Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

826 The Slapper grinned. Then he lighted a cigarette, and looked up and down from the station platform. To the left, three or four stores and a church indicated the center of the town, ‘There were several square dwelling houses set back from a little com- mon, or green, elm shaded and having in the middle a granite statue of a soldier wearing bagev clothes and a flat, visored cap. Farther along the houses were smaller, and widely spaced. To the right the road rounded a little hillock of sand, anchored by wiry beach grass. He picked up his suit case and followed after the Tucker buckboard. As his informant had said, it was easy to trail the deeply cut wheel tracks in the white sand of the road. He passed half a dozen small houses, each with a yard in front, inclosed by white palings. Holly- hocks and sweet Williams bloomed in them, and against the white walls. Rambler roses clambered over the front door. At the backs, dories were drawn up on the beach. One of the houses had a long wharf, or landing stage, at the end of which a sail- boat was tied. her mainsail dropped at the peak and lazily flapping. Gulls screamed overhead. Five minutes beyond the turn of the road brought him to the Tucker place. He knew it because the buckboard stood at the rear. The house was surprisingly large, with a gambrel roof and many small paned win- dows. The door was wide, and set above a worn step, the half of an old grindstone. A brightly burnished brass knocker gleamed against the dull green of the panels. Green tlinds repeated the note; and a mighty lilac at one end rose as high as the second story windows. He pressed the wrought iron latch of the gate, and passed up a wide path bordered with huge clam shells. Never having seen a knocker, he used his own knuckles; and presently a young girl opened and looked pleasantly into his eyes from her own wide and rather surprised blue ones. She was plainly but cleanly dzessed, and her color, he thought, beat anything he had ever seen. Her hair was too severely drawn back; but there was plenty of it, and it was reddish gold, like mahogany. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. She was wiping her hands upon a big apron. They were pretty hands, but rather red. ‘* What is it you want?” she asked. And her voice, somehow, made you feel that She could sing, if she tried. ‘“Can I see your father?” the Slappe asked. : She shook her head, smiling. ‘“Don’t see how! He was lost at sea when I was a baby. I never saw him.” The Slapper turned red, and was sore at himself for it. ‘‘' What I mean is, a guy up at the station told me p’raps I could get myself boarded here. He said Tucker was the name. Is he in?” The girl nodded. ‘“TI’ll call him,” she said. “I’m the hired girl here. Will you please step in?” He followed her into a square hall, and thence to a large, dark room leading off at the right. It was the parlor, hence used only on special occasions such as funerals, or when the minister came to call, or when the Ladies’ Aid Society met at the Tuckers. He seated himself upon a horsehair sofa, and nearly slid off its surprising surface; but the girl had already left the room and did not see. The Slapper glanced about the great, dim room. His eyes fell upon strange orna- ments; a narwhal tusk, the model of a square rigger upon the mantel, flanked by a peacock feather and a big pink shell; some ancestral portraits of villainous mien. He wondered idly what they had done time for. He hadn’t the slightest doubt but that they were famous criminals in their day. His musings were broken by the arrival of Tucker, wearing his hat, and regarding him from mild eyes as he lounged in the door- way. “ Evenin’,” he said. see me?” ‘“T come up here fer me health,” an- nounced the Slapper. ‘‘ Just outa hospital. The doc said I needed—” ‘“‘ What was you op’rated on fer?” Tucker asked with interest. The young man hesitated for a second only. ‘“ ’Pendicitis,”’ he decided. “Hurt much?” “Naw! ’Course not. “You wanted to IT was doped.” COMmiclboo (©