Phebe Braley had a full figure--she was almost stout--a body of the
frankest emphasized curves in a long purple coat with a collar of soiled
white fur. A straw hat with the brim caught by a short purple-dyed
ostrich feather was pinned to a dead-looking crinkled mass of
greenish-gold hair, and her face--the memorable features of Hannah--was
loaded with pink powder.
Calvin said: “You must be Phebe Braley. Well, I'm Calvin Stammark. Your
father or Hosmer couldn't meet the stage and so they had to let me get
you. Where's your bag?”
She adopted at once an air of comfortable familiarity. “I don't remember
your name,” she said, settling beside him in the buggy.
He told her that he had come to this vicinity after she had gone and
that he was about to marry her sister.
“The hell you say!” she replied with cheerful surprise. “Who'd thought
Hannah was old enough to have a fellow!”
They were out of the village now and she produced a paper pack of
cigarettes from a leather hand bag with a florid gilt top. Flooding her
being with smoke she gazed with a shudder at the mountain wall on either
hand, the unbroken greenery sweeping to the sky.
“It's worse than I remembered,” she confided, resting against him. “A
person with any life to them would go dippy here. Say, it's fierce! And
yet, inside of me, I'm kind of glad to see it. I used to dream about the
mountains, and this is like riding in the dream. I'm glad you came for
me and let me down easy into things. I suppose they live in the kitchen
home and pa'd lose a currycomb in his beard. Does Hosmer still beller if
he gets the chicken neck?
“Do you sit in the holy parlor for your courting, and ain't that plush
sofa a God-forsaken perch for two little love birds? It's funny how I
remember this and that. I reckon ma's temper don't improve with age.
They kid me something dreadful about saying 'reckon,' in the talent. But
it's all good and a dam' sight better than 'I guess.' That's all they
get off me.”
Calvin Stammark's vague uneasiness changed to an acute dislike, even a
fear of Phebe. Her freedom of discourse and person, the powdered hard
fare close to his, the reek of scent--all rasped the delicacy of his
love for Hannah. The sisters were utterly different, and yet he
would have realized instantly their relationship. Phebe, too, had the
disturbing quality that made Hannah so appealing. In the former it was
coarsened, almost lost; almost but not quite.
“I'll bet,” she continued, “that I'm the only female prodigal on the
bills. Not that I've been feeding on husks. Not me. Milwaukee lager and
raw beef sandwiches. I have a passion for them after the show. We do
two a day and I want solid refreshment. I wonder if you ever saw me. Of
course you didn't, but you might have. Ned Higmann's Parisian Dainties.
Rose Rayner's what I go by. That's French, but spelled different, and
means brightness. And I'm bright, Casper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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