A hard old girl

GEORGE MILBURN

No oilier girl in town was as hard as Harriet McKindricks. Harriet was a hard old girl. She was big and good-looking, with luscious breasts, and she had a swing to her hips that made men look after her. Some of them would have liked a chance to court her, hut Harriet was too hard to have any time for men. She never had a beau in her life.

When it came down to it, no one found fault with her for that. One of the older McKindricks girls, Mabel, had come in from the farm in the early days to work in the telephone office. Mabel was a pretty girl, too. But she worked in town for a while, and then, the first thing she knew, she had a baby and she didn't have any husband to show for it. The baby grew up to be Looie, the town half-wit. For a long time that Mabel McKindricks was an example to the rest of the girls in town.

Some people said, though, that Harriet McKindricks always had been hard like that. They used to tell it about her that when she was a girl in the country she would pick up a copperhead snake by the tail and pop its head off. She wasn't afraid of anything.

When she came to town to stay with her sister and to go to high school, Harriet didn't do as Mabel had done. She never would let man or boy say a soft word to her. And then when Mabel ran away with S. W. Green, the soda-pop factory man, Harriet took her sister's job in the telephone office.

Nearly all the young men around town thought that if they could just make a start with her, they could go a long way. They kept thinking about Harriet. But Harriet wouldn't let anyone get a start.

Once Hart Summers made a bet with some of the boys around the De Luxe Barber Shop that he could take her to the Baptist ice cream social that night. Hart thought that he was ladies' man enough to do it if anyone was.

He came up the First National Bank building steps to the telephone office, and called Harriet out into the hall. Hart began trying to persuade her to give him a date for that night. All the men from the De Luxe were down at the foot of the stairs trying to overhear the conversation. As soon as Hart told Harriet his business, she turned her back on him and started to go back in to her place at the telephone switchboard.

Hart said, "Here, wait a minute, girlie! I've got a little present here for you if you'll just give me this one date."

Harriet turned around and Hart handed her a five-dollar hill. She took the five dollars and tucked it down in her brassiere. Then she hauled off and slapped Hart. She slapped him so hard he hit the middle landing of the First National Bank building stairs without touching a step. Harriet was a hard old girl.

It wasn't that she didn't like to go places and have a good time. She liked to get around to parties and socials and the moving pictures and pie suppers, hut she always went alone.

One night they were having a charivari out at the Mullins place, about a mile from town. One of the Mullins girls, Faye, had been married to Floyd Evans that morning. Everybody was standing around yelling and beating on tubs and tin pans and ringing cowbells, trying to get Floyd to come out and serve the treats. There was a big bonfire going in the front yard, and everyone was having a good time. Harriet McKindricks was there, and she was having as big a time as anyone.

Orville Burke, the photographer, a hand with the women if there ever was one, saw Harriet in such a happy, care-free mood, all flushed up there in the fire-light; so, in the noise and confusion, he stepped over and slipped his arm around her and whispered, "Who's going to see you home tonight, Miss McKindricks?"

Harriet twisted and struggled a little to get Orville's arm away from her waist, but Orville kept on holding it there.

"You better get your hands off of me, if you know what's good for you," Harriet said in a steady voice. But Orville thought that his charm was working, so he kept his arm there.

About that time Clark Peavy, the manager of the Minnetonka Lumber Yard, walked up. Clark wasn't as big a man as Orville, but he was the kind that was always ready to take up for a girl. And he didn't like the photographer any too well, anyway.

"Is this man pestering you, Miss McKindricks?" Clark asked.

Harriet jerked away from Orville Burke, so mad she couldn't say a word.

Orville snarled at Clark and said, "You'd better mind your own business, unless'n you want a bullet put in you, you poor hick!"

But Clark stepped over beside Harriet and said solemnly, "Miss McKindricks, if you just say so, I'll die right here by your warm side."

They were standing near the wood pile. Harriet reached down and picked up a goodsized stick of stove wood and cracked Orville Burke over the head with it. Then she turned around and popped Clark Peavy one.

They had to take the doors of! of Mullins' storm cellar to carry Clark and Orville home.

After that the boys around town knew enough to leave Harriet McKindricks alone. She kept on working as day telephone central, and she was just as good-looking as ever, but she never did get a man.

Every second Thursday, though, Harriet would go into the Economy Drug Store and walk over to Raymond Best, the boy who tended the soda fountain and took care of the magazine stand. Harriet would pop down a quarter on the soda fountain.

"Give me a copy of Sweetheart Stories," she would say in a low, hard voice. Then she would put the magazine in a large purse she carried and walk out quickly.