The Red Book Magazine/Volume 20/Number 4/Heels

EARL DERR BIGGERS

HERE came a time when young Sammy Downs found the village in which he had sported with baseball and wrestled with algebra too small to suit his taste. So his mother, dropping a tear on his winter underwear, packed it neatly in a shiny new trunk, and Sammy set out for the largest city in the state of his nativity. He announced loudly to his family and friends that he was going away to “see life.”

Whereupon Fate, laughing a rousing laugh in her sleeve, took Sammy by the hand and led him where he couldn't see life at all, but could only hear it—clicking by.

In the basement of the Hotel Porcellian, prize hostelry of the Middle-West city to which Sammy came, there is a grill room ornate and expensive. Outside, in the palm strewn corridor, stands a cigar counter. Its case is filled with Havanas ranging in color from ebony all the way to birds-eye maple, and up to that case men frequently bring their friends with the smiling invitation to have a cigar. As they stand studying the price tags the smile dies suddenly. Newspapers may also be purchased there, in paying for which one simply multiplies by five the price mentioned in the upper corner of the sheet desired.

Sammy's frank country countenance won the tobacco heart of the malefactor of great wealth who owned this stand and the one in the main lobby of the Porcellian. He bestowed upon Sammy a job. The job was to stand back of the basement cigar counter and attend to the wants of the smoking public.

Sammy stood. And over the head of the youth who had sought the city to see life, life clicked by, unseen.

Clicked is the word. For Sammy's cigar stand was directly under the sidewalk of one of the main streets of the city. The sidewalk was studded with little circles of glass. And on that glass the heels of the city folk played by day and night the symphony of hustle. Click-click, click-click, click-click. Life! Sometimes Sammy glanced up. And if it was daylight, he saw “a moving row of magic shadow shapes that come and go.”

One week, two weeks, three weeks, the tattoo of the heels spelled companionship to Sammy under the sidewalk. Click—click—click. Some moved slowly, as heels that went toward a dentist, a debtor, or a down-fall. Clickity—clickity—click-click-click! Some sped joyously, as to a lover, a loan, a laurel wreath. All day. All night. Click—click—

“Great Scott,” remarked Mr. Goodfellow, manager of the Crown Theatre, pausing one day to light an expensive perfecto, “I should think you'd be climbing the wall and screaming in the dead languages, kid!” He looked inquiringly into the clean young face of Sammy Downs, with whom he had struck up an odd friendship. “Doesn't it ever get on your nerves? Nothing but that infernal click all the time?”

Sammy shook his head slowly, and smiled.

“No, I like it. It's sort of mysterious, somehow. I like to imagine where the heels came from, and where they're going, and who they belong to. It's all guess work, of course. But I heard a pair the other day I was dead certain came from a bankruptcy court, and were going home to—a wife. Three times I've picked out heels that had just lost a job. And as for heels in love—I know 'em on the second click.”

“I suppose,” laughed Goodfellow, “before long you'll be signing an affidavit that you can recognize people by the click. Reel off their profession, character, and standing at the bank.”

“I'd like to think so,” Sammy told him. “But—it can't be done. The clicks are all too much alike for that. But I can tell glad heels from sad heels. And sometimes I make out the regulars—those that go by at certain times. There's one pair in particular that goes down at nine in the morning, and back at four in the afternoon. A long, sliding, sneaking, sly click, with a walking stick accompaniment. And believe me, those heels belong to a crook.”

Again Goodfellow laughed.

“I've got a little tip for the management,” he said. “They ought to put the guy that shines shoes here for a while. Something's got to be done to remind him there's such a thing as heels. The toes he shines beautiful to see. But the heels—say, he cuts 'em completely. They aint in his set.”

He held up a shoe in proof of this. A few minutes later he strolled away. At the cigar counter he left a thoughtful young man. Could he recognize professions by the click of heels?

For several days Sammy tried. But it was no use. He knew that bankers and vaudevillians, cooks and ball players, ministers and second-story men, editors and hod carriers, walked above. But they were only clicks to Sammy.

The football player whose goal kick from the field had won the state university's most important game passed daily on the way to the office which he swept out. Above Sammy's head clicked the heel of that foot which had been lovingly pictured on the sporting pages. Sammy never knew. The senator who had until lately bossed the state came to town. The heel that had long ground down a people added to Sammy's daily concert. He did not guess. But he could have told you, from the click, that the football player was disgusted with life. Which he was, for it is no joke to be an undergraduate idol one minute and a boy of all work in an Office the next. And, by the same sign, Sammy knew that the senator feared for the country's future. Which he did, for insurgency had lately overthrown his dynasty.

For two months the heels passed over Sammy's head—strange heels, familiar heels. He came to have his friends and foes among them. Upon the sly, slinking heels with the walking stick he vented his deepest hatred. They made him first uneasy, then angry. When they went by he clinched his fists. They were the false note in his symphony of life; their owner was the villain in the show of magic shadow shapes which each morning staged for him.

And then there clicked above the head of Sammy Downs the pair of heels that were his fate, and all other heels could go unheeded though they clicked on the glass till the sound reached the ears of the famous dead gaudily pictured on his cigar box lids.

This happened on a torrid morning early in August. At ten minutes of ten o'clock, Sammy was languidly reading baseball in the morning papers, when, faint but clear, there came to him his first glimmer of that melody of clicks. Clickity—clickity-click-click—oh, it's no use. Kindly imagine that the printing press has faltered and those clicks are barely visible if you hold the page close to your eyes. Then tell yourself that they represent music so sweet no composer has yet been worthy to write it. That's how it seemed to Sammy. Like thistledown skimming the meadow in a high wind, like wild autumn leaves racing down a highway in the starshine—so came and went, while you might say “Jack Robinson,” the two heels of his dreams.

Sammy Downs sat for a long time with his lips parted, his gray eyes staring unseeing at dusty palms, his hand holding league standings that no longer meant anything to him. His heart had leaped to his thorax, and there beat violently. His cheeks were flushed. Love at first—er—hearing!

Sammy had never been in love before. Back home he had admired a number of young women to the extent of a church social or two. Since coming to the city an occasional face on the street had given him pause. At these times he had hazily pictured a neat little flat, and mentally divided the thirty per week he received to meet various domestic expenses.

But now—he felt all dizzy and gone and sad and happy at once. The electric lighted Porcellian basement was a celestial apartment. Life was a marvelous experience. He had heard a pair of heels click—a pair of heels he felt must click thereafter at his side. Hope thrilled him. Optimism buoyed him up. Ambition flushed his cheeks. He would climb high in the city. He was in love.

All day he stood in a daze, picturing the girl whom those heels supported. Blonde, no doubt, with great blue eyes and a mouth that begged for kisses. At three in the afternoon Mr. Goodfellow passed Sammy's way, and the cigar clerk felt he could contain his secret no longer.

“Say, Mark,” he called, “listen to this. Come here.” He leaned over and spoke into the manager's ear, saying: “I'm in love.”

“Who is it?” inquired Mr. Goodfellow. “Not the lady cashier in the grill room? Accept no substitutes, Sammy. Her hair and complexion are only understudies for the actors in the original production.”

“Not her,” cried Sammy. “I should say not. Somebody far above her.”

“Who is she? What does she look like?”

“Don't know. I've never seen her. I've only heard her clicking by.”

“Good night,” responded the manager. “I knew this place would get you. It's you for the dippy house, Sammy.”

“Not much,” said Sammy. “You should hear her once. Butterfly Heels—that's what I call her. Ever hear Paderewski run his fingers soft-like over the keys? Say, compared to her heels on the sidewalk, the Anti-Noise Society could have him arrested for raising a racket. I tell you, I'm a goner.”

Mr. Goodfellow regarded his young friend sadly.

“Too bad,” he said. “So young, too. I'm sorry.”

Sammy's face went white. Convulsively he clutched the manager's arm

“Listen,” he cried hoarsely.

Mr. Goodfellow listened. And though he was forty-five, and his gay waistcoat was dangerously near the cigar case, and poetry meant nothing but comic opera lyrics to him, a strange smile came into his red face.

“By Jingo, Sammy!” he cried. “Well, well. Who'd have thought it? Yes, they're some heels. Sort of a wonderful click, wasn't it—yes, I'll give you credit for picking a winner. I wonder, now. The Packard boys' new musical show opens at the Crown, Labor Day, and they've asked me to find a few chorus girls here for them. If the face and figure that goes with those heels is satisfactory there's a job waiting for that girl.”

Sammy regarded him with displeasure. Though he liked musical shows, the life of the chorus was not what he would choose for the lady he adored.

“Nix,” he frowned, “there's a flat waiting for her, and I've got the check for the first month's rent made out already.”

“That's for her to say, I guess,” Mr. Goodfellow reminded him. “Granted you're gone on her—how are you going to meet her? How do you know she'll ever click on your roof again? And even if she does—you'll never get upstairs fast enough to pick her out of the crowd. No, Sammy, you're booked for a leading rôle in “The Story of an Untold Love.'”

“Don't believe it,” said Sammy. “I've got to meet her—I've got to. And I will.”

“Maybe,” replied Goodfellow. “I'd like to meet her myself. The chorus needs a few heels like hers.”

He went away, and left Sammy overwhelmed by doubts and fears. Would she click that way again? The next morning he was too nervous to read baseball. Sorting his papers uneasily, he waited with wildly beating heart.

Nine thirty came. A quarter of ten. Ten minutes of ten. And then—the click—the soul-stirring click there amid the multitude of lesser clicks—and Sammy's smile returned after a long time away.

Twice each day for two weeks the dazed, undecided Sammy Downs heard those heels flit by above his head. They were, he knew, the heels for him, life would thenceforth be a blank without them, but how was he to meet their owner and tell her of the miracle that had happened? He puzzled over ways and means; he schemed; he contrived. Always he ended by just listening. What else could he do?

Mark Goodfellow, who knew no other home save the Porcellian, had told his large, blonde wife of Sammy's odd fascination, and frequently she paused with her husband at the cigar stand to learn how the affair progressed. The two genially advised, but their advice was useless. Mrs. Goodfellow insisted on one point—Sammy must marry the heels.

“Matrimony,” she said, making sure her transformation was in place, “that's the real thing that makes life worth the six-sheet posters. And don't wait around until you've got a lot of money.”

“I had three dollars and forty cents the day after we was married,” proclaimed Mr. Goodfellow.

“Which, dearie,” his wife reminded him, “is exactly three dollars and forty cents more than you had the day before.”

“I know it, Kate,” he said. “I married you for your money.”

Sammy was agreed with Mrs. Goodfellow that matrimony was desirable, but still at sea. He could only listen, turning alternately hot and cold as the novelists say, to the click of Butterfly Heels in passing. Sometimes it seemed to him that in the mêlée of heel clicks that went by when his lady did, he could make out a click that walked beside her. Then Sammy suffered the tortures of that world-old pang—jealousy.

And still, also, he heard twice each day the sly, slinking, unpleasant click and the tap of the cane. And the sound caused his breath to come fast, and his soul to rage in fury.

During the fourth week of his fascination a great tragedy befell. The heels lost their buoyancy. Where they had before played a waltz, they seemed now to play a hymn—sad, slow, thoughtful. What had happened? Daily their clicks became sadder, slower. Sammy's heart was as lead. Butterfly heels they were still, but of a wounded butterfly struggling pitifully along the ground.

He confided his woe to Mr. Goodfellow, and that gentleman was most sympathetic.

“Maybe she's broke,” he said. “Now, that chorus job would be a great thing for her. I'll stand in front of the hotel this afternoon at three and perhaps I can pick her out. We ought to do something to help her.”

Sammy prayed that the chorus would not capture his butterfly, and his prayer was answered. For at three-thirty Mr. Goodfellow returned with a fallen countenance.

“Couldn't pick her,” he announced gloomily.

“She went by at three-seven and a half,” said Sammy. “And she dragged her heels. “This is awful.”

“Three-seven and a half,” repeated Mr. Goodfellow. “Hundreds of 'em going by all the time. I couldn't pick her.”

The next morning a strange thing happened. Butterfly Heels went by a little before ten, as usual. And in fifteen minutes she went back! If those heels had seemed dispirited before to Sammy under the sidewalk, now they were utterly hopeless. He was frantic with a desire to do something. The next day the experience was repeated.

And then, unexpected, unheralded, dawned amid the heat of late August the great day of Sammy's life.

It had been a very warm night, and he had tossed about on his bed thinking pitiful thoughts of the heels. He came down to the Porcellian after his breakfast at the boarding house, groggy and dull with the already intense heat. At a little before ten the heels that had thrilled him of old clicked by—the heels of his wounded butterfly—slow, unhappy. And in a few minutes they clicked back.

Sammy listened, his heart wrung. Pity, agony, longing, overwhelmed him. Half way across the walk clicked clumsily the heels that used to pass as thistle-down on the meadows in the wind. Half way—and they stopped.

Sammy looked up quickly. On the little circles of glass above lay such a shadow as a slim girl might make, lying where she fell.

In one leap Sammy reached the foot of the stairs, in another he seemed to climb them, in still another he was out on the sidewalk. A crowd had gathered curiously round something that lay there. The usual officious old lady was present. All fell back in startled surprise as a hatless, breathless young man dashed madly among them, and lifted the girl on the sidewalk in his arms.

He carried her swiftly through the lobby of the Porcellian, and laid her on an atrociously red sofa in the ladies' parlor. Then, for the first time, he caught his breath, and spoke to Mr. Goodfellow, who, with his wife, had followed.

“Why,” said Sammy, dully, uncomprehendingly, “I thought she was blonde.”

Mr. Goodfellow gazed with open mouth.

“Who—you don't mean—is it Butterfly Heels?” he stammered. “Well, what do you know about that?”

A doctor had offices in the hotel; he was sent for. While they waited, and Mrs. Goodfellow hovered solicitously over the girl, Sammy's eager eyes devoured his butterfly lady. The heels of his dreams had refused to click longer, and so had given her to him. She was certainly not blonde. Her hair was a soft brown—the very shade of the fifty-cent cigars in the case downstairs. And, despite its paleness, her face was very sweet to gaze upon.

The doctor came, and a moment later the girl opened her eyes. They fell first on the face of Sammy Downs, and there they stayed a long time. Sammy gazed back; he saw that the eyes matched the hair. Why in the world, he wondered, had he ever expressed a preference for blue?

“The heat was a little too much for you, I'm afraid,” said the doctor, kindly. “A very bad day—very bad.” But he whispered to Sammy and Mr. Goodfellow in a corner: “It wasn't the heat. She fainted because she was hungry.”

Quickly Sammy fled to the hotel kitchen, and returned with a cup of bouillon. He handed it to the girl on the couch, assuring her that it was the best known remedy for a heat stroke. She smiled on Sammy—the first smile, long to be treasured—and drank. The doctor departed to more fashionable and better paying patients.

“Now, dearie,” cooed Mrs. Goodfellow, “as soon as you're strong enough, you must tell us all about yourself.”

The girl looked at Mrs. Goodfellow; then at the manager, and finally at Sammy. A long, long look.

“You're among friends, my girl,” proclaimed Mr. Goodfellow promptly. “Speak out.”

“I just—wasn't feeling well—and the heat—” began the girl. And if her heels had been music, her voice showed that there was a superlative of music as yet unnamed.

For a time she parried the questions of the manager's wife, and then she broke down, and cried a little, while Sammy looked on in deep pain. And at last she decided to tell—a plaintive little story:

“If you know where I can get work—it would help me so much. You see, I came to the city from a small town upstate because I wanted to go on the stage—to be an actress. I didn't know just how to go about it. But—I'm frightfully ambitious. My money was getting pretty low, and then I saw an advertisement in the papers—that girls were wanted—to act in—the movies. I went to the address—two doors down from this hotel—and found that before I could get a job I'd have to pay twenty-five dollars for four weeks' lessons. I had only about forty dollars, but he promised me a job sure—so I gave him the twenty-five. His name was Levy.”

“Bill Levy,” burst out Mr. Goodfellow, “as crooked as a Highland walking stick.”

“Yes—I guess he's crooked all right,” sighed the girl, the glory of her eyes once more on Sammy Downs. “For four weeks I took the lessons—from ten till three. My money—it went so quickly. Three days ago he was to get me that position. He said things were dull—I'd have to wait. I told him my money was gone. He was sorry, he said, but he couldn't do anything. This morning I went round, and he was busy with new victims, and ordered me away. And he said I wasn't to come back.”

“The brute,” cried Mrs. Goodfellow.

“See here,” demanded Sammy Downs, “describe this fellow.”

“Fat, with gay shirts and neckties, and a nose—”

“No,” protested Sammy. “His walk. How he hits the sidewalk.”

“I don't understand,” said the girl. “He walks sort of sly and sneaking and shuffly—”

“With a cane?” cried Sammy.

“Yes.”

“I knew it.” Sammy's face was purple with excitement. “Believe me, I had his number from the first.”

“Well, I guess that's the whole story,” said the girl. “Not very new or exciting, is it? If you knew where I could get work—”

“Little one,” broke in Mr. Goodfellow, beneficently, “your troubles is over. You've got a job. On the stage, fitting in with the dreams you had up in the backwoods. 'The Isle of Lingerie' opens here week after next, and you're going to be in the chorus—front row. Fifteen a week. And a chance at an Elsie Janis salary any time you develop that something or other—that Janis-say-quoy, as the guy says—that stars have.”

The girl's eyes were very wide and bright.

“On the stage,” she whispered. “It's just like a fairy story, isn't it?”

“With you in the rôle of the fairy—yes,” replied Mr. Goodfellow. “Don't cast me for it, little one. My embonpoint wont [sic] stand for it. You report at the Crown Theatre to-morrow and ask for me. I'll give you a little salary advance now. Rehearsals—”

“Just a minute,” broke in Sammy Downs.

“Well?” asked Mr. Goodfellow.

“I got a few words to say to this lady, in private,” announced Sammy determinedly.

“All right,” replied Goodfellow. “Five minutes I give you. We'll get out. But I want to say this. You've got a future, young woman. Bright lights and posters and all that. Think long and earnest before you sign any contract to click those heels of yours around a kitchen range.”

The manager and his wife withdrew, the former holding his watch significantly in his hand. Left alone with Butterfly Heels, Sammy Downs wasted one precious minute gazing into her lovely eyes.

“Say—see here—I—” He had never proposed before. “Before you join the merry-merry, let me tell you it aint all it looks to be from a careless reading of the newspapers. It's hard work, and sometimes pretty uncertain and—and—a girl like you was made to look after somebody's happiness—somebody that loves you and that would try to make you happy.”

“I don't understand,” said the girl.

“It's this way,” replied Sammy, gulping hard. “I love you. Will you marry me?”

“Of course not. You've only known me half an hour.”

“Half an hour?” Sammy leaned close. “Say, I've been madly in love with you for five weeks. I've looked forward to hearing your step every day. You're the only girl in the world for me. Of course, you aint had time to size me up yet. You ought to have a long time to do that in—say a day or two. I'll let the answer to my question go that long. But remember—I've loved you for five weeks.”

“You only saw me half an hour ago,” she answered, lingering with that fact.

“What of that?” asked Sammy. “I've heard your heels go by for five wonderful weeks. I've got a job—a good job, good enough to be married on—at a cigar stand down stairs under the sidewalk. The walk up above is studded with glass, and I listen to heels all day. And say—there never was any heels anywhere could click like yours. I aint strong on poetry or music or such things—I wish I was—maybe then I could describe how I feel about your heels. I've never heard a tune was sweeter. I've been a goner for five weeks. My heart's set on—you. I want you, Butterfly Heels.”

“Butterfly—”

“That's what I've called you. What do you think?” He reached for his pocket-book, and counted out twenty-five dollars. “Take this while you're thinking it over. It's your money.”

“Oh, I couldn't,” cried the girl.

“It's your money,” Sammy repeated. “The money you gave to Levy. I'll get it back all right. The next time I hear those crooked clicks, it's me up the stairs and on that guy like a Kansas cyclone. Oh, he'll come across all right. It's girls without friends he robs.” He stuffed the bills into her bag. “You'll think it over, wont you?” he begged.

“Well,” said the girl, “it's sort of—funny. I don't know.”

“If you've got any doubts about me,” went on Sammy, “I'll refer you to Hilliersville. They know all about me up there. The Methodist minister approved of me. But say—in a thing like this—it's just by looking and feeling, you know—tell me—don't you think—say—”

The girl sat up, and gazed at Sammy wonderingly.

“I think you've got awful nice eyes,” she said.

“And a great ear for music—don't forget that,” said Sammy in all seriousness.

Mark Goodfellow came into the ladies' parlor, and stood there.

“Well,” he said to the girl, “I can expect you to-morrow at eleven, I suppose. At the Crown. There's a great future for heels like yours on the stage. I told Sammy that the first time I heard you go by. Didn't I, Sammy?”

Sammy Downs looked pleadingly at the girl.

“It was me,” he said, “discovered the heels first. Don't forget that.”

She blushed, but her eyes met the young man's smilingly.

“I've always heard,” she said softly, “that findings is keepings. Haven't you, Sammy? He called you Sammy, didn't he?”