The Big Town | Page 4

another."
"What other?" I ast her.
"Kate," said the wife. "You let me take her to New York and manage
her and I'll get her a husband that'll think our eight thousand a year fell
out of his vest."
"Do you mean," I said, "that you'd let a sister of yours marry for
money?"
"Well," she says, "I know a sister of hers that wouldn't mind if she
had."
So I argued and tried to compromise on somewhere in America, but it
was New York or nothing with her. You see, she hadn't never been here,
and all as she knew about it she'd read in books and magazines, and for
some reason another when authors starts in on that subject it ain't very
long till they've got a weeping jag. Besides, what chance did I have
when she kept reminding me that it was her stepfather, not mine, that
had croaked and made us all rich?
When I had give up she called Kate in and told her, and Kate squealed
and kissed us both, though God knows I didn't deserve no remuneration
or ask for none.
Ella had things all planned out. We was to sell our furniture and take a
furnished apartment here, but we would stay in some hotel till we
found a furnished apartment that was within reason.
"Our stay in some hotel will be life-long," I said.
The furniture, when we come to sell it, wasn't worth nothing, and that's

what we got. We didn't have nothing to ship, as Ella found room for our
books in my collar box. I got two lowers and an upper in spite of the
Government, and with two taxi drivers and the baggageman thronging
the station platform we pulled out of South Bend and set forth to see
Life.
The first four miles of the journey was marked by considerable
sniveling on the part of the heiresses.
"If it's so painful to leave the Bend let's go back," I said.
"It isn't leaving the Bend," said the Mrs., "but it makes a person sad to
leave any place."
"Then we're going to have a muggy trip," said I. "This train stops pretty
near everywhere to either discharge passengers or employees."
They were still sobbing when we left Mishawaka and I had to pull
some of my comical stuff to get their minds off. My wife's mighty easy
to look at when she hasn't got those watery blues, but I never did see a
gal that knocked you for a goal when her nose was in full bloom.
Katie had brought a flock of magazines and started in on one of them at
Elkhart, but it's pretty tough trying to read with the Northern Indiana
mountains to look out at, to say nothing about the birds of prey that
kept prowling up and down the aisle in search of a little encouragement
or a game of rhum.
I noticed a couple of them that would of give a lady an answer if she'd
approached them in a nice way, but I've done some traveling myself
and I know what kind of men it is that allows themselves to be drawed
into a flirtation on trains. Most of them has made the mistake of getting
married some time, but they don't tell you that. They tell you that you
and a gal they use to be stuck on is as much alike as a pair of corsets,
and if you ever come to Toledo to give them a ring, and they hand you
a telephone number that's even harder to get than the ones there are;
and they ask you your name and address and write it down, and the
next time they're up at the Elks they show it to a couple of the brothers

and tell what they'd of done if they'd only been going all the way
through.
"Say, I hate to talk about myself! But say!"
Well, I didn't see no sense in letting Katie waste her time on those kind
of guys, so every time one of them looked our way I give him the fish
eye and the non-stop signal. But this was my first long trip since the
Government started to play train, and I didn't know the new rules in
regards to getting fed; otherwise I wouldn't of never cleaned up in Wall
Street.
In the old days we use to wait till the boy come through and announced
that dinner was now being served in the dining car forward; then we'd
saunter into the washroom and wash our hands if necessary, and ramble
into the diner and set right down and enjoy as big a meal as we could
afford. But the Government wants to be economical, so they've cut
down