Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories

								

me. Who's your tailor, friend?"
The scarecrow, reduced now to an old straw hat and a necktie, maintained
a dignified and oppressive silence.
"Well, he ain't on to the latest cut," continued Phelan, wringing the
water out of the coat. "But maybe these here is your pajamas? Don't tell
me I disturbed you after you'd retired for the night? Very well then,
aurevoy."
With the clothes under his arm he made his way back to the shed, and
divesting himself of his own raiment he got into his borrowed property.
By this time the fire had died down, and the place was in
semi-darkness. Phelan threw on a handful of sticks and, as the blaze
flared up, he caught his first clear sight of his newly acquired
clothes. They were ragged and weather-stained, and circled about with
broad, unmistakable stripes.
"Well, I'll be spiked!" said Phelan, vastly amused. "I wouldn't 'a'
thought it of a nice, friendly scarecrow like that! Buncoed me, didn't
he? Well, feathers don't always make the jail-bird. Wonder what poor
devil wore 'em last? Peeled out of 'em in this very shed, like as not.
Well, they'll serve my purpose all right, all right."
He took off his shoes, placed them under his head for a pillow, lit a
short cob pipe, threw on fresh wood, and prepared to wait for his
clothes to dry.
Meanwhile the question of the banquet revolved itself continually in his
mind. This time to-morrow night, the preparations would be in full
swing. Instead of being hungry, half naked, and chilled, he might be in
a luxurious club-house dallying with caviar, stuffed olives, and
Benedictine. All that lay between him and bliss were two hundred miles
of railroad ties and a decent suit of clothes!
"Wake up, Corp; for the love of Mike be sociable!" cried Phelan when the
situation became too gloomy to contemplate. "Ain't that like a dog now?
Hold your tongue when I'm longing for a word of kindly sympathy an'
encouragement, and barking your fool head off once we get on the
freight. Much good it'll be doing us to get to Nashville in this fix,
but we'll take our blessings as they come, Corp, and just trust to luck
that somebody will forget to turn 'em off. I know when I get to the
banquet there'll be one other man absent. That's Bell of Terre Haute.
Him and me is always in the same boat, he gets ten thousand a year and
ain't got the nerve to spend it, and I get fifteen a month, and ain't
got the nerve to keep it! Poor old Bell."
Corporal, roused from his slumbers, sniffed inquiringly at the many
garments spread about the fire, yawned, turned around several times in
dog fashion, then curled up beside Phelan, signifying by his bored
expression that he hadn't the slightest interest in the matter under
discussion.
Gradually the darkness closed in, and the fire died to embers. It would
be four hours before the night freight slowed up at the water tank, and
Phelan, tired from his long tramp, and drowsy from the heat and the
vapor rising from the drying clothes, shifted the shoe-buttons from