Object, Matrimony

    Being a Further Chapter in the Annals of “The Hall of Mirth,”
                  as Related by Bud Preston, Cowboy

                            By B. M. Bower

   Author of “The Hall of Mirth,” “The Curious Mr. Canfield,” Etc.


Women are all right—if yuh keep far enough away from them. It’s when
yuh take down your rope and commence to widen your loop for one that
trouble generally begins; or else when yuh get one, she runs on the
rope and keeps yuh guessing other ways.

The time I was working for old Shooting-star Wilson, I sure got an
object-lesson that I won’t forget in a week or two. We was living
happy and content, and meaning harm to nobody that winter. It was the
winter after Shooting-star had got his wad—ten thousand dollars—from
the old country, and had blowed it all in on a house to give a
Washington’s Birthday ball in. He sure done himself proud; and spent
every blame cent on the house and dance. So the next day he told Ellis
and me to roll our beds and move into the mansion—which same domicile
we called the Hall of Mirth, for various reasons that would uh stood
in court, all right.

It sure was a woozy proposition, for a real house. We got kinda
accustomed to the red, white, and blue diamonds painted on the floors,
and to the stars and stripes on the ceilings, and the red and green
and blue chairs; but they sure got on our nerves at first.

Folks used to come miles to see that house, which I will say was worth
the trip, all right. But, seeing it was built for a dance, it never
did get so it fit us, like some shacks do. We’d pull the biggest plush
chairs in the house up to the big fireplace in the back parlor, and
shut all the sliding-doors, and roll us a cigarette apiece, and stick
out our legs as far as nature’d allow, toward the fire. And even then
we felt like we’d been shut into a razzle-dazzle hall somewheres, and
the crowd had all gone off and left us; they were unmerciful big
rooms.

Ellis and me used to make a sneak down to the old bunk-house once in
awhile, and make a fire in the old stove, and snatch a little comfort.
But it always hurt Shooting-star’s feelings; and besides, he was such
an economical old cuss—in some ways. He said it ground him to have all
that good money into a house, and then not get any good out of it. So
we had to stick to the Hall of Mirth, whether we wanted to or not. But
honest, them rooms was so big they echoed like thunder; and the walls
and floors and ceilings was that gaudy we came near having to put on
brown goggles. Even the books was all red and blue and green bindings.
Shooting-star sure liked to have things match.

That winter all the kids in the country got to mixing things with
measles and whooping-cough, and the like, so there wasn’t any dances
or anything. Everybody stayed at home so they wouldn’t catch nothing,
and then wondered where the dickens they’d caught it at. So times was
dull, and there wasn’t nothing doing in the shape of amusement. One of
us would ride into Bent Willow, once in a week or so, and glom all the
papers and magazines we could. We’d just about finished the red and
blue and green books—what hadn’t just about finished us, that is.

So one day I rode in and brought out a bundle uh magazines—the kind
that’s thirty cents a year, or only twenty if yuh get up a club uh
four. Yuh know the brand all right, I guess. They have stories told in
shifts, and every shift saws off short just when you’re plumb wild
with desire to know how he rescued the beautiful Lady Floribel from
the up-stairs of the burning manor-house, with the staircase just
commencing to crackle up good; or some such a lay as that. And there’s
pages in it that tells yuh how to be beautiful, and others that hands
out wisdom on the momentous question of what it’s polite for a girl to
say to the gazabo she’s been dancing with, after he’s tromped on her
toes and took a chunk out of her dress; should she say, “Don’t mention
it,” or shall she bawl him out before the crowd the way she’d like to?

Ellis and I was playing pitch that night, and old Shooting-star had
the bunch uh magazines, going through them methodical and serious.
Shooting-star swallows everything he sees in print, like them writer
sharps didn’t know enough to lie. And once in awhile he’d read a piece
out to us. He went through the cooking page, licking his chops over
the salads and truck, and wishing we wasn’t such a bone-headed bunch,
so we could frame up some uh the things.

“A woman could sure do it,” he says, kinda thoughtful. “But it’s no
use either uh you tackling this here coffee frappy; but I’ll gamble
it’s out uh sight. There’s times,” he says, “when a woman is about the
best investment a man can make.”

“If he don’t go and invest in ’em too heavy,” puts in Ellis.

Shooting-star didn’t say no more then. But pretty soon he read out a
little short piece that they stuck in between the advertisements. It
said:

    A loveless life is a life barren of all joy, all
    contentment, all hope. Marriage broadens the life as
    nothing else can do; it rounds out character, makes for
    generosity and true sympathy. The man who is blessed with
    a true, loving helpmate need never fear the barren years
    of a lonely old age.

Or if them ain’t just the words, they’re mighty near it.

Shooting-star looks at us over his glasses. “Boys,” he says, “blamed
if I don’t believe that’s about so! An old bach like me sure does live
a kinda barren existence; and there ain’t enough joy in the life I’m
leading to talk about. I believe the men that’s broke to work double
has got all the best uh the deal. Anyway,” he says, pointed, “they can
git something to eat besides sour-dough bread and fried bacon and
stewed apricots. They git cake once in awhile; cake that’s fit to
eat.”

Ellis kinda brustled up at that. He’d been doing the cooking that
week, and he’d tackled a cake—a fruit-cake, with prunes in it for the
fruit—and he’d been short uh lard, and had used bacon grease for
short’ning, which give it a taste that didn’t harmonize none too well
with the prunes. It was sure hot stuff; we fed some of it to an old
pinto of Shooting-star’s that was a biscuit fiend; and the pinto
turned his lip up till he couldn’t hardly see over it, and went around
all day looking at us reproachful; it was giving him the double-cross,
all right, to hand out such a mess for him to swallow. So Ellis took
Shooting-star’s remark personal.

“Why don’t yuh get married, then?” he says. “Why don’t yuh cast your
loop over that widow in Bent Willow? The chances is she savvies
building a cake out uh nothing but bad flour and hope.”

That was a come-back at Shooting-star, who wasn’t a bit too liberal in
buying stuff to cook with.

“I wouldn’t take er as a gift,” says Shooting-star. And he goes back
to his magazine.

We played for awhile, and kinda forgot the subject, when the Old Man
breaks out in a new spot.

“Boys,” he says, “listen to this once:

    “A bright, loving, sensible young lady, with some means,
    would like to correspond with affectionate, honorable
    gentleman; one with some country property preferred. Must
    be sober, honest, and willing to make a good and loving
    husband. No trifler need answer this, or widower. Object,
    matrimony.

                                                       “L. A.”

He looked at us expectant, and waited for somebody to say something.

“Three,” said Ellis, looking at me.

“Pitch it,” said I; and he played the deuce uh spades.

Shooting-star grunted. “Anyway, I ain’t no trifler, and I ain’t a
widower,” he said, like we’d been arguing the point with him, and had
raised doubts of his being able to qualify.

“Which it’s a cinch you’ll wish yuh was,” remarked Ellis, without
looking up.

“And I’m there with the goods when it comes to country property,” said
Shooting-star, looking at us both kinda anxious. I seen him out uh the
tail uh my eye.

“And you’re shore affectionate and honorable,” put in Ellis,
sarcastic. Ellis hadn’t forgot the slur on his cake. “And you’re some
sober—by spells.”

Shooting-star rose up and looked fighty. “There’s times, young feller,
when punching would do yuh good,” he snarls, malignant.

“Yes, sir, punching would do yuh good; and if yuh don’t calm down and
have some manners about yuh, it’s apt to happen. If you can lay your
finger on a time when I was too full to walk straight, I’d sure admire
to have yuh. She says _sober_, which means walking straight and being
able to find the door. She don’t say I’ve got to be a darned
pro’bitionist, does she? Hey? And I guess I could be some
affectionate—if I had any call to be. And I ain’t no trifler. If I
answered her ad I’d mean business. And I ain’t a widower. She’s
bright, and lovin’, and sensible—and them brands sure look good to me.
I’d sure love to have somebody in the house with sense!”

“Well,” grins Ellis, “go after it, old-timer. But while Bud and me
mayn’t have much sense, yuh want to bear in mind that we’re sure
bright and loving.”

“Loving!” snorts Shooting-star, and went to spelling out the ad again
in a whisper.

Next morning Shooting-star saddled up and rode off to Bent Willow
mysterious. He wasn’t gone long, and he didn’t bring nothing back—not
even a jag; so Ellis and me frames it up between us that he’s up and
wrote to that bright, loving, sensible young lady that’s hankering for
a loving husband. Still, we don’t know nothing for sure, because
Shooting-star gets plumb silent on the subject, and all the hints we
throw out don’t bring results of any kind.

Ellis and me kinda worried over it, only we wouldn’t let on. But one
thing looked bad, and that was, Shooting-star would set by the hour
humped up in front uh the fireplace, reading over that advertisement,
and kinda dreaming and letting his pipe go cold. And then he’d come
alive and cast his eyes around that big razzle-dazzle room, and at the
ten-by-twelve foot picture uh George Washington—only it looked like a
Cree squaw with her hair braided down her back—on the wall, and he’d
rub his knees and nod his head, like somebody had just passed out a
bunch uh hot air about his good taste in fixing up a house. It all
looked plumb dubious to Ellis and me.

Next deal Ellis brought out a letter for Shooting-star, and showed me
where it was postmarked “Plumville, Illinois,” and was in a woman’s
handwriting. “It’s from her, all right,” he says. “L. A.—Lonesome Ann.
Shall I ditch it, for the good of old Shooting-star’s soul, Bud, or
shall I hand it over and let ’er slide?”

Honest, I come blame near telling him to ditch it, and say nothing.
But when yuh come to think uh the way they come down on yuh with both
feet if yuh go monkeying with the mails, even the good of the Old Man
wouldn’t hardly be worth playing the game out. So I told Ellis he
better give up the letter, and not butt into no romance—if romance it
was to be. Ellis took the letter in and handed it over to
Shooting-star, and Shooting-star kinda breathed long and easy, and
turned it over and over in his hands, like it assayed pure gold.

I nudged Ellis, and we went out into the kitchen and shut the door.

“So help me, Ellis!” I says, “if she does him up, or plays crooked, or
ain’t straight goods, you watch me be righteous vengeance. He’s going
to take the whole blame business serious.”

Ellis didn’t hardly agree. He said we could keep cases, and if the
game didn’t look all straight, why, we could buy in and coax
Shooting-star out. He said we had slathers of influence, if we was a
mind to use it right. So we kinda laid low and kept our eyes peeled.

That night Shooting-star commenced to knock the cooking—without cause,
too. It was my week in the kitchen, and I don’t back down from no man
on boiling coffee or making sour-dough biscuits. Besides them, I had
beefsteak you could cut with a paper knife, it was that tender; and
stewed prunes with the pits all oozing out; and fresh syrup made by
burning a little white sugar in the pan first for flavor, and beans.
And if that ain’t good enough for any white man to fill up on, I’ll
hand over the dish towel and resign prompt and willing. All that
evening Shooting-star set out in the kitchen and wrote. It sure be
hard labor, because in the morning the stove was half-full uh burnt
paper—where he’d backed up for a fresh start, I took it. Once in
awhile he’d holler in to Ellis and me for our idea of the spelling of
a word; and by keeping tab on them same words, we got an idea uh what
the letter was like. I know we spelled “heartfelt” and “barren,”
“generous” and “constant” and “prayer.” Ellis and me studied for an
hour over how he figured on ringing in that last word; but Ellis has
sure got a swell imagination, and when he thought about, “May the
angels watch over you is my prayer,” we savvied right off that we were
on the right trail. Say, I’d give a lot to uh seen that letter; I bet
she was sure hot stuff.

Shooting-star rode in and mailed it himself, which sure looked to us
like he lacked confidence in Ellis and me. Then he dubbed around in a
daze till he got the answer, which wasn’t long getting here, either.
They sure seemed to go after that corresponding business enthusiastic,
and as if they meant business. This here letter had her picture in it,
and Ellis and me like to perjured our souls and twisted our necks
plumb off trying to get a look at it. But Shooting-star wouldn’t let
us see anything but the back; and he packed it around in his inside
coat pocket between times, and we never could catch him with his coat
off. It was plumb aggravating.

Along about then he got extreme fastididus over what he eat, and
bellyached over the cooking till Ellis and me was fair desperate.
Ellis got on the peck, one night, and commenced throwing it into
Shooting-star about Lonesome Ann—which is what we called her.

“It looks like you’d hurry up the nooptials, then, before yuh starve
plumb to death,” he growls. “And have yuh got a affidavy that Lonesome
Ann can frame up any better meals than what Bud and me can? The
chances is she can’t. Some uh the darndest messes I ever insulted my
insides with was throwed together by the gentle hands uh woman. Yuh
don’t want to go into this thing with your hands tied behind yuh,
Shooting-star.”

Shooting-star quit shoveling sugar into his coffee. “I ain’t,” he
retorts, kinda lofty. “She can make coffee frappy and Charlotte Rush,
and floatin’ island and plum pudding and mince pie. I asked her in my
first letter. She can make everything in the Christmas menu on the
Housekeeper’s Page uh that _Family Cricket Magazine_. I asked her. And
in about three weeks you imitation chuck-slingers can git out the
kitchen, and let somebody in that can _cook_.”

Ellis kinda gulped, but he didn’t say nothing then. Afterwards, we
went down to the old bunk-house and started a fire, and talked it over
without results. Any way we looked at it we didn’t see no chance to
butt in. We both took the same stand—that a woman that had to
advertise for a man or go without, must sure be a hard proposition.
And we didn’t take no stock in her cooking, neither; that kind of a
female would likely lie promiscous when she was after a husband. We
shook our heads sorrowful, and wisht we’d held up that first letter.
Now things had gone so far we couldn’t do nothing but look on and be
sorry.

In about two weeks Shooting-star told us to turn loose and clean up
the Hall of Mirth. He said it was plumb scandalous the way we’d let
the dirt pile up a foot thick on the floor; and he wanted George
Washington gone over with a damp cloth—which was quite a contract,
considering the size of him—and the cobwebs swept off’n the stars and
stripes on the ceiling. He said it was a disgrace the way we’d let
that beautiful place go to rack and ruin. And when he come back, he
said (he was going to Butte to meet Lonesome Ann, and they was to be
hooked up there), he wanted the house good and warm, and we was to
have the table all set in the dining-room, and all the folding-doors
wide open, so Mrs. Shooting-star could get a good view uh the beauty
and richness of her new home at one glance.

“And for the Lord’s sake,” he winds up, “don’t throw matches and
cigarette-stubs on the floor; try and have some style about yuh. And,”
he says, “I want yuh to fix up that dance sign, and light it just
before we git here. Ellis can drive in after us, and Bud, yuh sure
want to remember that sign, and have it ready; and have all the lamps
lit, so these rooms’ll show up good. I want her to see, right off,
that there ain’t nothing small about Montana.”

The sign, if yuh remember, was the one we had up over the front door
on the night he gave the great dance he’d built the house for. It was
one uh these cloth boxes, with lamps inside, and it read: “Welcome to
the Hall of Mirth” in letters you could read clear down to the first
bend in the trail. It was sure gaudy and impressive, and it looked
like a dance-hall sign—only Shooting-star never seemed to realize it.
And as to the rooms, when the lamps was lit and all the big archways
opened up, you could stand in the front door and look right down about
seventy-five feet of insanity; through the big front parlor, and the
back parlor, and the dining-room. And the farther yuh looked the
crazier it got. Shooting-star sure had an eye for bright colors.

Ellis and me didn’t hardly take time to feed the stock and eat our
meals; and by the time the bride and groom was due, things was sure
shining. When we lit the lamps and stood by the front door, just to
see how she stacked up, we got so dizzy we had to grab hold uh the
casing. Mister! it would throw a crimp into a blind man.

Well, sir, she come. Ellis and me didn’t hardly believe she would, but
she did, all right. Ellis drove up to the front door with ’em just
after it got good and dark, and the sign was casting yellow light on
the snow, and all the big bay windows oozing brightness around the
edges—for I’d pulled the blinds, so she couldn’t see inside till she
got in. Shooting-star helped her out like she was made uh glass, and
led her up the steps, and: said: “Welcome to the Hall uh Mirth, Mrs.
Wilson.” And Ellis and me hunched each other, and waited.

Shooting-star throwed the door wide open, and pulled her in. And she
give one look, and then yelled like we’d stuck a pin in her. And then
she fell backward, and Ellis and me caught her—and she was plumb dead
to the world.

We packed her in and laid her on a sky-blue couch, and Ellis brought a
bucket uh water and a dipper, while I undone her wraps. Old
Shooting-star never done a blame thing but stand around in the way
with his jaw hanging slack. Ellis and me sloshed water on her
generous, and she come to enough to open her eyes and look around; but
when she seen them walls, with that great, ungodly picture uh George
Washington, she give another squawk, and come near going off again.
Then she commenced to cry—and I want to tell yuh right now, that she
had me going when she done that. She wasn’t no beauty, but she wasn’t
as big a freak as we’d looked for her to be; and she was plumb scared
at that house—and nobody blaming her but Shooting-star. He come up and
took the slack out uh his jaw long enough to ask what ailed her; and
when she just flinched away from him, like some horses do when yuh
throw a saddle on their backs unexpected, Shooting-star looked plumb
mad.

“It’s this darn, crazy shack yuh brought her to,” snaps Ellis. “Yuh
should ’a’ told her, and kinda prepared her for the worst, yuh
two-faced old skate.”

“There ain’t nothing the matter with the house,” says Shooting-star.
“It cost ten thousand dollars—and it suits _me_.”

But it sure didn’t suit the missus. She cried for a plumb hour, and
begged pitiful for us to take her away from that dreadful place. She
said she’d sure go crazy if she had to stop there overnight.

Ellis and me wanted to warm up the old bunk-house, and take her down
there, but old Shooting-star wouldn’t stand for it. He said this was
his home, and consequently _her_ home, and here’s where she belonged,
and had got to stay, so long as she lived with _him_. Shooting-star’s
easy, if yuh don’t get him roused up; but once he bows his neck, he
can’t be neither coaxed nor drove.

So then she got fighty, and said she never would live in such a
crazy-looking place, and he must uh been crazy to build it. And they
got to passing remarks back and forth, and pretty soon Ellis and me
took a sneak. We didn’t feel that we ought to be present at no such
domestic crisis. We went out and set in the kitchen, with our feet in
the oven, and waited for the returns; but we didn’t say much. Only
once I says: “Shooting-star sure needs killing, anyway, for bringing a
white woman into such a house and trying to make her gentle down and
stay here.”

By and by she hollers for us, and we hot-footed into the parlor again.
She was still on the couch, setting squeezed into a corner with her
face covered up with her hands.

“If you are _gentlemen_,” she says, kinda teary and trembly, “you’ll
help me get back to that little town, and away from this dreadful,
insane _person_, and this dreadful, insane place. And I hope the Lord
will forgive me for doing such a foolish thing as to marry him.”

Ellis and me looked grave, and told her the team was still hooked up,
and we’d take her, if she insisted.

Shooting-star laughed savage. “Yes, and yuh can’t take her a darned
bit too quick to suit me,” he grunts. “Anybody that can’t see the
beauty and comfort of this domicile, there’s sure something wrong with
that person’s head, and they can’t pull their freight too soon,” he
says, and walks, dignified, out into the kitchen. So Ellis and me
drove her back to Bent Willow; and seeing she didn’t have much
money—as we found out by questioning her artful—we borrowed fifty
dollars, and made her take it.

That was sure a brief honeymoon—for she never come back. Her year uh
residence was up a couple uh months ago, and soon as it was, she sued
him for a divorce and fifty a month alimony, and _got it_. The court
come out and looked at the Hall uh Mirth, and went back and wrote out
the decree immediate. So now she’s back in Plumville, Illinois, living
comfortable off that fifty a month.

And Shooting-star’s praying for good years and top prices for beef,
and cursing female women promiscous. And I notice he don’t make no
kick about the cooking.


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January 1907 issue
of The Popular Magazine.]