Ptomaine Street: The Tale of Warble Petticoat

“Ptomaine Haul,” he exploited, proudly. “Built every inch of it from the busy little ptomaines. Coral insects nothing on that, eh? And here’s the sort of people I practice on. Old Leathersham, now—he has a corking château—French Renaissance. And Mrs. Charity Givens—she has a Georgian shack. And, oh, yes, here’s Iva Payne. She’s one of my most profitable patients—sick all the time.”

Warble studied the pictures.

“What expensive people,” she said, “dear—so dear.”

“Yes, great people. You’d love ‘em. They’re just layin’ for you. Come on, Warble, will you?”

“Yop,” she murmured, from his coat pocket, “Sweet, so sweet.”

CHAPTER III

Among the rolling stock of a great railroad, a moving mass of steel. A soft sludge as it came noiselessly to rest beneath the glazed chintz awnings of the Butterfly Center station.

A faint scent of chypre from Petticoat’s cigarette as he alit.

From his private train, which had slithered across the intervening spaces and slid into its moorings as butter slides from a hot plate.

It is September, cool, green and well-sprinkled.

The obviously important man was followed by a yellow-topped, rose-cheeked girl, whose eyes were all blue and a yard wide as she looked about.

About what?

About eighteen.

They were Dr. Big Bill Petticoat and his bride, Warble.

They had been married and had spent their honeymoon in riotous loving.

It had been transforming. Warble had been frightened to discover how hungry she could be even on a wedding trip.

Bill had mused to himself; what’s the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? One honeymoon. And now they had reached their home town. People were not altogether new to Warble. She had seen them before. But these were her own people, to bathe and encourage and adorn—and, they didn’t seem to need it.

They distressed her. They were so smart. She had always held that there is no style in America, no chic effects out of Paris.

But here on the terrace of the simple little hewn stone station were hordes of men and women who seemed to be, mentally, morally and physically, literally butterflies.

“Isn’t there any way of waking them up?” she begged of Petticoat, grabbing his arm and shaking him.

“These guys? Wake ‘em up? What for? They’re happy.”

“But they’re so smug—no, that isn’t what I mean. They’re so stick-in-the-mud.”

“Look here, Warble, you want to get over your fool idea that because a woman is slender she isn’t adorable. These folks are up to date, snuff and mischief.”

“I know, that’s what’s biting me. Life seems so hard for them.”

“Oh, they don’t mind it. Now you must meet the bunch. They’re all down here to meet their husbands or something just as good. Now you behave yourself.”

“Yop.”

She had a grip on herself. She was ready to kiss and be friends with them all. But she was scared at the rackety pack who ballyhooed like Coney Island and surged down upon her like a Niagara Falls.

She had the impression that all the men had soft voices, large, embracing arms, gimlet eyes and bored, impersonal smiles. She knew they were taking her in. Their pleasant hoots and yells of greeting overcame her.

“Oh, pleathe—pleathe,” she lisped.

In her fresh frilled dimity and soft sash of baby-blue Surah, her rolled white socks disclosing but a few tantalizing inches of seashell-pink calf, Warble stood, eyes cast down, a pretty, foolish thing,

As soft as young,
As gay as soft,

and, to a man, the male population of Butterfly Center fell for her.

Not so the remainder of the citizens.

One of the men was yelling at Petticoat:

“Hop into my car, Bill, Don’t see yours—I’ll tote the bride-person you’ve got there—with joy and gladness.” Warble looked at the yeller.

“Can’t quite place me, chick, can you?” he grinned at her. “Well I’m only old Goldwin Leathersham—no use for me in the world but to spend money. Want me to spend some on you? Here’s my old thing—step up here, Marigold, and be introduced. She’s really nicer than she looks, Mrs. Petticoat.”

“Indeed I’m not,” Marigold Leathersham cried gaily, “I couldn’t be—nobody could be!”

She came running—a beautiful, slim young woman, with a wealth of expensive looking gold hair, white and gold teeth that broke into a lavish smile. Her voice was rich and though she looked above, away from and through Warble, yet she saw her.

“So glad to welcome you, you pretty baby,” she chirruped. “You’re going to love us all, aren’t you?”

“Yop,” said Warble, and smiled her engaging smile.

“You bet she’ll love us,” declared Leathersham, “she’ll make the world go round! Hello, Little One,” he turned to pat the cheek of a white-haired, red-faced old lady, who hawk-eyed and hawk-nosed, stood by, listening in. “This, Mrs. Petticoat, is our Lady Bountiful, Mrs. Charity Givens—noted for her generosity. She ostentatiously heads all Donation Lists, and she’s going to start a rest cure where your husband’s unsuccessful cases may die in peace. And here’s one of the cases. Hello, Iva Payne!”

“Hello,” languidly responded a girl like a long pale lily—a Burne-Jones type, who sometimes carried around a small stained-glass window to rest her head against.

“Are you really Bill’s wife?” she asked, a little disinterestedly, of Warble.

“Yop,” said Warble, and made a face at her.

“How quaint,” said Iva.

“Whoopee, Baby! Here we are,” and Petticoat rescued his bride from the middle of a crowd and yanked her toward his car.

The car was a museum piece, and as Warble caromed into its cushions she felt that her lines had fallen in pleasant places.

That was the way Fate came to Warble. In big fat chunks, in slathers. Unexpected, sudden, inescapable—that’s Fate all over.

“I shall like Mr. Leathersham—I shall call him Goldie. They’re all nice and friendly—the men. But this town! Oh, my Heavens! This Jewel Casket—this Treasure Table! I can’t live through it! This Floating Island of a Tipsy Charlotte!” Her husband nudged her. “You look like you had a pain,” he said; “Scared? I don’t expect you to fit in at first. You have to get eased into things. It’s different from Pittsburgh. But you’ll come to like it—love is so free here, and the smartest people on earth.”