Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 41: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

le... YOUNG some of it if the occasion required, and I had a notion this occasion required. “ Mornin’, little lady,’’ says I, not let- ting on I had noticed nothing. “ Nice, bright, pleasant kind of a world we are kicking around in this lovely mornin’.” She give me a long, slow, level look from. beneath her pretty lashes. Then she fetched a faint sigh through her red lips. ‘Yes, it is a pleasant enough world, Mr. Tom Hill,” she says, game as she could be. ‘“ Nothing's the matter with the world, I guess.” “T was passing Joe Hackney’s place the other day,” I says, “ and I see a few late strawberries on the vines. . They was aw- ful red, red as your lips, Mrs. Fraser.” “You’re incorrigible, Mr. Tom Hill,” says she, and a little smile trickled across her mouth and flowed away into nothing. “ Are you always happy?” “Oh,” I said, “ I bid good-by to worry long ago. It don’t get you nothing. It only brings wrinkles and makes you thin.” “TI guess yan don’t .worry, then,” she says. “Well,” I hinted, “ first and last, a great many folks i in this town has told me their troubles.” She give me a squinty look with a con- siderable of thought behind it. ‘“ Jimmie is working too hard in the store,” she said. “ But just look who he’s working for,” I says, like a blatted old fool. “Yes, just look,” says Sadie, and she walked away and left me there. "Twas mebbe. a week later when I met her again, and again in the morning. It had rained most of the night, and there was scudding white and black clouds weav- ing across the sky. As I seen Sadie com- ing, I said to myself that prob’ly this _weather had made her more downhearted than she had been. on that other bright, sunshiny morning. When she neared me, however, I seen that that was an offside guess. Honest to goodness, her eyes was like stars. They seemed to be bigger than usual, and they shined like they had been polished. I thought she was happy, but then, her hav- ing drawed close, I noticed that there was REBELS. 669 a peculiar smile on her lips. It was a lit- tle smile, a little, trembling smile as if it felt it didn’t have no business showing it- self at all. Also I seen that Sadie’s cheeks didn’t have their usual color. It struck me she was what you might call cynical looking, and that was a bad thing for one so young and pretty, it being a bad thing for anybody of any age or looks. We stopped simultaneous, and IJ give her good morning, along with a pretty sharp look, though I didn’t let her see the look; and I asked her how things was moving. “Why,” she says, “a year has just moved by for me.” “ That’s a habit years has,” says I, ‘‘ only when you are young they move slow and sweet, but when you are old, like me, they are most fast and sometimes harsh.” — “T mean,” says Sadie, “ that yesterday was my birthday.” “And -how old was you?” says I, trying to be polite and interested. ~“ Twenty,” she says. “Age isn’t far away from me, Mr. Tom Hill.” “No,” says I; “in about forty years from now you will be looking for your first |, gray hair. Well, Mrs. Fraser, I’m hopin’ you had a nice birthday. ” ‘ Splendid,” she says, and all of a sudden a great flush of color come up in her smooth cheeks. ‘‘ Absolutely splendid!” “Nice presents, I expect.” *“One present,” she said. “One big present.” I looked at her throat for some kind of an ornament, and findin’ none I glanced at her hands. She wore her wedding ring and her engagement ring with the little stone in it, but I had seen them before. “A seal coat-for next winter, mebbe,” I says. “Oh, no,” she says. ‘ Nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. Why, that would be a vain and foolish gift, Mr. Tom Hill. Can’t you see that a young wife shouldn’t get vain and foolish gifts? Why, I’m sur- prised at you, Mr. Tom Hill.” _ Well, of course I was a reg’lar fathead about the matter. I should have knowed that her looks indicated resentment, but I got a mind that don’t entertain company in crowds: one guest at a time is about all ieee comiclooolks a