she like him? Lordy man alive, how could she? But Luke Tweezy had money. Girls liked money, Racey knew that. He had known a girl to marry a more undesirable human being than Luke Tweezy simply because the man was rich. Personally, he, Racey Dawson, were he a girl, would prefer the well-known honest heart to all the wealth in the territory.

But girls were queer, and sometimes did queer things. Molly, was she queer? He didn't know. She looked sensible, yet why was she so infernally polite to Luke Tweezy? She didn't have to smile at him when he spoke to her. It wasn't necessary. Racey's spirit groaned within him. Finally, the spectacle of the chattering group on the back porch of the Blue Pigeon proved more than Racey could stand. He retreated into a dark corner of the barn and lay down on the hay. But he did not go to sleep. Far from it. Later he removed his boots, stuffed them full of hay, and hunkered down behind a dismounted wagon-seat over which a wagon-cover had been flung. With a short length of rope and several handfuls of hay he propped the boots in such a position that they stuck out beyond the wagon-box ten or twelve inches and gave every evidence of human occupation.

Boosting up with a bushel basket the stiff canvas at the end opposite the boots he made the wagon-cover stretch long enough and high enough to conceal the important fact that there were no legs or body attached to the boots.

Which being done Racey took up a strategic position behind an upended crate near the doorway.