Hidden Creek | Page 6

Miss Sheila, and get used to Babe, while I
kind of take the edge off Momma."
Sheila did not run. She walked in a peculiar light-footed manner which
gave her the look of a proud deer.
"Momma" was taken firmly to the baggage-room, where, it would seem,
the edge was removed with difficulty, for Sheila waited in the motor
with Babe for half an hour.
Babe hopped. She hopped out of her seat at the wheel and shook
Sheila's hand and told her to "jump right in."
"Sit by me on the way home, Sheila." Babe had a tremendous voice.
"And leave the old folks to gossip on the back seat. Gee! you're
different from what I thought you'd be. Ain't you small, though? You've
got no form. Say, Millings will do lots for you. Isn't Pap a character,

though? Weren't you tickled the way he took you up? Your Poppa was
a painter, wasn't he? Can you make a picture of me? I've got a steady
that would be just wild if you could."
Sheila sat with hands clenched in her shabby muff and smiled her
moonlight smile. She was giddy with the intoxicating, heady air, with
the brilliant sunset light, with Babe's loud cordiality. She wanted
desperately to like Babe; she wanted even more desperately to be liked.
She was in an unimaginable panic, now.
Babe was a splendid young animal, handsome and round and rosy, her
body crowded into a bright-blue braided, fur-trimmed coat, her face
crowded into a tight, much-ornamented veil, her head with heavy
chestnut hair, crowded into a cherry-colored, velvet turban round which
seemed to be wrapped the tail of some large wild beast. Her hands were
ready to burst from yellow buckskin gloves; her feet, with high, thick
insteps, from their tight, thin, buttoned boots, even her legs shone pink
and plump below her short skirt, through silk stockings that were
threatened at the seams. And the blue of her eyes, the red of her cheeks,
the white of her teeth, had the look of being uncontainable, too brilliant
and full to stay where they belonged. The whole creature flashed and
glowed and distended herself. Her voice was a riot of uncontrolled
vitality, and, as though to use up a little of all this superfluous energy,
she was violently chewing gum. Except for an occasional slight
smacking sound, it did not materially interfere with speech.
"There's Poppa now," she said at last. "Say, Poppa, you two sit in the
back, will you? Sheila and I are having a fine time. But, Poppa, you old
tin-horn, what did you mean by saying in your wire that she was a
husky girl? Why, she's got the build of a sagebrush mosquito!
Look-a-here, Sheila." Babe by a miracle got her plump hand in and out
of a pocket and handed a telegram to her new friend. "Read that and
learn to know Poppa!"
Sylvester laughed rather sheepishly as Sheila read:
Am bringing home artist's A1 picture for The Aura and artist's A1
daughter. Husky girl. Will help Momma.

"Well," said Sylvester apologetically, "she's one of the wiry kind, aren't
you, Miss Sheila?"
Sheila was struggling with an attack of hysterical mirth. She nodded
and put her muff before her mouth to hide an uncontrollable quivering
of her lips.
"Momma" had not spoken. Her face was all one even tone of red, her
nostrils opened and shut, her lips were tight. Sylvester, however, was in
a genial humor. He leaned forward with his arms folded along the back
of the front seat and pointed out the beauties of Millings. He showed
Sheila the Garage, the Post-Office, and the Trading Company, and
suddenly pressing her shoulder with his hand, he cracked out sharply:
"There's The Aura, girl!"
His eyes were again those of the artist and the visionary. They glowed.
Sheila turned her head. They were passing the double door of the
saloon and went slowly along the front of the hotel.
It stood on that corner where the main business street intersects with
the Best Residence Street. Its main entrance opened into the flattened
corner of the building where the roof rose to a fantastic façade. For the
rest, the hotel was of yellowish-brick, half-surrounded by a wooden
porch where at milder seasons of the year in deep wicker chairs men
and women were always rocking with the air of people engaged in
serious and not unimportant work. At such friendlier seasons, too, by
the curb was always a weary-looking Ford car from which grotesquely
arrayed "travelers" from near-by towns and cities were descending
covered with alkali dust--faces, chiffon veils, spotted silk dresses, high
white kid boots, dangling purses and all, their men dust-powdered to a
wrinkled sameness of aspect. At this time of the year the porch was