Tragedy Trail E-Book

Johnston McCulley

• Herausgeber: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 67

Beschreibung

Tragedy Trail - Johnston McCulley - Tragedy Trail was written in the year 1919 by Johnston McCulley. This book is one of the most popular novels of Johnston McCulley, and has been translated into several other languages around the world.

Leseprobe

Johnston McCulley

Tragedy Trail

PUBLISHER NOTES:

Quality of Life, Freedom, More time with the ones you Love.

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Chapter

1

A QUEER DEATH

SWEAT seemed to cover the buildings, the air was stagnant, the gathering darkness had a peculiar quality, somehow suggesting coming tragedy. So thought Mrs. Burke as she opened the front door and stood at the top of the small flight of steps, wiping her hands on her apron, and looking up and down the street, and then at the threatening sky.

The street was not unlike scores of similar side streets in the city. Old houses, that once had been mansions owned by persons of refinement and wealth, now were converted into stores on the ground floor and rooming houses above. Here and there between the stores was a short flight of steps that led to a heavy door with a plate glass upper half. These doors invariably opened into boarding houses.

Mrs. Burke operated one of these houses, and had for some years. She admitted to fifty summers, and was a woman of ample bosom, wide hips, stringy red hair, and kind smile. Mrs. Burke could smile even while ejecting an undesirable boarder.

As she opened the door and stood on the top step this particular evening she sighed—which was unusual—and could not explain why she did so. It had been sultry all day, and now rain threatened. It was an oppressive evening, one to cause uneasiness to human beings, the sort of evening when a man seems to feel a premonition, grows nervous, dislikes to retire and yet does not want to remain up, and, in short, has a feeling that there is "something in the air."

Mrs. Burke catered to young women who were employees in shops and offices. She called them "my girls." Many a young wife, happy in a flat of her own, could look back at her days at Mrs. Burke's place and give thanks that she had met that sort of landlady.

For Mrs. Burke had the happy faculty of reading persons aright. If a girl was deserving but in momentary hard luck, Mrs. Burke knew it and gave what help she could. If a girl spent money unwisely for clothes she did not need, and then attempted to put off paying her board, Mrs. Burke knew exactly what sort of sermon to deliver.

"There'll be a storm," Mrs. Burke said to herself now, as she glanced down the street. It was her habit to do this each evening just before "her girls" came home from their work. It was her little moment. She knew that every boarder would be wondering what would be the foundation of the evening meal. Mrs. Burke never allowed her table to grow monotonous, but she did not go to great expense to give variety. "She can take five cents' worth of meat and an onion and make a dish that a French chef would strive hopelessly to equal," one of her girls had said not long before.

The landlady's face grew brighter now, for a young woman hurried around the corner and approached the flight of steps, walking briskly and without a hint of fatigue, though she had been standing behind a counter the greater part of the day, battling bargain hunters. Mrs. Burke welcomed her with a smile.

"On time, as usual, dearie," she purred. "Always come straight home, don't you? And how is pretty Miss Alice Patton this evening?"

"Hungry!" Alice Patton replied, laughing and flushing a bit. She knew that she was pretty. Even other women told her that. "Is Mabel home yet?"

"She came home at noon." the landlady answered. "She has one of her sick headaches."

"Oh! I'm sorry!"

"Too much embroidery," declared Mrs. Burke, shaking her head. "It isn't good."

"I know that it's bad for our eyes—and heads," Alice Patton replied. "But this is a special occasion, and we haven't much time. Jessie Simpson used to work with us, you know. The three of us were pals. And when she let us know that she was going to be married, you can bet that we wanted to make her a present."

"Naturally," said Mrs. Burke.

"And we didn't want to buy her something that anybody can buy in any cheap shop. So we decided that we'd make her a centerpiece—and it's going to be a beauty! We have to do most of the work at night, of course."

"You've been working on the thing for more than a month."

"Well, it is almost done. Mabel and I both knew a little about embroidery, and Mrs. Roberts showed us a lot more. You know about Mrs. Gordon Roberts, don't you? She's rich—class!—and president of the working girls' club. She's always at the club at the noon hour, during luncheon. Oh, she's great!"

"I know all about her," said Mrs. Burke. "She's a widow, same as I am, only she's rich, and about twenty-eight, and moves in the highest society. She's the first society woman I ever knew about who went into such a thing sincerely. It isn't just a plaything with her. She has helped the girls a lot."

"I suppose I'd better run in and see how Mabel is before I get ready for dinner," Alice Patton said.

"She's got a headache, that's all," Mrs. Burke persisted. "This is going to be an awful night; I can feel it in my bones. The air is so heavy and depressing."

"That's due to the decaying vegetables in the Italian grocery across the street," Alice Patton responded.

She hurried into the house, ran quickly up the stairs, tossed her hat on the bed in her own little room, and then hurried to the room of her particular chum, Mabel Higgins.

Miss Higgins was stretched across the foot of her bed, with a wet towel wrapped around her head.

"It's the same old thing, Alice," she complained. "I endured it all morning, and went to the girls' club for lunch, and then decided that I'd come home. Mrs. Roberts was there, and she said it would be foolish for me to go back to work."

"You've been using your eyes too much."

"We've got to get that centerpiece done, Alice. We haven't much more time."

"Don't you worry about that," Alice Patton told her. "I'll come in here after dinner and work on it as late as I can; or I'll take it to my own room, if you want to keep the lights out here."

"Please come in," Mabel decided. "I'll be all right if I just stay still for a time."

"Want some dinner?"

"No. I told Mrs. Burke that she might bring me some tea and toast; that's all I can eat. I'll be all right in an hour or so if I keep quiet. I feel so—so creepy!"

"It's the weather, Mabel. It makes me feel shivery, too. I think there is going to be a storm."

Alice Patton went to her own room again, and ten minutes later was in the big dining room eating with the others. The meal at an end, she hurried back to her chum's room. Mabel Higgins had consumed her tea and toast.

"Where's that centerpiece?" Alice demanded.

"In the top drawer of the bureau."

"Sure you don't want me to go to my own room to work?"

"No, dear. I'm much better now. And we can talk if you work at it in here. My head doesn't ache so bad if I keep my eyes closed and don't move around."

Alice Patton took the big centerpiece from the drawer, sat down beside the table, adjusted the light, and began the work.

"To think that Jessie Simpson will be a bride before the end of another week!" she said.

"She's getting a good man, too," Mabel added. "He's steady and straight."

"A plumber!"

"They make tremendous wages, dear. Jessie is a lucky girl. She'll have a dandy flat."

"And she'll have some centerpiece to put on her table!" Alice Patton said.

"I showed it to Mrs. Roberts at noon, and she said that we had done fine. She told me about a new stitch, too."

"This needle is about as dull as it could be."