Short Fiction

Hazel. I’d like to show them to you alone.”

Well, even if Mildred had been used to trains, that remark would have interfered seriously with her night’s sleep.

---

Mildred found Chapman awaiting her in the diner next morning, an hour west of Truckee.

“Are those the snow-sheds you spoke of?”

“Yes,” he replied, “but we’ll talk about them later. First I want to ask you a few questions.”

“Ask me questions!” said Mildred. “Well, they’ll have to be simple ones or I won’t be able to answer them.”

“They’re simple enough,” said Chapman. “The first one is, do you know Harley Bateman?”

“I know of him, but I don’t know him.”

“Do you know Bess Eldridge?”

“Just to speak to; that’s all.”

“What other trips have you taken besides this?”

“None at all. This is really the first time I’ve ever been anywhere.”

“Has your friend ever been engaged?”

“Yes; twice. It was broken off both times.”

“I bet I know why. There was no place to take her on a honeymoon.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. Say, did I tell you about getting my tooth pulled in Milwaukee?”

“I don’t believe so,” said Mildred.

“Well, I had a terrible toothache. It was four days ago. And I thought there was no use fooling with it, so I went to a dentist and told him to pull it. He said I’d better take gas, but I wouldn’t. So he pulled it and it pretty near killed me, but I never batted an eye. He said it was one of the toughest teeth he’d ever seen; roots as big as your little finger. And the tooth itself full of poison.”

“How terrible! You must be awfully brave!”

“Look here, at the hole,” said Chapman, opening his mouth.

“Why, Mr. Chapman, it must have hurt horribly!”

“Call me Dan.”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Well, listen⁠—are you going to be with Miss Hazel all the time you’re in San Francisco?”

“Why, no,” said Mildred. “Hazel is going to visit her aunt in Berkeley part of the time. And I’m going to stop at the Fairmont.”

“When is she going to Berkeley?”

“Next Tuesday, I think.”

“Can I phone you next Wednesday?”

“But Hazel will be gone then.”

“Yes, I know,” said Chapman, “but if you don’t mind, I’ll phone you just the same. Now about these snow-sheds⁠—”

I Can’t Breathe

July 12

I am staying here at the Inn for two weeks with my Uncle Nat and Aunt Jule and I think I will keep a kind of a diary while I am here to help pass the time and so I can have a record of things that happen though goodness knows there isn’t lightly to anything happen, that is anything exciting with Uncle Nat and Aunt Jule making the plans as they are both at least 35 years old and maybe older.

Dad and mother are abroad to be gone a month and me coming here is supposed to be a recompence for them not taking me with them. A fine recompence to be left with old people that come to a place like this to rest. Still it would be a heavenly place under different conditions, for instance if Walter were here, too. It would be heavenly if he were here, the very thought of it makes my heart stop.

I can’t stand it. I won’t think about it.

This is our first separation since we have been engaged, nearly 17 days. It will be 17 days tomorrow. And the hotel orchestra at dinner this evening played that old thing “Oh how I miss you tonight” and it seemed as if they must be playing it for my benefit though of course the person in that song is talking about how they miss their mother though of course I miss mother too, but a person gets used to missing their mother and it isn’t like Walter or the person you are engaged to.

But there won’t be any more seperations much longer, we are going to be married in December even if mother does laugh when I talk to her about it because she says I am crazy to even think of getting married at 18.

She got married herself when she was 18, but of course that was “different,” she wasn’t crazy like I am, she knew whom she was marrying. As if Walter were a policeman or a foreigner or something. And she says she was only engaged once while I have been engaged at least five times a year since I was 14, of course it really isn’t as bad as that and I have really only been really what I call engaged six times altogether, but is getting engaged my fault when they keep insisting and hammering at you and if you didn’t say yes they would never go home.

But it is different with Walter. I honestly believe if he had not asked me I would have asked him. Of course I wouldn’t have, but I would have died. And this is the first time I have ever been engaged to be really married. The other times when they talked about when should we get married I just laughed at them, but I hadn’t been engaged to Walter ten minutes when he brought up the subject of marriage and I didn’t laugh. I wouldn’t be engaged to him unless it was to be married. I couldn’t stand it.

Anyway mother may as well get used to the idea because it is “No Foolin’ ” this time and we have got our plans all made and I am going to be married at home and go out to California and Hollywood on our honeymoon. December, five months away. I can’t stand it. I can’t wait.

There were a couple of awfully nice looking boys sitting together alone in the dining-room tonight. One of them wasn’t so much, but the other was cute. And he⁠—

There’s the dance orchestra playing “Always,” what they played at the Biltmore the day I met Walter. “Not for just an hour not for just a day.” I can’t live. I can’t breathe.

July