Book: Somewhere in Red Gap

H >> Harry Leon Wilson >> Somewhere in Red Gap




"You stood a lot of pawing over," I says, "for a man that's the keen
financial genius you tell about being. This lad must of been a new hand
at it. Likely he'd took lessons from a correspondence school. At least,
with you standing tied and blinded that way, a good professional one
would have tried for your gold tooth--or, anyway, your collar button. I
see your secret though," I go on as sarcastically as possible: "You got
the lad's address and you're going to have him here Saturday night to
glide among the throng and ply his evil trade. Am I right or wrong?"

"You are not," he says. "I never thought of that. But I won't say you
ain't warm in your guess. Yes, you certainly are warm, because what I'm
going to do is just as dastardly, without being so darned illegal,
except to an extent."

Well, it was very exasperating, but that was all I could get out of
him. When I ask for details he just clams up.

"But, mark my words," says the old smarty, "I'll show you it takes
brains in addition to woman's wiles and artwork to make a decent
clean-up in this little one-cylinder town."

"If you just had a little more self-confidence," I says, "you might of
gone to the top; lack of faith in yourself is all that's kept you back.
Too bad!"

"All right for you to kid me," he says; "but I'd be almost willing to
give you two dollars for every dollar that goes out of this hall
Saturday night."

Well, it was kind of pathetic and disgusting the way this poor old dub
was leaning on his certainty; so I let him alone and went on about my
work, thinking mebbe he really had framed up something crooked that
would bring at least a few dollars to the cause.

Every time I met him for the next three days after that he'd be so
puffed up, like a toad, with importance and low remarks about woman
that, at last, I just ignored him, pretending I hadn't the least
curiosity about his evil secret. It hurt his feelings when I quit
pestering him about it, but he'd been outraging mine right along; so we
split even.

He'd had a good-sized room just down the hall turned over to him, and a
lot of stuff of some kind carried in there in the night, and men
working, with the door locked all the time; so I and the other ladies
went calmly on about our own business, decorating the main hall with
the flags of all nations, fixing up the platform and the booths very
pretty, and giving Mr. Smarty Egbert Floud nothing but haughty glances
about his hidden novelty. Even when his men was hammering away in there
at their work he'd have something hung over the keyhole--as insulting to
us as only a man can be.

Saturday night come and we had a good crowd. Cousin Egbert was after me
the minute I got my things off to come and see his dastardly secret; but
I had my revenge. I told him I had no curiosity about it and was going
to be awful busy with my show, but I'd try as a personal favour to give
him a look over before I went home. Yes, sir; I just turned him down
with one superior look, and got my curtains slid back on Mrs. Leonard
Wales, dressed up like a superdreadnought in a naval parade and
surrounded by every little girl in town that had a white dress. They
wasn't states this time, but Columbia's Choicest Heritage, with a second
line on the program saying, "Future Buds and Debutantes From Society's
Home Galleries." It was a line we found under some babies' photos on the
society page of a great newspaper printed in New York City. Professor
Gluckstein and his son Rudolph played the "Star-Spangled Banner" on the
piano and fiddle during this feature.

Then little Magnesia Waterman, dressed to represent the Queen of Sheba,
come forward and sung the song we'd picked out for her, with the people
joining in the chorus:

We're for you, Woodrow Wilson,
One Hundred Million Strong!
We put you in the White House
And we know you can't do wrong.

It was very successful, barring hisses from all the Germans and English
present; but they was soon hushed up. Then Doc Sulloway come out and
told some funny anecdotes about two Irishmen named Pat and Mike, lately
landed in this country and looking for work, and imitated two cats in a
backyard, and drawing a glass of soda water, and sawing a plank in two;
and winding up with the announcement that he had donated a dozen bottles
of the great Indian Snake Oil Remedy for man and beast that had been
imparted to him in secret by old Rumpatunk, the celebrated medicine man,
who is supposed to have had it from the Great Spirit; and Ed Bemis, the
World's Challenge Cornetist, entertained one and all; and Beryl Mae done
her Spanish dance that I'd last seen her give at the Queen Esther
Cantata in the M.E. Church. And that was the end of the show; just
enough to start 'em buying things at the booths.

At least, we thought it would be. But what does a lot of the crowd do,
after looking round a little, but drift out into the hall and down to
this room where Cousin Egbert had his foul enterprise, whatever it was.
I didn't know yet, having held aloof, as you might say, owing to the old
hound's offensive manner. But I had heard three or four parties kind of
gasping to each other, had they seen what that Egbert Floud was doing in
the other room?--with looks of horror and delight on their faces. That
made me feel more superior than ever to the old smarty; so I didn't go
near the place yet, but herded people back to the raffles wherever I
could.

The first thing was Lon Price's corner lot, for which a hundred chances
had been sold. Lon had a blueprint showing the very lot; also a picture
of a choice dwelling or bungalow, like the one he has painted on the
drop curtain of Knapp's Opera House, under the line, "Price's Addition
to Red Gap; Big Lots, Little Payments." It's a very fancy house with
porches and bay windows and towers and front steps, and everything,
painted blue and green and yellow; and a blond lady in a purple gown,
with two golden-haired tots at her side, is waving good-bye to a tall,
handsome man with brown whiskers as he hurries out to the waiting street
car--though the car line ain't built out there yet by any means.

However, Lon got up and said it was a Paradise on earth, a Heaven of
Homes; that in future he would sell lots there to any native Belgian at
a 20 per cent. discount; and he hoped the lucky winner of this lot would
at once erect a handsome and commodious mansion on it, such as the
artist had here depicted; and it would be only nine blocks from the
swell little Carnegie Library when that, also, had been built, the
plans for it now being in his office safe.

Quite a few of the crowd had stayed for this, and they cheered Lon and
voted that little Magnesia Waterman was honest enough to draw the
numbers out of a hat. They was then drawn and read by Lon in an exciting
silence--except for Mrs. Leonard Wales, who was breathing heavily and
talking to herself after each number. She and Leonard had took a chance
for a dollar and everybody there knew it by now. She was dead sure they
would get the lot. She kept telling people so, right and left. She said
they was bound to get it if the drawing was honest. As near as I could
make out, she'd been taking a course of lessons from a professor in
Chicago about how to control your destiny by the psychic force that
dwells within you. It seems all you got to do is to will things to come
your way and they have to come. No way out of it. You step on this here
psychic gas and get what you ask for.

"I already see our little home," says Mrs. Wales in a hoarse whisper. "I
see it objectively. It is mine. I claim it out of the boundless
all-good. I have put myself in the correct mental attitude of reception;
I am holding to the perfect All. My own will come to me."

And so on, till parties round her begun to get nervous. Yes, sir; she
kept this stuff going in low, tense tones till she had every one in
hearing buffaloed; they was ready to give her the lot right there and
tear up their own tickets. She was like a crapshooter when he keeps
calling to the dice: "Come, seven--come on, come on!" All right for the
psychics, but that's what she reminded me of.

And in just another minute everybody there thought she'd cheated by
taking these here lessons that she got from Chicago for twelve dollars;
for you can believe it or not but her number won the lot. Yes, sir;
thirty-three took the deed and Lon filled in her name on it right there.
Many a cold look was shot at her as she rushed over to embrace her
husband, a big lump of a man that's all right as far up as his Adam's
apple, and has been clerking in the Owl Cigar Store ever since he can
remember. He tells her she is certainly a wonder and she calls him a
silly boy; says it's just a power she has developed through
concentration, and now she must claim from the all-good a dear little
home of seven rooms and bath, to be built on this lot; and she knows it
will come if she goes into the silence and demands it. Say! People with
any valuables on 'em begun to edge off, not knowing just how this
strange power of hers might work.

Then I look round and see the other booths ain't creating near the
excitement they had ought to be, only a few here and there taking
two-bit chances on things if Mrs. Wales ain't going in on 'em, too;
several of the most attractive booths was plumb deserted, with the girls
in charge looking mad or chagrined, as you might say. So I remember this
hidden evil of Egbert Floud's and that the crowd has gone there; and
while I'm deciding to give in and gratify my morbid curiosity, here
comes Cousin Egbert himself, romping along in his dinner-jacket suit and
tan shoes, like a wild mustang.

"What was I telling you?" he demands. "Didn't I tell you the rest of
this show was going to die standing up? Yes, sir; she's going to pass
out on her feet." And he waved a sneering arm round at the deserted
booths. "What does parties want of this truck when they can come down to
my joint and get real entertainment for their money? Why, they're
breaking their ankles now to get in there!"

It sure looked like he was right for once in his life; so I says:

"What is it you've done?"

"Simple enough," says he, "to a thinking man. It comes to me like a
flash or inspiration, or something, from being down to that fair in San
Francisco, California. Yes, sir; they had a deadfall there, with every
kind of vice rampant that has ever been legalized any place, and several
kinds that ain't ever been; they done everything, from strong-arm work
to short changing, and they was getting by with it by reason of calling
it Ye Olde Tyme Mining Camp of '49, or something poetical like that.
That was where I got nicked for my roll, in addition to about fifty I
lost at a crooked wheel. I think the workers was mostly ex-convicts, and
not so darned ex- at that. Anyway, their stuff got too raw even for the
managers of an exposition, so they had to close down in spite of their
name. That's where I get my idee when these ladies said think up
something novel and pleasing. Just come and see how I'm taking it off of
'em." And, with that, he grabs me by the arm and rushes me down to this
joint of his.

At the side of the doorway he had two signs stuck up. One says, Ye Olde
Tyme Saloone; and the other says, Ye Olde Tyme Gambling Denne. You could
of pushed me over with one finger when I looked in. He'd drew the crowd,
all right. I knew then that Aggie Tuttle might just as well close down
her Rebekkah-at-the-Well dive, and that no one was going to take any
more chances on pincushions and tidies and knitted bed slippers.

About a third of the crowd was edged up to the bar and keeping Louis
Meyer and his father busy with drink orders, and the other two-thirds
was huddled round a roulette layout across the room. They was wedged in
so tight I couldn't see the table, but I could hear the little ball
click when it slowed up, and the rattle of chips, and squeals from them
that won, and hoarse mutters from the losers.

Cousin Egbert rubbed his hands and giggled, waiting for me to bedeck him
with floral tributes.

"I suppose you got a crooked wheel," I says.

"Shucks, no!" says he. "I did think of it, but I'd of had to send out of
town for one and they're a lot of trouble to put in, what with the
electric wiring and all; and besides, the straightest roulette wheel
ever made is crooked enough for any man of decent instincts. I don't
begrudge 'em a little excitement for their money. I got these old bar
fixings out of the Spilmer place that was being tore down, and we're
charging two bits a drink for whatever, and that'll be a help; and it
looks to me like you ladies would of thought you needed a man's brain in
these shows long before this. Come on in and have a shot. I'll buy."

So we squeezed in and had one. It was an old-time saloon, all
right--that is, fairly old; about 1889, with a brass foot rail, and back
of the bar a stuffed eagle and a cash register. A gang of ladies was
taking claret lemonades and saying how delightfully Bohemian it all was;
and Miss Metta Bigler, that gives lessons in oil painting and burnt
wood, said it brought back very forcibly to her the Latin Quarter of
Chicago, where she finished her art course. Henrietta Templeton Price,
with one foot on the railing, was shaking dice with three other
prominent society matrons for the next round, and saying she had always
been a Bohemian at heart, only you couldn't go very far in a small town
like this without causing unfavourable comment among a certain element.

It was a merry scene, with the cash register playing like the Swiss
Family Bellringers. Even the new Episcopalian minister come along, with
old Proctor Knapp, and read the signs and said they was undeniably
quaint, and took a slug of rye and said it was undeniably delightful;
though old Proctor roared like a maddened bull when he found what the
price was. I guess you can be an Episcopalian one without its
interfering much with man's natural habits and innocent recreations.
Then he went over and lost a two-bit piece on the double-o, and laughed
heartily over the occurrence, saying it was undeniably piquant with old
Proctor plunging ten cents on the red and losing it quick, and saying a
fool and his money was soon parted--yes, and I wish I had as much money
as that old crook ain't foolish; but no matter.

Beryl Mae Macomber was aiding the Belgians by running out in the big
room to drum up the stragglers. She was now being Little Nugget, the
Miners' Pet; and when she wasn't chasing in easy money she'd loll at one
end of the bar with a leer on her flowerlike features to entice honest
workingmen in to lose their all at the gaming tables. There was
chuck-a-luck and a crap game going, and going every minute, too, with
Cousin Egbert trying to start three-card monte at another table--only
they all seemed wise to that. Even the little innocent children give him
the laugh.

I went over to the roulette table and lost a few dollars, not being able
to stick long, because other women would keep goring me with their
elbows. Yes, sir; that layout was ringed with women four deep. All that
the men could do was stand on the outside and pass over their loose
silver to the fair ones. Sure! Women are the only real natural-born
gamblers in the world. Take a man that seems to be one and it's only
because he's got a big streak of woman in him, even if it don't show any
other way. Men, of course, will gamble for the fun of it; but it ain't
ever funny to a woman, not even when she wins. It brings out the natural
wolf in her like nothing else does. It was being proved this night all
you'd want to see anything proved. If the men got near enough and won a
bet they'd think it was a good joke and stick round till they lost it.
Not so my own sex. Every last one of 'em saw herself growing rich on
Cousin Egbert's money--and let the Belgians look out for themselves.

Mrs. Tracy Bangs, for instance, fought her way out of the mob, looking
as wild as any person in a crazy house, choking twenty-eight dollars to
death in her two fists that she win off two bits. She crowds this onto
Tracy and makes him swear by the sacred memory of his mother that he
will positively not give her back a cent of it to gamble with if the
fever comes on her again--not even if she begs him to on her bended
knees. And fifteen minutes later the poor little shark nearly has
hysterics because Tracy won't give her back just five of it to gamble
again with. Sure! A very feminine woman she is.

Tracy is a pretty good little sport himself. He says, No, and that'll be
all, please, not only on account of the sacred memory of his mother but
because the poor Belgians has got to catch it going if they don't catch
it coming; and he's beat it out to a booth and bought the
twenty-five-dollar gold clock with chimes, with the other three dollars
going for the dozen bottles of Snake Oil and the twenty street-car
tickets.

And now let there be no further words about it, but there was when she
hears this horrible disclosure--lots of words, and the brute won't even
give her the street-car tickets, which she could play in for a dollar,
and she has to go to the retiring room to bathe her temples, and treats
Tracy all the rest of the evening like a crippled stepchild, thinking of
all she could of won if he hadn't acted like a snake in the grass toward
her!

Right after this Mrs. Leonard Wales, in her flag and powder, begun to
stick up out of the scene, though not risking any money as yet. She'd
just stand there like one petrified while cash was being paid in and
out, keeping away about three women of regular size that would like to
get their silver down. I caught the gleam in her eye, and the way she
drawed in her breath when the lucky number was called out, kind of
shrinking her upper lip every time in a bloodthirsty manner. Yes, sir;
in the presence of actual money that dame reminded me of the great
saber-toothed tiger that you see terrible pictures of in the animal
books.

Pretty soon she mowed down a lot of her sister gamblers and got out to
where Leonard was standing, to tell him all about how she'd have won a
lot of money if she'd only put some chips down at the right time, the
way she would of done if she'd had any; and Leonard said what a shame!
And they drifted into a corner, talking low. I bet she was asking him if
she couldn't make a claim to these here bets she'd won in her mind, and
if this wasn't the magic time to get the little home or bungalow on the
new lot she'd won by finding out from the Chicago professor how to mould
her destiny.

Then I lose track of the two for a minute, because Judge Ballard comes
in escorting his sister from South Carolina, that's visiting them, and
invites every one to take something in her honour. She was a frail
little old lady, very old-fashioned indeed, with white hair built up in
a waterfall and curls over both ears, and a flowered silk dress that I
bet was made in Civil War times, and black lace mitts. Say! She looked
like one of the ladies that would of been setting in the front of a box
at Ford's Theatre the night President Lincoln was shot up!

She seemed a mite rattled when she found herself in a common barroom,
having failed to read Cousin Egbert's undeniably quaint signs; but the
Judge introduced her to some that hadn't met her yet, and when he asked
her what her refreshment would be she said in a very brazen way that she
would take a drop of anisette cordial. Louis Meyer says they ain't
keeping that, and she says, Oh, dear! she's too old-fashioned! So Cousin
Egbert says, why, then she should take an old-fashioned cocktail, which
she does and sips it with no sign of relish. Then she says she will
help the cause by wagering a coin on yonder game of chance.

The Judge paws out a place for her and I go along to watch. She pries
open a bead reticule that my mother had one like and gets out a knitted
silk purse, and takes a five-dollar gold piece into her little bony
white fingers and drops it on a number, and says: "Now that is well
over!" But it wasn't over. There was excitement right off, because,
outside of some silver dollars I'd lost myself, I hadn't seen anything
bigger than a two-bit piece played there that night. Right over my
shoulder I heard heavy breathing and I didn't have to turn round to know
it was Cora Wales. When the ball slowed up she quit breathing entirely
till it settled.

It must of been a horrible strain on her, for the man was raking in all
the little bets and leaving the five-dollar one that win. Say! That
woman gripped an arm of mine till I thought it was caught in machinery
of some kind! And Mrs. Doc Martingale, that she gripped on the other
side, let out a yell of agony. But that wasn't the worst of Cora Wales'
torture. No, sir! She had to stand there and watch this little
old-fashioned sport from South Carolina refuse the money!

"But I can't accept it from you good people," says she in her thin
little voice. "I intended to help the cause of those poor sufferers, and
to profit by the mere inadvertence of your toy there would be
unspeakable--really no!"

And she pushed back the five and the hundred and seventy-five that the
dealer had counted out for her, dusted her little fingers with a little
lace handkerchief smelling of lavender, and asked the Judge to show her
a game that wasn't so noisy.

I guess Cora Wales was lost from that moment. She had Len over in a
corner again, telling him how easy it was to win, and how this poor
demented creature had left all hers there because Judge Ballard probably
didn't want to create a scene by making her take it; and mustn't they
have a lot of trouble looking after the weak-minded thing all the time!
And I could hear her say if one person could do it another could,
especially if they had learned how to get in tune with the Infinite. Len
says all right, how much does she want to risk? And that scares her
plumb stiff again, in spite of her uncanny powers. She says it wouldn't
be right to risk one cent unless she could be sure the number was going
to win.

Of course if you made your claim on the Universal, your own was bound to
come to you; still, you couldn't be so sure as you ought to be with a
roulette wheel, because several times the ball had gone into numbers
that she wasn't holding for with her psychic grip, and the uncertainty
was killing her; and why didn't he say something to help her, instead of
standing there silent and letting their little home slip from her grasp?

Cousin Egbert comes up just then, still happy and puffed up; so I put
him wise to this Wales conspiracy against his game.

"Mebbe you can win back that lot from her," I says, "and raffle it over
again for the fund. She's getting worked up to where she'll take a
chance."

"Good work!" says he. "I'll approach her in the matter."

So over he goes and tries to interest her in the dice games; but no, she
thinks dice is low and a mere coloured person's game. So then he says to
set down to the card table and play this here Canfield solitaire; she's
to be paid five dollars for every card she gets up and a whole thousand
if she gets 'em all up. That listens good to her till she finds she has
to give fifty-two dollars for the deck first. She says she knew there
must be some catch about it. Still, she tries out a couple of deals just
to see what would happen, and on the first she would have won thirteen
dollars and on the second eight dollars. She figures then that by all
moral rights Cousin Egbert owes her twenty-one dollars, and at least
eight dollars to a certainty, because she was really playing for money
the second time and merely forgot to mention it to him.

And while they sort of squabble about this, with Cousin Egbert very
pig-headed or adamant, who should come in but this Sandy Sawtelle,
that's now sobbing out his heart in song down there; and with him is
Buck Devine. It seems they been looking for a game, and they give
squeals of joy when they see this one. In just two minutes Sandy is
collecting thirty-five dollars for one that he had carefully placed on
No. 11. He gives a glad shout at this, and Leonard Wales and lady move
over to see what it's all about. Sandy is neatly stacking his red chips
and plays No. 11 once more, but No. 22 comes up.

"Gee!" says Sandy. "I forgot. Twenty-two, of course, and likewise
thirty-three."

So he now puts dollar bets on all three numbers, and after a couple more
turns he's collecting on 33, and the next time 22 comes again. He don't
hardly have time to stack his chips, they come so fast; and then it's
No. 11 once more, amid rising excitement from all present. Cora Wales is
panting like the Dying Gamekeeper I once saw in the Eden Musee in New
York City. Sandy quits now for a moment.

"Let every man, woman, and child, come one, come all, across the room
and crook the convivial elbow on my ill-gotten gains!" he calls out.

So everybody orders something; Tim Mahoney going in behind the bar to
help out. Even Cora Wales come over when she understood no expense was
attached to so doing, though taking a plain lemonade, because she said
alcohol would get one's vibrations all fussed up, or something like
that.

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