Humorous stories; Washington (State) -- Fiction; Western stories
"And now I see that my hunch has been even better than I thought. Not
only does the star male hover about Hetty, cutely perched on a fallen
log with her dainty, gleaming ankles crossed, and looking so fresh and
nifty and feminine, but I'm darned if three or four of the other males
don't catch the contagion of her woman's presence and hang round her,
too, fetching her food of every kind there, feeding her spoonfuls of
Aggie Tuttle's plum preserves, and all like that, one comical thing
after another. Yes, sir; here was Mac Gordon and Riley Hardin and
Charlie Dickman and Roth Hyde, men about town of the younger dancing
set, that had knowed Hetty for years and hardly ever looked at
her--here they was paying attentions to her now like she was some prize
beauty, come down from Spokane for over Sunday, to say nothing of
Mr. D., who hardly ever left her side except to get her another sardine
sandwich or a paper cup of coffee. It was then I see the scientific
explanation of it, like these high-school professors always say that
science is at the bottom of everything. The science of this here was
that they was all devoting themselves to Hetty for the simple reason
that she was the one and only woman there present.
"Of course these girls in their modest Non Plush Ultras didn't get the
scientific secret of this fact. They was still too obsessed with the
idea that they ought to be ogled on account of them by any male beast in
his right senses. But they knew they'd got in wrong somehow. By this
time they was kind of bunching together and telling each other things in
low tones, while not seeming to look at Hetty and her dupes, at which
all would giggle in the most venemous manner. Daisy Estelle left the
bunch once and made a coy bid for the notice of Mr. D. by snatching his
cap and running merrily off with it about six feet. If there was any one
in the world--except Hetty--could make a man hate the idea of riding
pants for women, she was it. I could see the cold, flinty look come into
his eyes as he turned away from her to Hetty with the pitcher of
lemonade. And then Beryl Mae Macomber, she gets over close enough for
Mr. D. to hear it, and says conditions is made very inharmonious at home
for a girl of her temperament, and she's just liable any minute to chuck
everything and either take up literary work or go into the movies, she
don't know which and don't care--all kind of desperate so Mr. D. will
feel alarmed about a beautiful young thing like that out in the world
alone and unprotected and at the mercy of every designing scoundrel. But
I don't think Mr. D. hears a word of it, he's so intently listening to
Hetty who says here in this beautiful mountain glade where all is peace
how one can't scarcely believe that there is any evil in the world
anywhere, and what a difference it does make when one comes to see life
truly. Then she crossed and recrossed her silken ankles, slightly
adjusted her daring tan skirt, and raised her eyes wistfully to the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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