Side-stepping with Shorty

Next thing that was clear was that there wa'n't any driver on the waggon, and that them crazy horses was headed straight for that snarl of pony carts. There wa'n't any yellin' done. I guess 'most every body's throat was too choked up. I know mine was. I only hears one sound above the bang and rattle of them hoofs and wheels. That was a kind of a groan, and I looks down to see Mr. Twombley-Crane standin' up in the seat of a tourin' car, his face the colour of a wax candle, and such a look in his eyes as I ain't anxious to see on any man again.

Next minute he'd jumped. But it wa'n't any use. He was too far away, and there was too big a crowd to get through. Even if he could have got there soon enough, he couldn't have stopped them crazy brutes any more'n he could have blocked a cannon ball.

I feels sick and faint in the pit of my stomach, and the one thing I wants to do most just then is to shut my eyes. But I couldn't. I couldn't look anywhere but at that pair of tearin' horses and them broad iron wheels. And that's why I has a good view of something that jumps out of the bushes, lands in a heap in the waggon, and then scrambles toward the front seat as quick as a cat. I see the red hair and the blue jersey, and that's enough. I knows it's that useless Rusty Quinn playin' the fool.

Now, if he'd had a pair of arms like Jeffries, maybe there'd been some hope of his pullin' down them horses inside the couple of hundred feet there was between their front toe calks and where little Miss Gladys was sittin' rooted to the cushions of her pony cart. But Rusty's muscle development is about equal to that of a fourteen-year boy, and it looks like he's goin' to do more harm than good when he grabs the reins from the whip socket. But he stands up, plants his feet wide, and settles back for the pull.

Almost before anyone sees his game, he's done the trick. There's a smash that sounds like a buildin' fallin' down, a crackin' and splinterin' of oak wood and iron, a rattlin' of trace chains, a couple of soggy thumps, – and when the dust settles down we sees a grey horse rollin' feet up on either side of a big maple, and at the foot of the tree all that's left of that yellow and blue waggon. Rusty had put what strength he had into one rein at just the right time, and the pole had struck the trunk square in the middle.

For a minute or so there was a grand hurrah, with mothers and fathers rushin' to grab their youngsters out of the carts and hug 'em; which you couldn't blame 'em for doin', either. As for me, I drops off the back of the coach and makes a bee line for that wreck, so I'm among the first dozen to get there. I'm in time to shove my shoulder under the capsized waggon body and hold it up.

Well, there ain't any use goin' into details. What we took from under there didn't look much like a human bein', for it was as limp and shapeless as a bag of old rags. But the light haired young feller that said he was a medical student guessed there might be some life left. He wa'n't sure. He held his ear down, and after he'd listened for a minute he said maybe something could be done. So we laid it on one of the side boards and lugged it up to the house, while some one jumps into a sixty-horse power car and starts for a sure enough doctor.

It was durin' the next ten minutes, when the young student was cuttin' off the blue jersey and the ridin' pants, and pokin' and feelin' around, that Mr. Twombley-Crane gets the facts of the story. He didn't have much to say; but, knowin' what I did, and seein' how he looked, I could easy frame up what was on his mind. He gives orders that whatever was wanted should be handed out, and he was standin' by holdin' the brandy flask himself when them washed out blue eyes of Rusty's flickers open for the first time.

"I – I forgot my – mouth organ," says Rusty. "I wouldn't of come back – but for that."

It wa'n't much more'n a whisper, and it was a shaky one at that. So was Mr. Twombley-Crane's voice kind of shaky when he tells him he thanks the Lord he did come back. And then Rusty goes off in another faint.

Next a real doc. shows up, and he chases us all out while him and the student has a confab. In five minutes or so we gets the verdict. The doc. says Rusty is damaged pretty bad. Things have happened to his ribs and spine which ought to have ended him on the spot. As it is, he may hold out another hour, though in the shape he's in he don't see how he can. But if he could hold out that long the doc. knows of an A-1 sawbones who could mend him up if anyone could.

"Then telephone for him at once, and do your best meanwhile," says Mr. Twombley-Crane.

By that time everyone on the place knows about Rusty and his stunt. The front rooms was full of people standin' around whisperin' soft to each other and lookin' solemn, – swell, high toned folks, that half an hour before hardly knew such specimens as Rusty existed. But when the word is passed around that probably he's all in, they takes it just as hard as if he was one of their own kind. When it comes to takin' the long jump, we're all pretty much on the same grade, ain't we?

I begun to see where I hadn't any business sizin' up Rusty like I had, and was workin' up a heavy feelin' in my chest, when the doc. comes out and asks if there's such a party as Shorty McCabe present. I knew what was comin'. Rusty has got his eyes open again and is callin' for me.

I finds him half propped up with pillows on a shiny mahogany table, his face all screwed up from the hurt inside, and the freckles showin' up on his dead white skin like peach stains on a table cloth.

"They say I'm all to the bad, Shorty," says he, tryin' to spring that grin of his.

"Aw, cut it out!" says I. "You tell 'em they got another guess. You're too tough and rugged to go under so easy."

"Think so?" says he, real eager, his eyes lightin' up.

"Sure thing!" says I. Say, I put all the ginger and cheerfulness I could fake up into that lie. And it seems to do him a heap of good. When I asks him if there's anything he wants, he makes another crack at his grin, and says:

"A paper pipe would taste good about now."

"Let him have it," says the doc. So the student digs out his cigarette case, and we helps Rusty light up.

"Ain't there somethin' more, Rusty?" says I. "You know the house is yours."

"Well," says he, after a few puffs, "if this is to be a long wait, a little music would help. There's a piano over in the corner."

I looks at the doc. and shakes my head. He shakes back.

"I used to play a few hymns," says the student.

"Forget 'em, then," says Rusty. "A hymn would finish me, sure. What I'd like is somethin' lively."

"Doc.," says I, "would it hurt?"

"Couldn't," says he. Also he whispers that he'd use chloroform, only Rusty's heart's too bad, and if he wants ragtime to deal it out.

"Wish I could," says I; "but maybe I can find some one who can."

With that I slips out and hunts up Mrs. Twombley-Crane, explainin' the case to her.

"Why, certainly," says she. "Where is Effie? I'll send her in right away."

She's a real damson plum, Effie is; one of the cute, fluffy haired kind, about nineteen. She comes in lookin' scared and sober; but when she's had a look at Rusty, and he's tried his grin on her, and said how he'd like to hear somebody tear off somethin' that would remind him of Broadway, she braces right up.

"I know," says she.

And say, she did know! She has us whirl the baby grand around so's she can glance over the top at Rusty, tosses her lace handkerchief into one corner of the keyboard, pushes back her sleeves until the elbow dimples show, and the next thing we know she's teasin' the tumpety-tum out of the ivories like a professor.

She opens up with a piece you hear all the kids whistlin', – something with a swing and a rattle to it, I don't know what. But it brings Rusty up on his elbow and sets him to keepin' time with the cigarette. Then she slides off into "Poor John!" and Rusty calls out for her to sing it, if she can. Can she? Why, she's got one of them sterling silver voices, that makes Vesta Victoria's warblin' sound like blowin' a fish horn, and before she's half through the first verse Rusty has joined in.

"Come on!" says he, as they strikes the chorus. "Everybody!"

Say, the doc. was right there with the goods. He roars her out like a good one; and the student chap wa'n't far behind, either. You know how it goes —

John, he took me round to see his moth-er, his moth-er, his moth-er!And while he introduced us to each oth-er —

Eh? Well, maybe that ain't just the way it goes; but I can think the tune right. That was what I was up against then. I knew I couldn't make my voice behave; so all I does is go through the motions with my mouth and tap the time out with my foot. But I sure did ache to jump in and help Rusty out.

It was a great concert. She gives us all them classic things, like "The Bird on Nellie's Hat," "Waiting at the Church," "No Wedding Bells for Me," and so on; her fingers just dancin', and her head noddin' to Rusty, and her eyes kind of encouragin' him to keep his grip.

Twice, though, he has to quit, as the pain twists him; and the last time, when he flops back on the pillows, we thought he'd passed in for good. But in a minute or so he's up again' callin' for more. Say, maybe you think Miss Effie didn't have some grit of her own, to sit there bangin' out songs like that, expectin' every minute to see him keel over. But she stays with it, and we was right in the middle of that chorus that goes —

In old New York, in old New York,The peach crop's always fine —

when the foldin' doors was slid back, and in comes the big surgeon gent we'd been waitin' for. You should have seen the look on him too, as he sizes up them three singin', and Rusty there on the table, a cigarette twisted up in his fingers, fightin' down a spasm.

"What blasted idiocy is this?" he growled.

"New kind of pain killer, doc.," says I. "Tell you all about it later. What you want to do now is get busy."

Well, that's the whole of it. He knew his book, that bone repairer did. He worked four hours steady, puttin' back into place the parts of Rusty that had got skewgeed; but when he rolls down his sleeves and quits he leaves a man that's almost as good as ever, barrin' a few months to let the pieces grow together.

I was out to see Rusty yesterday, and he's doin' fine. He's plannin', when he gets around again, to take the purse that was made up for him and invest it in airship stock.

"And if ever I make a million dollars, Shorty," says he, "I'm goin' to hand over half of it to that gent that sewed me up."

"Good!" says I. "And if I was you I'd chuck the other half at the song writers."