Angel Kake
Angel Kake was no angel.
He was a real estate man.
His name was Severance Kake, but he was called Angel for a nickname.
Angel Kake had a picture of Abraham Lincoln hanging on the wall of his office.
Very few people in Our Town trusted Angel Kake.
Angel Kake was thirty-six years old, and was engaged to marry Miss Blanche Astee, who was a telephone operator in the main office of the telephone company. They had been engaged about six years, and Miss Blanche Astee had gotten around to where she was thirty-two years old, and was asking Kake questions.
She was a nice looking girl, but she never bobbed her hair.
She was the only female in Our Town who wore a petticoat. Angel Kake used to always be making excuses for not taking her out.
He was doing very well in the real estate business. He bought and sold property for himself, and for others, and rented houses, and was third vice president of the Chamber of Commerce.
He hoped to be president of the Chamber of Commerce someday. Angel Kake was very ambitious.
One day a young fellow by the name of Erasmus Bidge came to Our Town from Chicago. He said he had been in the oil business in Texas, but was looking for a job. He got acquainted with Angel Kake, and used to drive around with him when Angel Kake was selling real estate.
Erasmus Bidge was with Angel Kake the day Angel took a man from Omaha named Mr. Trumbull out to see the Kake place north of Our Town.
Mr. Trumbull was looking for a farm, but he saw right away what it took Angel Kake thirty years to find out, that you couldn’t even raise hell on the place.
Erasmus Bidge was introduced to Miss Blanche Astee by Angel Kake, and Angel would get Erasmus Bidge to take Miss Blanche Astee out when he had business elsewhere. Angel Kake always had business elsewhere, but he would stake Erasmus Bidge to entertain Miss Blanche Astee at the movies, and buy her a chocolate sundae afterwards. Miss Blanche Astee loved chocolate sundaes.
One day Miss Blanche Astee asked Angel Kake right out about marrying her, and he hemmed and hawed, and said well you see, until she told him she could see what he meant, but that if he didn’t want a breach of promise action, he had better make some settlement with her, because she had fooled her best years away with him and look at her now.
For a girl who continued to wear a petticoat, Miss Blanche Astee got very tough about it.
Angel Kake said he didn’t have much of anything to make a settlement with and she said he had the old Kake place, and she would take that, as it might make a home for her in her old age.
Angel Kake said he was tickled silly to think he was going to get rid of the old Kake place and Miss Blanche Astee at the same time. He could hardly wait to get to his office.
So Angel Kake deeded the place over to her for one dollar and other valuable considerations, and three days later she married Erasmus Bidge, and six months later they struck oil out there.
Angel Kake sued Mr. and Mrs. Bidge, claiming it was a put-up job, but the case was thrown out of court, and everybody in Our Town laughed at Angel Kake.
He still hopes to be president of the Chamber of Commerce.