Buttered Side Down | Page 8

of its city cousins.
The hasty pace killed Ted. He tried to keep step in a set of young folks
whose fathers had made our town. And all the time his pocketbook was
yelling, "Whoa!" The young people ran largely to scarlet-upholstered
touring cars, and country-club doings, and house parties, as small town
younger generations are apt to. When Ted went to high school half the
boys in his little clique spent their after-school hours dashing up and
down Main street in their big, glittering cars, sitting slumped down on
the middle of their spines in front of the steering wheel, their sleeves
rolled up, their hair combed a militant pompadour. One or the other of
them always took Ted along. It is fearfully easy to develop a taste for
that kind of thing. As he grew older, the taste took root and became a
habit.
Ted came out after serving his term, still handsome, spite of all that
story-writers may have taught to the contrary. But we'll make this
concession to the old tradition. There was a difference.
His radiant blondeur was dimmed in some intangible, elusive way.
Birdie Callahan, who had worked in Ted's mother's kitchen for years,
and who had gone back to her old job at the Haley House after her
mistress's death, put it sadly, thus:
"He was always th' han'some divil. I used to look forward to ironin' day
just for the pleasure of pressin' his fancy shirts for him. I'm that partial
to them swell blondes. But I dinnaw, he's changed. Doin' time has taken
the edge off his hair an' complexion. Not changed his color, do yuh
mind, but dulled it, like a gold ring, or the like, that has tarnished."
Ted was seated in the smoker, with a chip on his shoulder, and a sick
horror of encountering some one he knew in his heart, when Jo Haley,
of the Haley House, got on at Westport, homeward bound. Jo Haley is
the most eligible bachelor in our town, and the slipperiest. He has made
the Haley House a gem, so that traveling men will cut half a dozen
towns to Sunday there. If he should say "Jump through this!" to any girl

in our town she'd jump.
Jo Haley strolled leisurely up the car aisle toward Ted. Ted saw him
coming and sat very still, waiting.
"Hello, Ted! How's Ted?" said Jo Haley, casually. And dropped into
the adjoining seat without any more fuss.
Ted wet his lips slightly and tried to say something. He had been a
breezy talker. But the words would not come. Jo Haley made no effort
to cover the situation with a rush of conversation. He did not seem to
realize that there was any situation to cover. He champed the end of his
cigar and handed one to Ted.
"Well, you've taken your lickin', kid. What you going to do now?"
The rawness of it made Ted wince. "Oh, I don't know," he stammered.
"I've a job half promised in Chicago."
"What doing?"
Ted laughed a short and ugly laugh. "Driving a brewery auto truck."
Jo Haley tossed his cigar dexterously to the opposite corner of his
mouth and squinted thoughtfully along its bulging sides.
"Remember that Wenzel girl that's kept books for me for the last six
years? She's leaving in a couple of months to marry a New York guy
that travels for ladies' cloaks and suits. After she goes it's nix with the
lady bookkeepers for me. Not that Minnie isn't a good, straight girl, and
honest, but no girl can keep books with one eye on a column of figures
and the other on a traveling man in a brown suit and a red necktie,
unless she's cross-eyed, and you bet Minnie ain't. The job's yours if you
want it. Eighty a month to start on, and board."
"I--can't, Jo. Thanks just the same. I'm going to try to begin all over
again, somewhere else, where nobody knows me."
"Oh yes," said Jo. "I knew a fellow that did that. After he came out he

grew a beard, and wore eyeglasses, and changed his name. Had a quick,
crisp way of talkin', and he cultivated a drawl and went west and started
in business. Real estate, I think. Anyway, the second month he was
there in walks a fool he used to know and bellows: `Why if it ain't Bill!
Hello, Bill! I thought you was doing time yet.' That was enough. Ted,
you can black your face, and dye your hair, and squint, and some fine
day, sooner or later, somebody'll come along and blab the whole thing.
And say, the older it gets the worse it sounds, when it does come out.
Stick around here where you grew up, Ted."
Ted