Checkers: A Hard-luck Story

"Yes, but I fear she is only a friend, and that's why I 'm so sorry for him. I like Arthur; I think he is simply a dear. He has always been perfectly lovely to me. But Pert – well, Pert is very peculiar, and Arthur, you know, is awfully fast."

Checkers put on an incredulous look. "Arthur fast!" he exclaimed with a laugh. "Why, if he was in a city, I 'd expect him to get run over by a hearse inside of a week."

"Oh, you men always stand up for each other; but I know all about it. You can't fool me."

Mrs. Barlow looked up from her sewing. "You and Arthur are very old friends, I suppose," she said, interrogatively.

This was just the question that Checkers had feared. "We went to school at about the same time," he replied, and immediately struck up an air, which, for the time, precluded further questioning. "At least, I suppose we did," he thought to himself, "as we are about the same age."

Meanwhile Pert and Arthur sat in the hammock outside in the radiant moonlight. It seemed to Arthur Pert had never looked so beautiful before. Her large, dark eyes were lustrous; and a silvery halo played about her soft, brown hair, while the pale light gave the clear skin of her oval face the pallor of marble, save for her lips, which were the redder by contrast.

"Such a nice little fellow!" she had exclaimed, as Sadie and Checkers went into the house. "Who is he, Arthur? Where did he come from?"

Arthur hesitated awkwardly. It had been his intention to confess to Pert all the circumstances of his last misadventure; but her few words in praise of Checkers now suddenly emphasized in his mind the thought that everything he had to tell was as clearly discreditable to himself as it was favorable to Checkers, and he had n't the generosity of nature to put the matter upon that footing.

Still, when upon several former occasions, he had confessed to Pert his weaknesses and sins, there had been a kindness in her ready sympathy, her gentle chiding and disapproval, which seemed to bring her nearer to him than she ever was during good behavior. He had found a certain desperate pleasure at times in telling her of his misdoings. It roused her, at least temporarily, out of her usual placid indifference toward him – an attitude to which he sometimes felt that her hatred would have been preferable.

As a school-girl of sixteen, with romantic tendencies, Pert had entered upon the task of reforming Arthur, with a childish belief that the love he professed for her, and which she, in a measure, returned, might be made a means to an earnest and successful endeavor upon his part to become worthy of her. But lapse after lapse had shaken this faith, and three years of experience found her with simply a sisterly pity for this weak young man, whose devotion was so abject that he ceased to interest her, and whose spasmodic vices were not of the kind which make some men so darkly fascinating.

And so Arthur hesitated, debating rapidly in his mind what to say, what to leave unsaid. "Well, it's a rather peculiar story, Pert, although it all happened naturally enough," he answered, after a little time. "I went up to Little Rock a few weeks ago to see a party on business. I found when I got there that he had gone to Hot Springs, and so I followed him over there. I wound up the business in a couple of days, but, as long as I was there, I thought I 'd stay a week or so and take a few baths.

"Well, one day in the cooling-room I struck up a conversation with the man lying next to me, and I 'll pledge you my word I never laughed so much in all my life as I did that morning at our little friend here, who told me a lot of his hard-luck stories.

"We dressed, and went and had lunch together, and he told me that he was dead, flat broke. He had been 'bucking the tiger,' and was waiting to hear from his uncle, to whom he had written for money. I met him again a few days later, and he told me he had n't heard a word as yet; that his trunk was in hock at the hotel, and altogether he was in the deuce of a fix. But he seemed so cheerful about it all that I could n't help taking a liking to him, and I proposed that he come to Clarksville with me, and take a job in the store, till he heard from his uncle, or had saved enough money to get straightened out again. He jumped at the chance, and I brought him along. He 's a first-class salesman, and jolly good company; but I 'm afraid he won 't stay with me much longer; he's getting tired of the place already. I shall be dreadfully lonesome when he 's gone.

"But heavens, Pert; how lonesome I 've been without you, away at your school all these months. It seems so good to see you here that I can scarcely believe my eyes."

"I 'm glad to be back on some accounts, although it grows horribly stupid here."

"Stupid, Pert! It wouldn't seem stupid to me on a desert island, if you were there."

"I should n't care to try it."

"Pert, dear," Arthur's voice grew tender, "I want to say a few words to you seriously, and I beg of you to listen seriously. We are children no longer, little girl. You have finished with school, and I have practically assumed control of father's business. I have no new story to tell you, but you know that I love you and long for you now as I have loved and longed for you for years.

"You have been my good angel, Pert. It has been my love for you and your influence over me alone that has kept me steadfast during hours of terrible temptation. You know I 'm not naturally vicious, Pert; I must have inherited this appetite I have had to fight so hard against. But I am overcoming it – I 'll conquer it, Pert; and with you to be with me to love me and help me, I 'll make a good man. I 'll make a place and a name in the world. But I need you, darling – I love you, and I 'd rather die than live without you. We 'll sell out this business, leave this place, and go back to the East and civilization to live, where there 's something to see and to do. You shall have everything, anything, dear, that your heart desires – only say that you love me." And bending nearer, he sought to draw her to him in a passionate embrace.

Pert did not move from her position in the hammock; but firmly resisted his endeavor, and, taking his arm from around her waist, simply handed it back to him, as it were. (A maneuvre upon a girl's part more aggravating, en passant, than any other one thing she can do.)

"I am sorry," she said, as Arthur still sat in the hammock beside her, silent and downcast – "I 'm dreadfully sorry, Arthur, that you should have brought this matter up again. We have been such friends so many years, and you are such a good friend, when you are only a friend. I hate to wound you, if, indeed, you care for me as you say you do; but I do n't love you, Arthur, in the way you would have me, and I know I never shall. It's best that I should tell you this plainly, and I know you will be glad of it in the end. I am not the girl you think me, Arthur. You do n't know me as I really am. If you did you 'd be glad to have escaped so luckily. I always try to make a good impression, but really I am willful, selfish and discontented. You would be awfully sorry when it was too late. Believe me, I am telling the truth. So let's never talk about this any more, but be the good friends we have always been."

Arthur jumped up impatiently. "You are trifling with me, as you always do," he said, with a savage ring in his voice. "I do n't care what your faults are. I want you, just as you are, to be my wife. Care for you as I say I do! I have loved you since we were children together. I have never cared for any one else. My every thought has been for your happiness. I have never spared trouble, time or money in doing what I thought would please you – and why do you suppose I 've done so? for fun? for glory? for something to pass away time? I tell you, Pert, I 'm getting mighty tired of this kind of foolishness. You and I are fitted for each other by reason of natural situation, if nothing else. What other man is there around here who is anywhere near your equal, socially? What kind of a life will you lead cooped up on this hillside farm as the years go by? – a living death, only think of it!

"Your father is willing, anxious, that you should be married and safely provided for – I have talked with him; he has told me so. My father simply worships you, and nothing on earth would please him so much as to have you for a daughter-in-law."

"But, Arthur," said Pert, almost pleadingly, "I have told you how I feel about it. I don't love you, and how can I marry a man I do n't love? I am fonder of you, much fonder, than of any other man I know, and I can't begin to tell you how bad I should feel to lose your friendship, but – "

She paused as a sound of voices reached them, and in a moment, to her great relief, Sadie and Checkers, with the banjo, came round the house and joined them.

One sweep of the strings, to be sure it was in tune, and Checkers tendered Pert the instrument.

"No, I shan't play; we want to hear you," she laughingly exclaimed, putting her hands behind her. "I am only a novice, and you know the old proverb, 'The poor ye have always with ye.'"

Without more ado Checkers sat down and played a couple of lively airs.

"Now, a song," exclaimed Pert; "I am sure that you sing."

"How did you guess it?" asked Checkers, smiling. "Well, what shall it be, a 'serio-chronic,' or a song about some 'old oaken' thing?"

"Oh, something funny, Mr. Campbell," said Sadie.

Checkers sang a song of an Irish dance. This he followed with one of the popular ballads of the day, full of melody.

He had a clear, high voice, with a touch of that boyish sweetness in it, which made Emmet so famous. A sweetness to which the open air and the sharpness of the banjo added a charm.

The girls were delighted. They called upon him for song after song, until Arthur, pulling out his watch, said abruptly, "It is time to be going," and went to untie the horses.

Amid hearty hand-shakings and cordial invitations to call again soon, Checkers said good-by, and climbed into the buggy as Arthur drove up.

Down the driveway, out upon the moon-lit road, they sat in silence. Each was busy with his own thoughts. Arthur cut the horses viciously from time to time for no apparent reason. Checkers smoked a cigarette as though altogether pleased with himself. Arthur finally broke the spell. "Well," he exclaimed, with a rising inflection.

"A nice line of girls. Miss Barlow's 'Class A'" answered Checkers. "The other one is all right, too; but she 's just a few chips shy on looks."

"Looks are not the only thing in the world," snapped Arthur; "beauty's only skin deep."

"It might improve some of our friends a little to skin 'em, then, if that's so," laughed Checkers. "That reminds me," he continued musingly, "of what a friend of mine, 'Push' Miller, told me once. He said he never in his life ran across two pretty girls that trotted together. If one of 'em was a queen, her partner was safe to be about a nine-spot. He figured that the pretty one used the other as a kind of foil, while the homely one trailed along to get in on the excess trade which the pretty one drew, and turned over to her."

As Arthur neither laughed at, nor replied to, this sally, Checkers concluded he had a grouch, and left him to his own devices.

That night, upon going to bed, the girls, as was natural, had compared notes, and quickly discovered the apparent discrepancy between Checkers' statement to Mrs. Barlow, and the story Arthur had related to Pert.

"I am sorry to know that Mr. Campbell has told a deliberate lie," said Pert, "but there is some excuse for him, after all, for any other explanation would have been embarrassing."

"Oh, a little thing like a lie or two does n't stand in the way of the average man," said Sadie.

"Well, there is something back of Arthur's story, Sadie, I know from the way he hesitated. We 'll know all about it before long, I guess. He 's an awfully cute little fellow, though, isn't he? I hope he'll decide to stay a while; he 's such jolly good company, and Arthur's so tiresome."

"Poor Arthur!" sighed Sadie.

"Poor Pert," echoed Pert.

VI

The following afternoon Arthur complained of feeling ill. On the way home from the store he was taken with a violent chill, which was followed by a raging fever. The doctor was summoned, and pronounced it malaria, but typhoid symptoms developed later, and for weeks his life hung in the balance.

Meanwhile Checkers worked early and late at the store, to make up for Arthur's absence. He felt this loss of a companion keenly, and soon the long drive home alone, and the air of apprehension and lonesomeness, which pervaded the house, became so irksome to him that he arranged to stay in town with Mr. Bradley, who kept house with a maiden sister in their little home just next to the store.

It was from this same sister, who disliked Arthur, but had taken to Checkers, as every one did, that Pert at last learned the reason of Checkers coming to Clarksville.