Mrs. Minks Soldier and Other Stories | Page 9

plaster for supper, but
we'll have to depend on a hand-out for breakfast. And, Corp," he added
apologetically, "you know I told you we was going to ride regular like
gentlemen? Well, I've been compelled to change my plans. We are
going to turf it twelve miles down to the watering tank, and sit out a
couple of dances till the midnight freight comes along. If a side door
Pullman ain't convenient, I'll have to go on the bumpers, then what'll

become of you, Mr. Corporal Harrihan?"
The coming ordeal cast no shadow over Corporal. He was declaring his
passionate devotion, by wild tense springs at Phelan's face, seeking in
vain to overcome the cruel limitation of a physiognomy that made
kissing well-nigh impossible.
Phelan picked up his small bundle and started down the track with the
easy, regular swing of one who has long since gaged the distance of
railroad ties. But his step lacked its usual buoyancy, and he forgot to
whistle, Mr. Harrihan was undergoing the novel experience of being
worried. Of course he would get to Nashville,--if the train went, he
could go,--but the prospect of arriving without decent clothes and with
no money to pay for a lodging, did not in the least appeal to him. He
thought with regret of his well-laid plans: an early arrival, a Turkish
bath, the purchase of a new outfit, instalment at a good hotel,
then--presentation at the fraternity headquarters of Mr. Phelan Harrihan,
Gentleman for a Night. He could picture it all, the dramatic effect of his
entrance, the yell of welcome, the buzz of questions, and the evasive,
curiosity-enkindling answers which he meant to give. Then the banquet,
with its innumerable courses of well-served food, the speeches and
toasts, and the personal ovation that always followed Mr. Harrihan's
unique contribution.
Oh! he couldn't miss it! Providence would interfere in his behalf, he
knew it would, it always did. "Give me my luck, and keep your lucre!"
was a saying of Phelan's, quoted by brother hoboes from Maine to the
Gulf.
All the long afternoon he tramped the ties, with Corporal at his heels.
As dusk came on the clouds that had been doing picket duty, joined the
regiment on the horizon which slowly wheeled and charged across the
sky. Phelan scanned the heavens with an experienced weather eye, then
began to look for a possible shelter from the coming shower. On either
side, the fields stretched away in undulating lines, with no sign of a
habitation in sight. A dejected old scarecrow, and a tumble-down shed
in the distance were the only objects that presented themselves.
Turning up his coat-collar Phelan made a dash for the shed, but the
shower overtook him half-way. It was not one of your gentle little
summer showers, that patter on the shingles waking echoes underneath;
it was a large and instantaneous breakage in the celestial plumbing that

let gallons of water down Phelan's back, filling his pockets, hat brim,
and shoes and sending a dashing cascade down Corporal's oblique
profile.
"Float on your back, Corp, and pull for the shore!" laughed Phelan as
he landed with a spring under the dilapidated shed. "Cheer up, old pard;
you look as if all your past misdeeds had come before you in your
drowning hour."
Corporal, shivering and unhappy, crept under cover, and dumbly
demanded of Phelan what he intended to do about it.
"Light a blaze, sure," said Phelan, "and linger here in the air of the
tropics till the midnight freight comes along."
Scraping together the old wood and débris in the rear of the shed, and
extricating with some difficulty a small tin match-box from his
saturated clothes, he knelt before the pile and used all of his persuasive
powers to induce it to ignite.
At the first feeble blaze Corporal's spirits rose so promptly that he had
to be restrained.
"Easy there! Corp," cautioned Phelan. "A fire's like a woman, you can't
be sure of it too soon. And, dog alive, stop wagging your tail, don't you
see it makes a draft?"
The fire capriciously would, then it wouldn't. A tiny flame played
tantalizingly along the top of a stick only to go sullenly out when it
reached the end. Match after match was sacrificed to the cause, but at
last, down deep under the surface, there was a steady, reassuring,
cheerful crackle that made Phelan sit back on his heels, and remark
complacently:
"They most generally come around, in the end!"
In five minutes the fire was burning bright, Corporal was dreaming of
meaty bones in far fence corners, and Phelan, less free from the
incumbrances of civilization, was divesting himself of his rain-soaked
garments.
From one of the innumerable pockets of his old cutaway coat he took a
comb and