Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

348 their backs and puff out their tails and raise particular hell. One kind brings out the good side, and the other kind brings out the bad. Alvina Barnes’s effect on men was just as soothing and elevating as raw corn liquor. The afternoon Alvina Barnes came into my easy-going, uneventful life I was down on my hands and knees looking under the Vingo commissary at a six-foot blacksnake that had crawled there and was glaring out from the brownish gloom of rotting timbers at the world in general and my two fox ter- riers in particular. Peggy and Timmy were trying to bark the blacksnake into a state of hysterical abandon, which was a tech- nique they employed for attacking anything from a mallard duck to a Mallet locomotive, but the big snake only glared at them cold- ly and wickedly. It was so dark under the commissary that nothing could be seen but his eyes, shining out like gems, and so far apart that I thought at first the dogs had cornered a young alligator. They were yapping and snarling, rushing in and dancing back, their littlé black noses shining with the dew of excitement. I was about to get up and look around for a pole when I heard some one laugh behind me. It was Viney Barnes. In a red dress that clung to a figure that a poet would have called divine, she stood there. I suppose a decent woman would have called it a shame- ‘oless dress. It seemed to be plastered to her, and it brought out every seductive line and enticing, soft curve of her slim, beautiful body. I didn’t notice her eyes then; I was too busy watching her arms. They were fascinating arms, long and tapering and flexible, and as white as Jeaf-lard. They were white snakes, and she was waving them around. “What is it—a ’gator?” she asked in a voice that almost made me jump. I must tell you about that voice. It was as sweet as the low notes on an expensive fiddle. It was pure music, full of rich over- tones and mellow undertones. It made you shiver and breathe deep. It was as if you had been listening for that voice all your life and were a little scared when you final- ly heard it. Does that mean anything to ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. you? I can’t explain it any clearer than that. The voice was simply a part of her; it went with her white rose skin, her per- fect white teeth, her masses of dark red hair—titian, do they call it—and her beau- tiful hands and feet. “No,” I answered, “it’s only a black- snake.” . She became more excited than ever. Not scared, but excited. You know how most women are about snakes; they squeal and run into the nearest pair of male arms at sight of a reptile. Not Alvina Barnes. She squealed, but not because she was scared, and certainly she didn’t run into the nearest pair of male arms. I almost wish she had. Not many men are privileged to embrace so much at one time., I forgot the blacksnake, watching her. Her animation was a delight. She was never still. She couldn’t sit or stand in any one place longer than a few seconds at a time. Jt was pure restlessness. When I came to know her better, and realized the depths of deviltry in her, I likened her to one of these unhappy spirits that are con- demned to move on and on through eter- nity, never stopping, never resting, but hur- rying, hurrying blindly, as if the devil him- self was prodding them with a red hot pitchfork, as perhaps he is. She kneeled down to look under the com- missary. ‘“T can see its eyes!” she cried. “It’s a big one! It’s a whopping big one!” She sprang to her feet as lightly and as gracefully as if she had been lifted up by a puff of wind. “Let’s kill it!” she squealed. ‘‘ Come on, let’s kill it! Get a club. Sick ’im! Sick ’im! Atta pup!” I looked madly around for a stick. Even the fox terriers caught the spirit of her— that wild, contagious excitement that was never far below her skin, and they snarled and yelped and dashed closer to the snake than they had dared under my half-laugh- ing commands. Alvina tore off a frond from a cabbage palmetto—one of a row I had planted and was tenderly nursing—and with the dogs yipping beside and in front of her poked the large rattling leaf‘in the snake’s face. oO GOMmichoo cS (E@)