Odd Numbers. Ford Sewell
the hang nails, files ’em round at the ends, and polishes ’em up so they shine as if they were varnished! He, he! Guess the boys would laugh if they could have seen me.”
“It’s one experience you’ve got on me,” says I. “And this manicure lady is a ringer for Mrs. Daggett, eh?”
“Well, now,” says he, scratchin’ his chin, “maybe I ought to put it that she looks a good deal as Mrs. Daggett might have looked ten or fifteen years ago if she’d been got up that way, – same shade of red hair, only not such a thunderin’ lot of it; same kind of blue eyes, only not so wide open and starry; and a nose and chin that I couldn’t help remarking. Course, now, you understand this young woman was fixed up considerable smarter than Mrs. Daggett ever was in her life.”
“If she’s a manicure artist in one of them Broadway hotels,” says I, “I could guess that; specially if Mrs. Daggett’s always stuck to Iowa.”
“Yes, that’s right; she has,” says Daggett. “But if she’d had the same chance to know what to wear and how to wear it – Well, I wish she’d had it, that’s all. And she wanted it. My, my! how she did hanker for such things, Mr. McCabe!”
“Well, better late than never,” says I.
“No, no!” says he, his voice kind of breakin’ up. “That’s what I want to forget, how – how late it is!” and hanged if he don’t have to fish out a handkerchief and swab off his eyes. “You see,” he goes on, “Marthy’s gone.”
“Eh?” says I. “You mean she’s – ”
He nods. “Four years ago this spring,” says he. “Typhoid.”
“But,” says I, “how about this hat?”
“One of my notions,” says he, – “just a foolish idea of mine. I’ll tell you. When she was lying there, all white and thin, and not caring whether she ever got up again or not, a new spring hat was the only thing I could get her to take an interest in. She’d never had what you might call a real, bang-up, stylish hat. Always wanted one, too. And it wasn’t because I was such a mean critter that she couldn’t have had the money. But you know how it is in a little place like South Forks. They don’t have ’em in stock, not the kind she wanted, and maybe we couldn’t have found one nearer than Omaha or Chicago; and someway there never was a spring when I could seem to fix things so we could take the trip. Looked kind of foolish, too, traveling so far just to get a hat. So she went without, and put up with what Miss Simmons could trim for her. They looked all right, too, and I used to tell Marthy they were mighty becoming; but all the time I knew they weren’t just – well, you know.”
Say, I never saw any specimens of Miss Simmons’ art works; but I could make a guess. And I nods my head.
“Well,” says Daggett, “when I saw that Marthy was kind of giving up, I used to coax her to get well. ‘You just get on your feet once, Marthy,’ says I, ‘and we’ll go down to Chicago and buy you the finest and stylishest hat we can find in the whole city. More than that, you shall have a new one every spring, the very best.’ She’d almost smile at that, and half promise she’d try. But it wasn’t any use. The fever hadn’t left her strength enough. And the first thing I knew she’d slipped away.”
Odd sort of yarn to be hearin’ there on Fifth-ave. on a sunshiny afternoon, wa’n’t it? And us dodgin’ over crossin’s, and duckin’ under awnin’s, and sidesteppin’ the foot traffic! But he keeps right close to my elbow and gives me the whole story, even to how they’d agreed to use the little knoll just back of the farmhouse as a burial plot, and how she marked the hymns she wanted sung, and how she wanted him to find someone else as soon as the year was out.
“Which was the only thing I couldn’t say yes to,” says Daggett. “‘No, Marthy,’ says I, ‘not unless I can find another just like you.’ – ‘You’ll be mighty lonesome, Goliah,’ says she, ‘and you’ll be wanting to change your flannels too early.’ – ‘Maybe so,’ says I; ‘but I guess I’ll worry along for the rest of the time alone.’ Yes, sir, Mr. McCabe, she was a fine woman, and a patient one. No one ever knew how bad she wanted lots of things that she might of had, and gave up. You see, I was pretty deep in the wheat business, and every dollar I could get hold of went to buying more reapers and interests in elevator companies and crop options. I was bound to be a rich man, and they say I got there. Yes, I guess I am fairly well fixed.”
It wa’n’t any chesty crow, but more like a sigh, and as we stops on a crossing to let a lady plutess roll by in her brougham, Mr. Daggett he sizes up the costume she wore and shakes his head kind of regretful.
“That’s the way Marthy should have been dressed,” says he. “She’d have liked it. And she’d liked a hat such as that one we saw back there; that is, if it’s the right kind. I’ve been buying ’em kind of careless, maybe.”
“How’s that?” says I.
“Oh!” says he, “I didn’t finish telling you about my fool idea. I’ve been getting one every spring, the best I could pick out in Chicago, and carrying it up there on the knoll where Marthy is – and just leaving it. Go on now, Mr. McCabe; laugh if you want to. I won’t mind. I can almost laugh at myself. Of course, Marthy’s beyond caring for hats now. Still, I like to leave ’em there; and I like to think perhaps she does know, after all. So – so I want to get that purple one, providing it would be the right shade. What do you say?”
Talk about your nutty propositions, eh? But honest, I didn’t feel even like crackin’ a smile.
“Daggett,” says I, “you’re a true sport, even if you have got a few bats in the loft. Let’s go back and get quotations on the lid.”
“I wish,” says he, “I could see it tried on that manicure young woman first. Suppose we go down and bring her up?”
“What makes you think she’ll come?” says I.
“Oh, I guess she will,” says he, quiet and thoughtful. “We’ll try, anyway.”
And say, right there I got a new line on him. I could almost frame up how it was he’d started in as a bacon borrowin’ homesteader, and got to be the John D. of his county. But I could see he was up against a new deal this trip. And as it was time for me to be gettin’ down towards 42d-st. anyway, I goes along. As we strikes the hotel barber shop I hangs up on the end of the cigar counter while Daggett looks around for the young woman who’d put the chappy polish on his nails.
“That’s her,” says he, pointing out a heavyweight Titian blonde in the far corner, and over he pikes.
I couldn’t help admirin’ the nerve of him; for of all the l’ongoline queens I ever saw, she’s about the haughtiest. Maybe you can throw on the screen a picture of a female party with a Lillian Russell shape, hair like Mrs. Leslie Carter’s, and an air like a twelve-dollar cloak model showin’ off a five hundred-dollar lace dress to a bookmaker’s bride.
Just as Daggett tiptoes up she’s pattin’ down some of the red puffs that makes the back of her head look like a burnin’ oil tank, and she swings around languid and scornful to see who it is that dares butt in on her presence. All the way she recognizes him is by a little lift of the eyebrows.
I don’t need to hear the dialogue. I can tell by her expression what Daggett is saying. First there’s a kind of condescendin’ curiosity as he begins, then she looks bored and turns back to the mirror, and pretty soon she sings out, “What’s that?” so you could hear her all over the shop. Then Daggett springs his proposition flat.
“Sir!” says she, jumpin’ up and glarin’ at him.
Daggett tries to soothe her down; but it’s no go.
“Mr. Heinmuller!” she calls out, and the boss barber comes steppin’ over, leavin’ a customer with his face muffled in a hot towel. “This person,” she goes on, “is insulting!”
“Hey?” says Heinmuller, puffin’ out his cheeks. “Vos iss dot?”
And for a minute it looked like I’d have to jump in and save