O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 by Various

V >> Various >> O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

"Where's your license, camel?"

"Make it legal, camel."

A man near by prodded Perry.

"Give him a piece of paper, camel. Anything'll do."

Perry fumbled confusedly in his pocket, found a folded paper and
pushed it out through the camel's mouth. Holding it upside down
Jumbo pretended to scan it earnestly.

"Dis yeah's a special camel's license," he said. "Get you ring ready,
camel."

Inside the camel Perry turned round and addressed his latter half.

"Gimme a ring, for Pete's sake!"

"I ain't got none," protested a weary voice.

"You have. I saw it."

"I ain't goin' to take it offen my hand."

"If you don't I'll kill you."

There was a gasp and Perry felt a huge affair of rhinestone and
brass inserted into his hand.

Again he was nudged from the outside.

"Speak up!"

"I do!" cried Perry quickly.

He heard Betty's responses given in a laughing debonair tone, and
the sound of them even in this burlesque thrilled him.

If it was only real! he thought. If it only was!

Then he had pushed the rhinestone through a tear in the camel's coat
and was slipping it on her finger, muttering ancient and historic
words after Jumbo. He didn't want any one to know about this ever.
His one idea was to slip away without having to disclose his identity,
for Mr. Tate had so far kept his secret well. A dignified young man,
Perry--and this might injure his infant law practice.

"Kiss her, camel!"

"Embrace the bride!"

"Unmask, camel, and kiss her!"

Instinctively his heart beat high as Betty turned to him laughingly
and began playfully to stroke the cardboard muzzle. He felt his
self-control giving away, he longed to seize her in his arms and
declare his identity and kiss those scarlet lips that smiled
teasingly at him from only a foot away--when suddenly the laughter
and applause round them died away and a curious hush fell over the
hall. Perry and Betty looked up in surprise. Jumbo had given vent to
a huge "Hello!" in such a startled and amazed voice that all eyes
were bent on him.

"Hello!" he said again. He had turned round the camel's marriage
license, which he had been holding upside down, produced spectacles
and was studying it intently.

"Why," he exclaimed, and in the pervading silence his words were
heard plainly by everyone in the room, "this yeah's a sho-nuff
marriage permit."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Say it again, Jumbo!"

"Sure you can read?"

Jumbo waved them to silence and Perry's blood burned to fire in his
veins as he realized the break he had made.

"Yassuh!" repeated Jumbo. "This yeah's a sho-nuff license, and the
pa'ties concerned one of 'em is dis yeah young lady, Miz Betty Medill,
and th' other's Mistah Perry Pa'khurst."

There was a general gasp, and a low rumble broke out as all eyes
fell on the camel. Betty shrank away from him quickly, her tawny
eyes giving out sparks of fury.

"Is you Mistah Pa'khurst, you camel?"

Perry made no answer. The crowd pressed up closer and stared at him
as he stood frozen rigid with embarrassment, his cardboard face
still hungry and sardonic, regarding the ominous Jumbo.

"You-all bettah speak up!" said Jumbo slowly, "this yeah's a mighty
serous mattah. Outside mah duties at this club ah happens to be a
sho-nuff minister in the Firs' Cullud Baptis' Church. It done look
to me as though you-all is gone an' got married."

V

The scene that followed will go down forever in the annals of the
Tallyho Club. Stout matrons fainted, strong men swore, wild-eyed
debutantes babbled in lightning groups instantly formed and instantly
dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued,
hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they
would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or someone and the Baptis'
preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur
lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents,
ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any
hint or suspicion of prearrangement in what had occurred.

On the corner Mrs. Townsend was crying softly on the shoulder of
Mr. Howard Tate, who was trying vainly to comfort her; they were
exchanging "all my fault's" volubly and voluminously. Outside on a
snow covered walk Mr. Cyrus Medill, the Aluminum Man, was being
paced slowly up and down between two brawny charioteers, giving vent
now to a grunt, now to a string of unrepeatables, now to wild
pleadings that they'd just let him get at Jumbo. He was facetiously
attired for the evening as a wild man of Borneo, and the most
exacting stage manager after one look at his face would have
acknowledged that any improvement in casting the part would have
been quite impossible.

Meanwhile the two principals held the real centre of the stage.
Betty Medill--or was it Betty Parkhurst?--weeping furiously, was
surrounded by the plainer girls--the prettier ones were too busy
talking about her to pay much attention to her--and over on the
other side of the hall stood the camel, still intact except for his
head-piece, which dangled pathetically on his chest. Perry was
earnestly engaged in making protestations of his innocence to a ring
of angry, puzzled men. Every few minutes just as he had apparently
proved his case someone would mention the marriage certificate, and
the inquisition would begin again.

A girl named Marion Cloud, considered the second best belle of Toledo,
changed the gist of the situation by a remark she made to Betty.

"Well," she said maliciously, "it'll all blow over, dear. The courts
will annul it without question."

Betty's tears dried miraculously in her eyes, her lips shut tightly
together, and she flashed a withering glance at Marion. Then she
rose and scattering her sympathizers right and left walked directly
across the room to Perry, who also rose and stood looking at her in
terror. Again silence crept down upon the room.

"Will you have the decency," she said, "to grant me five minutes'
conversation--or wasn't that included in your plans?"

He nodded, his mouth unable to form words.

Indicating coldly that he was to follow her she walked out into the
hall with her chin uptilted and headed for the privacy of one of the
little card rooms.

Perry started after her, but was brought to a jerky halt by the
failure of his hind legs to function.

"You stay here!" he commanded savagely.

"I can't," whined a voice from the hump, "unless you get out first
and let me get out."

Perry hesitated, but the curious crowd was unbearable, and unable
any longer to tolerate eyes he muttered a command and with as much
dignity as possible the camel moved carefully out on its four legs.

Betty was waiting for him.

"Well," she began furiously, "you see what you've done! You and that
crazy license! I told you, you shouldn't have gotten it! I told you!"

"My dear girl, I----"

"Don't dear-girl me! Save that for your real wife if you ever get
one after this disgraceful performance."

"I----"

"And don't try to pretend it wasn't all arranged. You know you gave
that coloured waiter money! You know you did! Do you mean to say you
didn't try to marry me?"

"No--I mean, yes--of course----"

"Yes, you'd better admit it! You tried it, and now what are you
going to do? Do you know my father's nearly crazy? It'll serve you
right if he tries to kill you. He'll take his gun and put some cold
steel in you. O-o-oh! Even if this marr--this thing can be annulled
it'll hang over me all the rest of my life!"

Perry could not resist quoting softly: "'Oh, camel, wouldn't you
like to belong to the pretty snake charmer for all your----'"

"Shut up!" cried Betty.

There was a pause.

"Betty," said Perry finally with a very faint hopefulness, "there's
only one thing to do that will really get us out clear. That's for
you to marry me."

"Marry you!"

"Yes. Really it's the only----"

"You shut up! I wouldn't marry you if--if----"

"I know. If I were the last man on earth. But if you care anything
about your reputation----"

"Reputation!" she cried. "You're a nice one to think about my
reputation _now_. Why didn't you think about my reputation before
you hired that horrible Jumbo to--to----"

Perry tossed up his hands hopelessly.

"Very well. I'll do anything you want. Lord knows I renounce all
claims!"

"But," said a new voice, "I don't."

Perry and Betty started, and she put her hand to her heart.

"For heaven's sake, what was that?"

"It's me," said the camel's back.

In a minute Perry had whipped off the camel's skin, and a lax, limp
object, his clothes hanging on him damply, his hand clenched tightly
on an almost empty bottle, stood defiantly before them.

"Oh," cried Betty, tears starting again to her eyes, "you brought
that object in here to frighten me! You told me he was deaf--that
awful person!"

The ex-camel's back sat down on a chair with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Don't talk 'at way about me, lady. I ain't no person. I'm your
husband."

"Husband!"

The cry was wrung simultaneously from Betty and Perry.

"Why, sure. I'm as much your husband as that gink is. The smoke
didn't marry you to the camel's front. He married you to the whole
camel. Why, that's my ring you got on your finger!"

With a little cry she snatched the ring from her finger and flung it
passionately at the floor.

"What's all this?" demanded Perry dazedly.

"Jes' that you better fix me an' fix me right. If you don't I'm
a-gonna have the same claim you got to bein' married to her!"

"That's bigamy," said Perry, turning gravely to Betty.

Then came the supreme moment of Perry's early life, the ultimate
chance on which he risked his fortunes. He rose and looked first at
Betty, where she sat weakly, her face aghast at this new complication,
and then at the individual who swayed from side to side on his chair,
uncertainly yet menacingly.

"Very well," said Perry slowly to the individual, "you can have her.
Betty, I'm going to prove to you that as far as I'm concerned our
marriage was entirely accidental. I'm going to renounce utterly my
rights to have you as my wife, and give you to--to the man whose
ring you wear--your lawful husband."

There was a pause and four horror-stricken eyes were turned on him.

"Good-by, Betty," he said brokenly. "Don't forget me in your
new-found happiness. I'm going to leave for the Far West on the
morning train. Think of me kindly, Betty."

With a last glance at them he turned on his heel and his head bowed
on his chest as his hand touched the door knob.

"Good-by," he repeated. He turned the door knob.

But at these words a flying bundle of snakes and silk and tawny hair
hurled itself at him.

"Oh, Perry, don't leave me! I can't face it alone! Perry, Perry,
take me with you!"

Her tears rained down in a torrent and flowed damply on his neck.
Calmly he folded his arms about her.

"I don't care," she cried tearfully. "I love you and if you can wake
up a minister at this hour and have it done over again I'll go West
with you."

Over her shoulder the front part of the camel looked at the back
part of the camel--and they exchanged a particularly subtle,
esoteric sort of wink that only true camels can understand.

BREAK-NECK HILL

BY ESTHER FORBES

From _The Grinnell Review_

Down Holly Street the tide had set in for church. It was a proper,
dilatory tide. Every silk-hat glistened, every shoe was blacked, the
flowers on the women's hats were as fresh as the daffodils against
the house fronts. Few met face to face, now and then a faster walker
would catch up with acquaintances and join them or, with a flash of
raised hat, bow, and pass on down the stream.

Then the current met an obstacle. A man, young and graceful and very
much preoccupied, walked through the church-goers, faced in the
opposite direction. His riding breeches and boots showed in spite of
the loose overcoat worn to cover them. He bowed continually, like
royalty from a landau, almost as mechanically, and answered the
remarks that greeted him.

"Hello, Geth."

"Hello."

"Good morning, Mr. Gething. Not going to church this morning." This
from a friend of his mother.

"Good morning. No, not this morning." He met a chum.

"Good riding day, eh?"

"Great."

"Well, Geth, don't break your neck."

"You bet not."

"I'll put a P.S. on the prayer for you," said the wag.

"Thanks a lot." The wag was always late--even to church on Easter
morning. So Gething knew the tail of the deluge was reached and past.
He had the street almost to himself. It was noticeable that the man
had not once called an acquaintance by name or made the first remark.
His answers had been as reflex as his walking. Geth was thinking,
and in the sombre eyes was the dumb look of a pain that would not be
told--perhaps he considered it too slight.

He left Holly Street and turned into Holly Park. Here from the grass
that bristled so freshly, so ferociously green, the tree trunks rose
black and damp. Brown pools of water reflected a blue radiant sky
through blossoming branches. Gething subsided on a bench well
removed from the children and nurse maids. First he glanced at the
corner of Holly Street and the Boulevard where a man from his
father's racing stable would meet him with his horse. His face, his
figure, his alert bearing, even his clothes promised a horse-man.
The way his stirrups had worn his boots would class him as a rider.
He rode with his foot "through" as the hunter, steeple chaser, and
polo-player do--not on the ball of his foot in park fashion.

He pulled off his hat and ran his hand over his close-cropped head.
Evidently he was still thinking. Across his face the look of pain
ebbed and returned, then he grew impatient. His wrist-watch showed
him his horse was late and he was in a hurry to be started, for what
must be done had best be done quickly. Done quickly and forgotten,
then he could give his attention to the other horses. There was
Happiness--an hysterical child, and Goblin, who needed training over
water jumps, and Sans Souci, whose lame leg should be cocained to
locate the trouble--all of his father's stable of great thoroughbreds
needed something except Cuddy, who waited only for the bullet.
Gething's square brown hand went to his breeches pocket, settled on
something that was cold as ice and drew it out--the revolver. The
horse he had raced so many times at Piping Rock, Brookline, Saratoga
had earned the right to die by this hand which had guided him.
Cuddy's high-bred face came vividly before his eyes and the white
star would be the mark. He thrust the revolver back in his pocket
hastily for a child had stopped to look at him, then slowly rose and
fell to pacing the gravel walk. A jay screamed overhead, "Jay, jay,
jay!"

"You fool," Geth called to him and then muttered to himself.
"Fool, fool--oh, Geth----" From the boulevard a voice called him.

"Mr. Gething--if you please, sir----!" It was Willet the trainer.

"All right, Willet." The trainer was mounted holding a lean
greyhound of a horse. Gething pulled down the stirrups.

"I meant to tell you to bring Cuddy for me to ride, last time, you
know."

"Not that devil. I could never lead him in. Frenchman, here, is well
behaved in cities."

Gething swung up. He sat very relaxed upon a horse. There was a
lifetime of practice behind that graceful seat and manner with the
reins. The horse started a low shuffling gait that would take them
rapidly out of the city to the Gething country place and stables.

"You know," Geth broke silence, "Cuddy's got his--going to be shot."

"Not one of us, sir," said Willet, "but will sing Hallelujah! He
kicked a hole in Muggins yesterday. None of the boys dare touch him,
so he hasn't been groomed proper since your father said he was to go.
It's more dangerous wipin' him off than to steeplechase the others."
Geth agreed. "I know it isn't right to keep a brute like that."

"No, sir. When he was young and winning stakes it seemed different.
I tell you what, we'll all pay a dollar a cake for soap made out 'er
old Cuddy."

"There'll be no soap made out of old Cuddy," Gething interrupted him,
"I'll ride him out--up to the top of Break-Neck Hill and shoot him
there. You'd better begin the trench by noon. When it's dug I'll
take him to the top and----"

"But nobody's been on his back since your father said it was useless
to try to make him over. Too old for steeplechasing and too much the
racer for anything else, and too much the devil to keep for a suvnor."

"Well, I'll ride him once again."

"But, Mr. Geth, he's just been standing in his box or the paddock
for four weeks now. We've been waiting for you to say when he was to
be shot. He's in a sweet temper and d' y'er know, I think, I do----"

"What do you think?" Willet blushed purple.

"I think Cuddy's got something in his head, some plan if he gets out.
I think he wants to kill some one before he dies. Yes, sir, _kill_
him. And you know if he gets the start of you there is no stopping
the dirty devil."

"Yes, he does tear a bit," Geth admitted. "But I never was on a
surer jumper. Lord! How the old horse can lift you!" Gething dropped
into a disconsolate silence, interrupted before long by Willet.

"Happiness will get Cuddy's box--she's in a stall. Cuddy was always
mean to her--used to go out of his way to kick her--and she, sweet
as a kitten."

"So you'll give her his box in revenge?"

"Revenge? Oh, no sir. Just common sense." Any thought of a
sentimental revenge was distasteful to the trainer, but he was glad
that good Happiness should get his box and disappointed about the
soap. It would have lent relish to his somewhat perfunctory washings
to say to himself, "Doubtless this here bit of soap is a piece of
old Cuddy."

"How long will the trench take?"

"A good bit of time, sir. Cuddy isn't no kitten we're laying by.
I'll put them gardeners on the job--with your permission--and they
know how to shovel. You'll want an old saddle on him?"

"No, no, the one I've raced him in, number twelve, and his old
bridle with the chain bit."

"Well, well," said Willet rubbing his veiny nose.

He considered the horse unworthy of any distinction, but in his
desire to please Geth, took pains to prepare Cuddy for his death and
burial. Gething was still at the big house although it was four
o'clock and the men on Break-Neck Hill were busy with their digging.
Willet called them the sextons.

"And we, Joey," he addressed a stable boy, "we're the undertakers.
Handsome corpse, what?" Cuddy stood in the centre of the barn floor
fastened to be groomed. He was handsome, built on the cleanest lines
of speed and strength, lean as an anatomical study, perfect for his
type. The depth of chest made his legs, neck, and head look fragile.
His face was unusually beautiful--the white-starred face which had
been before Geth's eyes as he had sat in Holly Park. His pricked
ears strained to hear, his eyes to see. The men working over him
were beneath his notice.

"Look at him," complained Joey, "he pays no more attention to us
than as if we weren't here." Cuddy usually kicked during grooming,
but his present indifference was more insulting.

"Huh!" said Willet. "he knows them sextons went to Break-Neck to
dig the grave for him. Don't yer, Devil? Say, Joey, look at him
listening like he was counting the number of spadefuls it takes to
make a horse's grave. He's thinking, old Cuddy is, and scheming what
he'd like to do. I wouldn't ride him from here to Break-Neck, not
for a thousand dollars." He began rapidly with the body brush on
Cuddy's powerful haunch, then burst out:

"He thinks he'll be good and we'll think he's hit the sawdust trail,
or perhaps he wants to look pretty in his coffin. Huh! Give me that
curry. You wash off his face a bit." Cuddy turned his aristocratic
face away from the wet cloth and blew tremulously. Joey tapped the
blazing star on his forehead.

"Right there," he explained to Willet, "but anyhow he's begun to
show his age." He pointed the muzzle which had the run forward look
of an old horse and to the pits above the eyes. The grooming was
finished but neither Gething came to the stable from the big house
nor the trench diggers from Break-Neck to say that their work was
done.

"Say, Joey," suggested Willet, "I'll do up his mane in red and
yellow worsteds, like he was going to be exhibited. Red and yellow
look well on a bay. You get to the paddock and see Frenchman hasn't
slipped his blanket while I fetch the worsteds from the office."

Cuddy left alone, stopped his listening and began pulling at his
halter. It held him firm. From the brown dusk of their box-stalls
two lines of expectant horses' faces watched him. The pretty chestnut,
Happiness, already had been transferred to his old box, her white
striped face was barely visible. Farther down, on the same side,
Goblin stood staring stupidly and beyond were the heads of the three
brothers, Sans Pareil, Sans Peur and the famous Sans Souci who could
clear seven feet of timber (and now was lame.) Opposite stood Bohemia,
cold blood in her veins as a certain thickness about the throat
testified, and little Martini, the flat racer. On either side of him
were Hotspur and Meteor and there were a dozen others as famous.
Above each stall was hung the brass plate giving the name and
pedigree and above that up to the roof the hay was piled sweet and
dusty-smelling. The barn swallows twittered by an open window in the
loft. In front of Cuddy the great double doors were open to the
fields and pastures, the gray hills and the radiant sky. Cuddy
reared abruptly striking out with his front legs, crouched and
sprang against his halter again, but it held him fast. Willet, on
returning with his worsted, found him as he had left him, motionless
as a bronze horse on a black marble clock.

Willet stood on a stool the better to work on the horse's neck. His
practised fingers twisted and knotted the mane and worsted, then cut
the ends into hard tassels. The horse's withers were reached and the
tassels bobbing rakishly gave a hilarious look to the condemned
animal.

Four men, very sweaty, carrying spades entered.

"It's done," said the first, nodding, "and it's a big grave. Glad
pet horses don't die oftener."

"This ain't a pet," snapped Willet. "He's just that much property
and being of no more use is thrown away--just like an old tin can.
No more sense in burying one than the other. If I had my way about
it I'd----" But Geth entered. With his coat off he gave an
impression of greater size, like Cuddy his lines were graceful
enough to minimize his weight.

"Hole dug? Well, let's saddle up and start out." He did not go up to
Cuddy to speak to him as he usually would have done, but as if
trying to avoid him, he fell to patting Happiness's striped face.
She was fretful in her new quarters. "Perhaps," thought Willet,
"she knows it's old Cuddy and _he's_ gone out for good." All the
horses seemed nervous and unhappy. It was as if they knew that one
of their number was to be taken out to an inglorious death--not the
fortune to die on the turf track as a steeple-chaser might wish, but
ignominiously, on a hill top, after a soft canter through spring
meadows.

Cuddy stood saddled and bridled and then Willet turned in last
appeal to his master's son.

"Mr. Geth, I wouldn't ride him--not even if I rode as well as you,
which I don't. That horse has grown worse and worse these last months.
He wants to kill some one, that's what he wants." Geth shook his head.

"No use, Willet, trying to scare me. I know what I'm doing, eh Cuddy?"
He went to the horse and rubbed the base of his ears. The satin head
dropped forward on to the man's chest, a rare response from Cuddy.
Gething led him out of the stable, Willet held his head as the man
mounted.

As he thrust his foot in the stirrup Cuddy lunged at Willet, his
savage yellow teeth crushed into his shoulder. The rider pulled him
off striking him with his heavy hunting whip. The horse squealed,
arched himself in the air and sidled down the driveway. He did not
try to run or buck, but seemed intent on twisting himself into
curves and figures. The two went past the big house with its gables
and numberless chimneys and down to the end of the driveway.

There is a four foot masonry wall around the Gething country-place
("farm" they call it). The horse saw it and began jerking at his bit
and dancing, for ever since colt-hood walls had had but one meaning
for him.

"Well, at it old man," laughed Gething. At a signal Cuddy flew at it,
rose into the air with magnificent strength and landed like
thistle-down.

"Cuddy," cried the man, "there never was a jumper like you.
Break-Neck will keep, we'll find some more walls first." He crossed
the road and entered a rough pasture. It was a day of such abounding
life one could pity the worm the robin pulled. For on such a day
everything seemed to have the right to live and be happy. The crows
sauntered across the sky, care free as hoboes. Under foot the meadow
turf oozed water, the shad-bush petals fell like confetti before the
rough assault of horse and rider. Gething liked this day of wind and
sunshine. In the city there had been the smell of oiled streets to
show that spring had come, here was the smell of damp earth, pollen,
and burnt brush. Suddenly he realized that Cuddy, too, was pleased
and contented for he was going quietly now, occasionally he threw up
his head and blew "Heh, heh!" through his nostrils. Strange that
Willet had thought Cuddy wanted to kill some one--all he really
wanted was a bit of a canter.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27