Part 16 (1/2)
I've had bitter experiences, and one of them got me at the time I first begun to wear riding pants myself, which must have been about the time you was beginning to bite dents into your silver mug that Aunt Caroline sent. I was a handsome young h.e.l.lion, I don't mind telling you, and they looked well on me, and when Lysander John urged me to be brave and wear 'em outside I was afraid all the men within a day's ride was going to sneak round to stare at me. My! I was so embarra.s.sed, also with that same feeling you got in your heart this minute that it was taking an unfair advantage of any man--you know! I felt like I was using all the power of my young beauty for unworthy ends.
”'Well, do you know what I got when I first rode out on the ranch? I got just about the once-over from every brute there, and that was all.
If one of them ranch hands had ever ogled me a second time I'd have known it all right, but I never caught one of the scoundrels at it.
First I said: ”Now, ain't that fine and chivalrous?” Then I got wise. It wasn't none of this here boasted Western chivalry, but just plain lack of interest. I admit it made me mad at first. Any man on the place was only too glad to look me over when I had regular clothes on, but dress me like Lysander John and they didn't look at me any oftener than they did him. Not as often, of course, because as a plain human being and man's equal I wasn't near as interesting as he was.'
”'But then, too,' says Hetty, who had only been about half listening to my lecture, 'I thought it might be striking a blow at the same time for the freedom of woman.'
”Well, you know how that freedom-of-the-s.e.x talk always gets me going. I was mad enough for a minute to spank her just as she stood there in them Non Plush Ultras she was so proud of. And I did let out some high talk.
Mrs. Dutton told her afterward she thought sure we was having words.
”'Freedom from skirts,' I says, 'is the last thing your s.e.x wants.
Skirts is the final refuge of immodesty, to which women will cling like grim death. They will do any possible thing to a skirt--slit it, thin it, shorten it, hike it up one side--people are setting up nights right now thinking up some new thing to do to it--but women won't give it up and dress modestly as men do because it's the only unfair drag they got left with the men. I see one of our offended s.e.x is daily asking right out in a newspaper: ”Are women people?” I'd just like to whisper to her that no one yet knows.
”'If they'll quit their skirts, dress as decently as a man does so they won't have any but a legitimate pull with him, we'd have a chance to find out if they're good for anything else. As a matter of fact, they don't want to be people and dress modestly and wear hats you couldn't pay over eight dollars for. I believe there was one once, but the poor thing never got any notice from either s.e.x after she became--a people, as you might say.'
”Well, I was going on to get off a few more things I'd got madded up to, but I caught the look in poor Hetty's face, and it would have melted a stone. Poor child! There she was, wanting a certain man and willing to wear or not wear anything on earth that would nail him, and not knowing what would do it, and complicating her ignorance with meaningless worries about modesty and daringness and the freedom of her poor s.e.x, that ain't ever even deuce-low with one woman in a million.
”And right then, watching her distress, all at once I get my big inspiration--it just flooded me like the sun coming up. I don't know if I'm like other folks, but things do come to me that way. And not only was it a great truth, but it got me out of the hole of having to tell Hetty certain truths about herself that these Non Plush Ultras made all too glaring.
”'Listen,' I says: 'You believe I'm your friend, don't you? And you believe anything I tell you is from the heart out and will probably have a grain of sense in it. Well, here is an inspired thought: Women won't ever dress modestly like men do because men don't want 'em to. I never saw a man yet that did if he'd tell the truth, and so this here dark city stranger won't be any exception. Now, then, what do we see on Sat.u.r.day next? Why, we see this here gay throng sally forth for Stender's Spring, the youth and beauty of Red Gap, including Mr. D., with his nice refined odour of Russia leather and bank bills of large size--from fifties up--that haven't been handled much. The crowd is of all s.e.xes, technically, like you might say; a lot of nice, sweet girls along but dressed to be mere jolly young roughnecks, and just as interesting to the said stranger as the regular boys that will be present--hardly more so. And now, as for poor little meek you--you will look wild and Western, understand me, but feminine; exactly like the coloured cigarette picture that says under it ”Rocky Mountain Cow Girl.”
You will be in your pretty tan skirt--be sure to have it pressed--and a blue-striped sport bloose that I just saw in the La Mode window, and you'll get some other rough Western stuff there, too: a blue silk neckerchief and a natty little cow-girl sombrero--the La Mode is showing a good one called the La Parisienne for four fifty-eight--and the daintiest pair of tan kid gauntlets you can find, and don't forget a pair of tan silk stockings--'
”'They won't show in my riding boots,' says Hetty, looking as if she was coming to life a little.
”'Tush for the great, coa.r.s.e, commonsense riding boots,' I says firmly; 'you will wear precisely that neat little pair of almost new tan pumps with the yellow bows that you're standing in now. Do you get me?'
”'But that would be too dainty and absurd,' says Hetty.
”'Exactly!' I says, shutting my mouth hard.
”'Why, I almost believe I do get you,' says she, looking religiously up into the future like that lady saint playing the organ in the picture.
”'Another thing,' I says: 'You are deathly afraid of a horse and was hardly ever on one but once when you were a teeny girl, but you do love the open life, so you just nerved yourself up to come.'
”'I believe I see more clearly than ever,' says Hetty. She grew up on a ranch, knows more about a horse than the horse himself does, and would be a top rider most places, with the cheap help we get nowadays that can hardly set a saddle.
”'Also from time to time,' I goes on, 'you want to ask this Mr. D.
little, timid, silly questions that will just tickle him to death and make him feel superior. Ask him to tell you which legs of a horse the chaps go on, and other things like that; ask him if the sash that holds the horrid old saddle on isn't so tight it's hurting your horse. After the lunch is et, go over to the horse all alone and stroke his nose and call him a dear and be found by the gent when he follows you over trying to feed the n.o.ble animal a hard-boiled egg and a couple of pickles or something. Take my word for it, he'll be over all right and have a hearty laugh at your confusion, and begin to wonder what it is about you.
”'How about falling off and spraining my ankle on the way back?' demands the awakening vestal with a gleam in her eye.
”'No good,' I says; 'pretty enough for a minute, but it would make trouble if you kept up the bluff, and if there's one thing a man hates more than another it's to have a woman round that makes any trouble.'
”'You have me started on a strange new train of thought,' says Hetty.
”'I think it's a good one,' I tells her, 'but remember there are risks.
For one thing, you know how popular you have always been with all the girls. Well, after this day none of 'em will hardly speak to you because of your low-lifed, deceitful game, and the things they'll say of you--such things as only woman can say of woman!'
”'I shall not count the cost,' says she firmly. 'And now I must hurry down for that sport bloose--blue-striped, you said?'
”'Something on that order,' I says, 'that fits only too well. You can do almost anything you want to with your neck and arms, but remember strictly--a skirt is your one and only Non Plush Ultra.'