THE SURPRISE PARTY

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 9, 2 March 1907, Page 33

THE SURPRISE PARTY

By

Philip Verrill Mighels

AN air of mystery pervaded Tid Flack’s dingy little cobbler shop on the night of the final conspiracy, for Tid, Jimmie Sutt, Malin Crowe, and Henry Dole, the inmates, were not only particularly silent when Thomas King made bold to enter at the door, but their shadows were cast upon the walls in prodigious size by the sickly little lamp beside the cobbler’s knee, and their looks suggested guilt. King came in there impatiently. His wood was one of scorn for all the gathered company and their plans, yet beneath it lay curiosity of exceptional significance. He looked the assemblage over with a certain air of superiority, and studied Tid Flack’s countenance ■with scant respect. “Well,” he said, after a moment of impressive silence, “I just dropped in as I was passin’ by, fer I didn’t reckon to attend no regular meeting. I only thought I’d see if you old ninnies were still foolin’ ’round to git up a jack-leg-ged soiree up to Mrs. Hanks’.” Th« rawboned lumbermen stirred on their seats uneasily. All looked to Cobbler Flack for defence of their present position. Tid coughed behind his hand. “No, King, we ain’t contemplatin’ anything gaudy or Shakesperious,” he replied with gravity. “We’re preparin’ a home-made supprise party —just a Teg’lar old-fashioned supprise party —for little Dunny Weaver, and we thought, as you was sort of sweet on his sister, Why ” “Turn that off, Flack, turn it off!” interrupted King vehemently. “Shut down your head-gata right where you are. I ain’t been around there no more than any of these other galoots—and none of us ain’t done very fancy, anyhow. What’s more, you don’t know a supprise party when you see it. Supprise party? Kats! You’ve l>een talkin’ about the racket for the last three days, and everybody into camp knows the thing is cornin’.” “Tid ain’t told nobody but little Dunny,” said Malin Crowe; “and, besides,’there’ll be a supprise party, don’t you worry.” “You always have to tell the sup-pris-ee,” added Flack sagely. “Women hate to be really surprised. They don’t git time to crimp their hair, or wash the back of their neck. And one uncrimped woman kin sour the whole shebang.” “And if you don't tel Ithe supprisers, then how kin they bring refreshments?” inquired Jimmie Sutt. “And how kin you have a party without nuthin’ to eat ?”

“That’s why we’re goin’ to have the candy-pull to-night,” added Henry Dole. “Refreshments don’t grow on every tree in camp.” “Candy-pull?” echoed Thomas King. ’‘Where ? Who’s goin’ to make the candy ?” “The whole crowd, over to Jimmie’s,” answered Crowe. “He’s got a fire goin’ now. And the pop-corn’s right here in this bag.” He indicated a barley-sack with more than a bushel of corn in it. King stared at it hungrily. Then he looked at each of the men in turn; he was itching to be one of the party. “Well, I suppose if you gentlemen know how to run a candy-pull,” he said, “why, you might not need me along. But in case you want any pointers, why He waited without concluding his sentence. “Sure shot you ought to help!” said Jimmie Sutt. “We can’t have too much savvy when it comes to makin’ candy. I don’t claim to know it all myself.” “Neither do I,” confessed Henry Dole. “I only know you’ve got to butter your paws when you pull it.” “We expected you to come, King, to sort of diagnose the candy,” added Flack. “If she ain’t diagnosed she may not be done, and when she ain’t done she ain’t candy —she’s gravy.” “Well, of course, J know two or three ways of tell in’ when it’s done,” said King, “and I don’t mind steerin’ you straight.” “Then we’ll go right now,” decided the cobbler, promptly blowing out the lamp. “Don’t forgit this here pop-corn,” admonished Malin Crowe. “Here, Dole, you take it. I’ve got to go up to my shack fer about fifteen minutes, and then I’ll join you all at Jimmie’s.” But instead of going up the slope to his own dark cabin, Mr. Crowe slipped quietly down to the house where Mistress “ Julia Fothergill was reading, alone, in her kitehen. He paused outside the window, and, studying the figure of the buxom young woman within, decided she was not so very homely after all. She was a vast improvement on no girl, and something had told him it was vain to aspire to the hand of Dunny Weaver’s sister, at the Hanks’. His knock on the door startled Miss Julia prodigiously. He entered the room to fipd her standing by the table and staring toward him in extreme agitation. “Why, Malin Crowe, is it only you?” she stammered in. confusion. “I thought —I was just a-reading how the villain, Lord Gnashleigh, come sneakin’ in on

the unsuspectin’ Dora, which was really Lady Dovecote, and my heart near jumped out on the table—and it’s only you after all, and what d'you want, anyhow, I’d like to know?” Malin Crowe had snatched off his hat. His face was very red, his smile sickly. “Huh! I ain't no villain, Julia, you bet your boots,” he said reassuringly. “I'm the other feller in the story. I—l come down to say —to ask—to . Say, Julia, let’s you and me git married. If you’ll be my wife, I’ll be your husband.” Julia pulled a hairpin from her dark tresses and shut her l>ook upon it to keep her place. Then she turned to look at Malin calmly, her two big hands on her hips. “Well, if I ever!” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be like the others, Malin Crowe, but I might have known you’d git sick of snoopin’ around that Miss Weaver pretty soon, for you didn’t have no more business there than a frog has got in the soup. And after you’ve all got white around the gills, you and Jimmie .Sutt and Hen Dole and bald-headed Tom King, think it’s time to eome and pop to Julia, hey? Well, I scorn youradvancin’ Mr. Crowe. I don’t hanker after Crowe. And if Tid ain't so pretty nor so terrible big, and if I did tell him I’d have to think it over, why, anyways,. Ite didn’t wait for no Miss Weaver io look right past him la-fore he thoughtof me. And you kin git, Malin Crowe, for I’m right in the middle of the most excitin’ part, and the real prince is the one which nobody suspicions, all the time.” Crowe looked at the girl in utter bewilderment. “Do you mean you won’t do it?” he asked incredulously. “You won’t be my darlin’ little wife?” “Well, I should say I won’t!” answered Julia, with emphasis. “Don’t you understand no English conversation?” “But it would be such a bully supprise to all the boys,” pleaded Crowe. “There won’t be no .supprise if you don't.” .“Well, it’ll .supprise me terrible if I do,” replied Miss Fothergill. “And I don’t desire to hear no further prolongation of the painful scene. I am aware of the honour you’re doin’ me, sir, but blandishments and arguments is vain. Farewell! That’s all; don’t stand there no more. And shut the door without slammin', ’cause a glass is loose in the winder. So, good-night, Malin, and pleasant dreams to you.”

Malin was stunned, but he went, and all the way to the candy-pull he was pondering Julia's revelations. The stale of her mind was beyond him. When he came to Jimmie Suit’s, however, the rich aroma of latiling molasses and half-done

candy burning in drops on the top of th< stove stole soothingly upon his senses, and renewed his faith in the sweetness of life.” “Here he is now,” said Henry Dois, as Malin entered the cabin. “Say, Crowe, didn't you say we’d ought to stir io some bakin’ powder when she’s done, to make her nice and white, and to poke th* cloves into her while she was bein’ pulled ?” “Yep, that’s the way we always don* it to home,” answered Crowe. "Who says any different?” “Well, I didn’t dispute your receipt.” replied Thomas King; “but I said I'd et molasses candy which didn't have no foreign substances into it.” “And the rest of us agrees it wouldn’t be no good without cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg and just a little touch of whisky, for we ain’t got no vaniller,” added Jimmie Sutt. “We don’t want her to taste like Sunday School chewin’ gum. We want the real article.” Tid Flack was standing by the red-hot stove, diligently stirring the boiling meso which the boys had created. The fume# and the heat were slowly overwhelming his brain. Crowe took a look at the viscid mixture and drew in a mighty noseful of its fragrance. “Smells like the kitchen part of heaven,” he said. “What’s in her besides molasses ?” “A spoonful of Worcestershire and half a cup of ketchup and some piekle juice—’cause we didn’t have no vinegar —five cups of sugar and half a cup of condensed milk,” answered Jimmie Sutt proudly. “We wanted her rich—and durn the expense.” “No eggs?” inquired Crowe: “not a single egg?” The men looked from one to another like guilty children. “We never thought of eggs,” confessed Henry Dole. “Jimmie, have you got any eggs?” “No,” said Jimmie, “nary an egg in the shack.” “Well,” said Thomas King. “I've seen molasses candy before that was made without eggs. It ain’t so smooth, but it goes pretty good. Let's see if she’s done.” He took the spoon from the cobbler's hand, dipped out a generous dose of ths boiling candy, and dropped it into a dipper of water. It sank to the bottom and hardened to the consistency of flint. All the eooks gathered about King while he loosened the black mass from tli« bottom of the dipper. Meanwhile the mess on the stove was burning industriously. “She’s just about readv,” announce!

the diagnostician, lifting the dripping nodule of stuff from the water. • “Grease your pan—grease your pan! She'll be done in just two minutes!” The receptacle they smeared with bacon-fat was a gold-pan which had once done service in washing gravel in a mining camp. It was large, strong, and three inches deep, with a widely flaring rim. Into its hold the seething, volcanic confection was poured, and Cobbler Tid Flack sat down to watch it cool for pulling, while the others made clumsy preparations to pop their bushel of corn. They were a long time making ready, ami the candy was stubbornly retentive of its heat. Above it Tid Flack held his head noon his hand, while the warmth increased his drowsiness and the rich, heavy fragrance cloyed his sense. He nodded, milled himself up with a jerk, then nodded again above the pool of stuff. He did his very utmost to force In sovci wide o)>en, yet the voices of the others served rather to soothe than excm mm, and peace engulfed his being —a peace deliciously scented by the candy. Meantime, his comrades had burned a whole popperful of corn. While they wrangled and exchanged information Concerning the art of popping the kernels, Tid Flack had utterly succumbed to the goddess of sleep. Down, down sank his chin upon his breast; then down, down sank his body, till at last his head, with its tangle of thick, wiry hair, was pillowed in the great pool of candy, into the warm, yielding substance of which it sank to a depth of at least two inches. Comforted, almost narcotized, by the delights of his rest, Tid at length began to snore. One of the boys engrossed with the corn suddenly recalled the fact that candy must be pulled before it hardens. "Hey! Tid,” he called, “how’s she coolin’ ?” Then he cast a glance in Tid’s direction, and was all blit petrified with horror. “Boys!” he yelled at the top of his voice; “boys, look at Tid in the candy! ” The boys looked; then chaos reigned. 'All bawled in fury or astonishment, three ran to part the pan and Tid, and the corn on the stove was left to fill the house with its reek; At the first savage pounce upon the pan and his neck, Tid Flack was rudely awakened. • “Git out of that! Git out! Git out!”cried King, who was proud of the candy. He had snatched the pan, even as Sutt had gripped the cobbler, and both were, instantly tugging with lusty might and main. Tid yelled. His head was thoroughly cemented in the pan, the candy having hardened till a cold chisel only could haye cut it. To save his precious scalp, if not indeed his entire superstructure, Flack laid frantic hold upon the pan and wrestled against the candy’s parents wildly. “Leave go! Leave go!” he shrieked in his anguish. “I’m stuck! You're pullin’ off my neck!” King ami Sutt beheld that this was bo. Excited as they were, they realised Till and the candy had amalgamated into one compact mass that utterly defied the rescue of either one, even by violent measures. ■ “Well, what in hell was you doin’?” demanded King, “Look at you! Look at the candy! What we goin’ to do?” “Do? Why, it’s plumb pizened!” declared one of the men. “I didn’t mean to —I must have fell asleep,” answered Tid, still fervently clutching the rim of the pan with both hjs hands, as if it had lieen a metal hat. “I’m stuck, and it’s giftin’ harder all the time.” “Yes, and what’s the use of tryin’ to save the candy now?” demanded Henry Dole. “It’s spoiled and ruined for ever!” “1 don’t see why,” said Jimmie Sutt. "We ought to be able to git it of! of Tid all right, and a little bit of hair-oil ain't so bad. We’d have to grease our hands to pull it, anyhow.” “Don't you pull it again! Don't you touch it!” cried Tid, retreating backward from the savagely disappointed group. “You’ll have to take it of! easy.” . “We’ve got to git it oil the best way we kin. You ain’t, a-goin’ to hog it all,” said Malin Crowe. “It’s too darn good to be wasted, and 1 ain't had a smell. And we needn't tell nobody nuthin' about Tid’s hair.” “It's all the molasses I had,” said Jimmie Sutt. “Of all the rotten shames I ever seen, this is the worst.” • “I’|l tell you,” said King; “we can’t, lift it of! the way it is, but a litle bit

of water would loosen her up and never hurt the candy to speak of. It’s awful hard to spoil good molasses candy'. So, Tid, you set down, and we’ll throw a little water Up around your hair and wash her loose.” “That’s it. I knowed we could think up a way to git it off al) right,” said Dole, moie hopefully. “Where’s the dipper ?” Not without misgivings, Till sat down, still holding to the pan with steadfast purpose, anil King fetched the dipper, filled with water. He placed it on the table and looked up under the rim of the pan, the better to direct his liberating efforts. “Stuck all round, hard as rushes in the ice,” he announced; “but I guess this’ll fetch her.” Taking the dipper in his hand, he dashed the water upward, under the pan, just as Tid sprang to his feet. Gasping and frantic, Tid yelled: "Help! Help! Oh, Lord! Oh, where's a towel?” “Set down!” commanded Thomas King. “You ain’t in swimmin’. Let us see if the candy’s got softer.” Tid was plumped down in his chair, and the boys tried to urge his hair and the candy to part. But, except for the shallowest film of softened stuff on its surface, the confection was quite as adamantine as before. Tid yelled and fought as they tried to take it oft', and finally escaped to the end of the room, holding to the pan upon his head. “I’ve got some rights!” he shouted; “I’ve got some rights, and it won’t come off without my head.” “We’ve got to wet her again.” declared Jimmie Sutt. “Maybe two or three times will do the biz,” “I ain’t goin’ to let you douse me again for all the candy in the world,” said Tid. “Some kinds of candy ain’t worth it, and any way I don’t believe, this is extry good. I can taste it lunnin’ down my face.” “You’re tastin’ more face than anything else, and, of course, that’s pretty fermented,” answered Henry Dole. “You bet that candy’s worth savin’!” Tid was therefore persuaded to undergo one more attempt at the water eure, which shocked him even more than the first. Drenched,,dripping with stieky ooze that trickled from the candy down across his countenance like muddy- tears, the little cobbler wa's a saddening spectacle on whom his companions gazed with mingled indignation and despair, since the candy still adhered to its own. “We can’t do it that way,” agreed Thomas King, when Tid had shrieked out a wild refusal to submit to one more trial of the bath; “but we might be able to chip it out with a hatehet and save the pieces.” “No you don’t!” said Tid. “You’ll want to put in some giant powder next. You fellers think I’m just a plaything; that’s what's the matter.” “Huh!” said Malin Crowe, whose mind was working peculiarly. “By gum!” “I don’t see why we need no candy for the party nohow,” said Dole, becoming discouraged anew. “Can’t we git along without it, and let Tid take it home?” “frill, hang the supprise party tc a sour apple tree! ” answered Thomas King. “ I was goin’ to work up a genuine supprise, but Julia Fothergill is gittin’ so stuck on snide, tin horn heroes in teneent novels, that she don’t know a good thing when it bumps her house.” “You bet she don’t,” agreed Jimmie Sutt. “I know all about that myself.” And he winked with profound significance. ' r „ “Yep, I got a dose to night myself,” admitted Milan Crowe. “She ain’t got no use fer any of the gang, unless it’s —— Bay, King, come over here a minute. I -want to speak to you.” ’ - The two retired to a corner. Meantime. Tid was holdin’ to the rim of his pan in fear his companions might wrest the candy from him still by some, violent manoeuvre. Sutt and Dole were utterly despondent. After a moment of consultation, Crowe and King summoned all but Tid to their corner. "Say, boys,” said Crowe, sotto voce, “it. seems like we all got left on Julia Fothergill, and I got it last, and she gave herself plumb away to-night, and said old Tid had bin and asked her first of nil to be his bhishin’ bride. And she made a crack about him bein’ a prince or (look in disguise. So me and King is goin’ right down to fetch her up here to the shack and let hei>see the dock in all his glory. And if that don't cook somebody’s goose and give ’em a bang-up supprisc party, why, I'll ent your hat

n.w, without no gravy nor Halt. So keep him here guessin’. and we'll be buck in less than half a shake:” Tid became suspicious without delay. He still believed the bqys’attached much value to the candy. King and Crowe departed forthwith, .and Sutt and Dole declared they had gone on a scheme to save the confection,-by a perfectly pairiless process. Tid, however, would have fled to his cabin, candy, pan, and all, had his friends not prevented the move. The fire in the stove subsided, then went out altogether. Tid was waxing wroth and worried, and the whole affair was assuming an aspect of gloom and alarm, when presently the door was opened, and in came Julia Fothergill, with King and Crowe and three other men of the camp, who had followed to behold the cobbler's dilemma and the scorn of the woman who would find him so utterly absurd. ■ For a moment there was silence in the cabin. Then came the surprise. Julia had no sense of humour. The rescue of Tid from cruelty, oppression, and wrong appealed to her womanly nature. His countenance depicted woe unutterable. Julia nearly cried. Then, wildly indignant at those she conceived to be his persecutors, and filled with Tomantic tenderness and yearning over the wholly wretched little cobbler, she turned upon the others with a burst of ■corn that fairly. made them wither where they stood. In her novel she had read, three times over, a truly pyrotechnic explosion, of wrath from the lips of a heroine, majestic at the end of most exasperating iniquities, and this, and much more, she vehemently discharged, till the candy-makers crystallised with dread. “Toads ye are, and unclean monsters!” she concluded superbly. “The low hyenas of the jungle, ashamed of nuthin’ mean or cowardly, and fillin’ their carcasses with awful which the king of beasts has left, would creep from your society with loathin' and disgust. Ye have done your worst, ye have grovelled in the mire and slime of your own base manufacture, and now ye are nipped in the bud. Outcasts of decency,ye; can writhe underneath my contempt! I leavp ye to your hellish joys and devices, don’t ye come down to my house no / more, for coyotes would be better eorijpany, and ye make me sick way down to iyy feet!” Then, sweeping the cowed and smileless group with one blasting glance, she Slaved her big red arm about,.the coblev’s waist and, with Tid holding fast to the pan of candy on his head, strode proudly with him from the place. • And, strangely enough, when she had placed the pan upon her table, with Tid pat iently crooked over above it, and then with warm water- soaked him away from tile mess, as a stamp is soaked from paper, the man became even more precious in her sight than before, while the rich confection was haughtily thrown outside upon the unclean earth. And it came to pass that on the evening previously scheduled for the surprise party, two gay persons only marched upon the home of the Hanks with festive intentions. One was the radiant Miss Julia Fothergill, bearing a large frosted cake in her two red hands; the other was Tid, the. cobbler, bearing a slightly perceptible fragrance of candy in his hair.