"'To resume,' says I. 'It may be that there ain't a man drifted further from what the standards of this here place is than I be, but I'm willin' to put my hand to an affydavit statin' it never crossed my mind to draft a set of rules as an improvement on the Almighty's. There's where you put it all over me. I have held up a train to hear what the passengers would say, but lackin' the advantages that has doubtless been yours, I duck when it comes to reformin' Heaven.
"'It struck me with the force of a revelation when I arrived at your glowin' mertroppollus this afternoon that to make any human bein', particlerly children, forget for a time that they lived in Oggsouash was a religious duty. I have therefore furnished a few trifles for the purpose. I move you, ladies and gentlemen, that we turn this Christmas Eve into a Pagan festival. All in favor of this motion will keep their seats—contrary minded will please rise,' and I cocked both guns.
"'Carried, unanimous,' says I. 'Now, please let each young person come forward as his, her, or its name is called. I shall be severely displeased if you don't.'
"Then I read from the list the lady had furnished me, and the kids come up. The last party on the list was a little gal that had been poppin' up an' down like a prairie-dog, fearin' she was goin' to git left, and when at last I sings out 'Annabella Angelina Hugginswat!' here she come, her eyes snatched wide open by the two little pigtails that stuck out behind, walkin' knock-kneed and circular, as some little girls does, and stiff er'n a poker in her j'ints from scart-to-death and gladness.
"'Angelina,' says I, pickin' up the big doll-baby I'd saved for her, 'you must be the fond parient of this child,' says I. 'Raise it kindly; teach it that it's been damned since the year of our Lord B. C. 7604; feed it vegetables, Angelina, and keep it away from strong drink, even if you have to use force.'
"Angelina, she didn't mind my pursyflage, but she just stood there quiverin' all over, lookin' at her prize.
"'Ith that my dolly?' she says.
"'That's your sure-enough dolly, little gal,' I says.
"She took hold of it—her little arms was stiff as railroad ties and her hands was cold.
"She looked at me again and whispered: "'Ith that my dolly,really,truly, mithter?'
"She looked so darned funny standin' there that I grabbed her right up and kissed her.
"'If anybody tries to take that dolly away from you, you letmeknow—skip!' says I, and down the aisle she runs hollerin': 'Oh, papa, papa! Thee my dolly!' Seems she didn't have no mother, poor little thing.
"Well, sir, old human nature is human nature, after all—elsewise it would be a darned funny state of affairs—but anyhow, that little gal's holler did something to my friends, the Oggsouashers. I don't think I overstep the mark when I say some of 'em smiled a kindly smile.
"'But I didn't have no time to study it. If I missed my freight I stayed in Oggsouash over night, so, reasonin' thus, the tall form of E. G. W. Scraggs might 'a' been seen proceedin' toward the railroad track at the rate of seventeen statute miles per hour. Just as I hooked on to the caboose comes a feller pastin' after me.
"'Say!' he whoops. 'Say! We want to thank you!'
"'Turn it in to the kids,' says I. 'Good-night, Oggsouash, good-night,' I says, 'Partin' is such sweet sorrow that I could say good-night as long as my wind held out.'
"Well, sir, it was nigh three in the mornin' when I hit Castle Scraggs agin, after the coldest walk to be found anywhere outdoors; but when Mrs. Scraggs come to the door—and it was one of the blackest-eyed and snappiest of the race—and she says, 'Zeke Scraggs! Where you been?' I just fell into her arms.
"'Bear with me, Susan, or Mary Ann, or whatever your name is,' saysI, 'for I've had a ter'ble time.'
"'You behave yourself, you old idiot, or I'll do you personal harm,' says she.
"'Thank you, thank you for them sweet words, spoke by somebodyalive, anyhow,' says I. 'And this much more, Mrs. Scraggs,' says I, 'before we part. If ever you hear me complain of anythin' concernin' you ladies just you say "Oggsouash" to me and hold your hand, so, to indicate an empty glass.
"'Good-night, Susanna—Merry Christmas,' says I. 'On my word of honor, there has been one moment of my life when I was glad to see you.'
"And I left her standin' there, with the candle in her hand, paralyzed.
"And I can conclood, as I suggested in the beginning, that I had not foresaw one item of these occurrences when I risked that collar-button."
"Once upon a time, when I was scarcely married at all, you might say," began Mr. Scraggs, "I quit workin' for a livin' and started a scientific school."
"Youdid?" cried Red, after one astonished second vanished in the past.
"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Scraggs, "I did.Itwas for the investigation and pursuit of this, here doctrine of chances. The idee was to put a little box full of playin'-cards on the table, and draw them forth one at a time, to see just how they'd fall. Some of the students got that interested they bet on the results."
"Oh!" said Charley, "I took a course in that one winter myself.Did you always drawonecard at a time out'n that box, Zeke?"
"So help me, Bob! I did," returned Mr. Scraggs most earnestly. "Hence I didn't get rich. It sometimes happened that a Wild Wolf from Up the Creek would breeze in, full of rum, plumb foolishness, and money. Oh, man! High or low, red or black, odd or even, coppered or open, on the corner or let her rip, last turn and in the middle, from soda-card to hock, them brier-whiskered sons-of-guns would whipsaw my poor little bank till there wasn't much left of her but sawdust. Yes, sir," mourned Mr. Scraggs, "I made enough out of the early birds to eat, but them Roarin' Bears from Bruindale uset sometimes to apply the flat of their hands to my seat of learning till the sparks flew out of my eyes. In short, this sportin' life was too much up and down hill for me. No sooner would I git ready to declare a dividend than one of my outside customers would come in and take that dividend and wipe both feet on it, roll on it, stomp it, fly ten foot in the air and come down on it, bite chunks out of it, and then I'd light a match, gather the crumbs from the floor, and wisht I could git holt of something at once easy and reliable.
"Well, there was a friend of mine lived at the Transcontinental Hotel. The partition between his room and mine didn't come clear to the ceiling, so when I arrived home late I uset to heave a boot over on top of him and have a chin. He was a nice feller, Hadds. A pale, thin sort of man, very red-headed—that is to say, not red-headed like some parties I have known, but a sort of bashful red, that would ha' been different if it could; and he wore eight large freckles on his face. There would have been more if there had been more room. Hadds was then workin' for the railroad company, but not happy. He was in the dispatcher's office, and I'd hear him holler in his nightmares, 'There they go! Bang! Everybody killed! I always expected it!'
"You see, he lived in fear of running two excursion trains together. Nervous cuss—oh, awful! Not without reason, neither. Seems when he was at college he studied chemistry. Always experimentin'. Mixed two things that was born to live apart. Hadds left simooltaniously with that corner of the buildin'. He didn't stop till he reached the Transcontinental Hotel.
"Hadds worked at me to start a drug store with him. He'd saved some out of his wages, and he knew I had a fluctuatin' roll. He says, 'You're goin' bust some day, young man—why don't you quit it? You come with me and we'll make a decent thing. It's mighty lucky for the gang that they swill patent medicines instead of lettin' that Jones up the street give' em a quick finish over the prescription counter. That pill-wrangler couldn't tell the difference between an auger-hole riffle-board and a porous plaster if there wasn't a label on the box. Jeeminnetticus!' says Hadds, 'when he mixes coffin varnish for a man you'd think he was scramblin' eggs. Come on, Washy,' he says, 'while you got the price. You'd like the business.'
"One night it happened Bitter Water Simpson was borne on the wings of evening to my place of business, and he calculated that the last two cards in the box would come out, queen first, trey next. He was so sure he inquired about the theory of limits.
"'The limit,' says I, 'is the clothes and contents, body and immortal soul of E. G. W. Scraggs. You slam your wad down and I'll cash it.'
"It had occurred to me there was no use foolin' longer. If I busted this gun-fighter I went into the drug business; if he busted me I'd take a walk.
"He laid down one thousand dollars' worth of Government promises, and I took a long breath, drew forth, first trey, next queen, removed his money from the table with a light, sure touch, threw the layout in the stove, blew out the lamp, remarked that the bank was closed, and stood prepared to deal in chemicals instead of playin'-cards.
"Simpson was surprised. 'Ain't I goin' to get satisfaction?' says he.
"'If it's to be had on the prescription counter you do,' says I.'Otherwise, I prefer to stay satisfied myself.'
"It would have been better if he'd refrained from abusing me. I was younger then, and while not in the least quarrelsome, yet such talk as Simpson talked to me was entirely uncalled for. Besides that, he got festive with guns. I relieved him of his guns and sat him on the stove till he promised to behave. Nobody ever heard me kick when them fellers nailed me to the burnin' oak for anywhere's up to five hundred a night. Howsomever, it wound up amiable; I staked Simmy to a new pair of pants, and kept him in spendin' money till ridin' again appeared among the possibilities. I never could get used to people pullin' guns on me.
"So, then, there was a drug store goin' in no time. Both me and Hadds was happy as could be, and workin' like a pair of mules. When we had things fixed, and a sign 'Hadds & Scraggs' in gold letters four foot high, I felt I really was a prominent citizen. But dear friends and brothers, always there's somebody handy with a fly to stick in your ointment. Once I went down street to see how that sign looked a little ways off, and up rides a puncher.
"'Hadds & Scraggs!' says he: 'I wonder what kind of merchandise them is? Well, I must take a Hadds and a Scraggs home to show the boys.'
"He knocked every bit of poetry out of that sign. Howsomever, poetry ain't the chief business of a drug store, and when you come to the practical side we done mighty well. We got in a line of patent medicines with pretty red and blue labels that took the popular taste. As there was a minin' boom over the hill, our line of gold pans and gunpowder went well. A new seeder brought in some money, and with rubber boots, snowshoes, baseballs, carpenters' tools, spectacles, lumber, and an agency for a self-binder as side issues, I see myself getting on in the world.
"'Tweren't long before nobody'd think of buyin' a faro layout or a deck of cards elsewhere than at our store, and as for perfumed soap and perfumery, why, I think our feller-citizens must have et the one and drunk the other, for we unloaded by the box and pailful. When we'd count the kitty nights, 'Didn't I tell you?' Hadds would holler. 'Put your feet in my tracks and you'll wear diamonds!'
"And I guess I would if it hadn't been for a lady. There's a woman in it, nine times out of ten, when a man's ruined; and the other time there's a man in it. If neither one nor t'other's in it it's a durned uninterestin' occurrence, anyhow. Yes, sir; we come under the double-cross kindness of a female major.
"One night—Sufferin' Ichabod! but that was a night.'—we were jerried to a standstill in one half-hour, or thirty minutes, by the clock.
"Things was slack this evening nobody in the store but Hadds, Keno Jim and me, throwin' poker dice for cigars, when the door opens and here come Major Pumpey and his wife from the army post. We were not glad to see the Major. He was a little, pussy, red-faced, pop-eyed man, pompous as a banty rooster, with black whiskers and a mustache like a cat. He had a voice on him like barrels rolling in a brewery vault. It would surprise you quite a little to hear that number ten voice come a-roarin' out of that number two man. The Major used to corral everything he wanted and say, 'Charge it!' two octaves below a bull's beller, Bein' a military person, he was fond of charges; me and Hadds, bein' plain civilians, weren't. We charged it and we charged it, but that there Major's defenses were impregnerville. I had told Hadds that the next time Pumpey said 'Charge it' I was goin' to take him at his word, then and there, and rush him along on his ear till I felt better. But, of course, now his wife was along I couldn't.
"She was just as different from the Major as anything could be: a tall, pale, rangey woman, kind-hearted and good-natured as they make 'em, but with a pair of nose-grabber specks, and a way of letting her hands flop at the wrist, whilest she talked in a high gobbley-gobble style, like singin' a tuneless tune. They made a pair to draw to. The Lord only knows what you'd got if you filled. My! And the general effect of that lady! She wore her hair in an omelet, and looked as if she'd been put in her clothes by a boiler explosion.
"There was another powerful difference between them two. The Major he gazed on the wine when it was any color at all. He didn't care so much for decoration as he did for quantity. He passed his time in bein' tee'd, tee-heed, or teeterin'. On the other hand, his lady couldn't stand plain raw water. Honest, friends and brothers! I ain't stringin'! I have it on the word of their striker that Mrs. Pumpey couldn't be induced to take a drink of water unless it was boiled, and as for spirited liquors—Oh, murder! Don't mention it!
"As the Major entered I observed upon his person a kind of uprightness that no sober man ever had, varied with quick little steps sideways, for no good visible reason, and when he comes up to the counter he grabs it with both hands and says, 'How do—gla' meecher—hot, ain't it?'
"I admitted it was hot, told him I was glad to meet him, too, and as this last wasn't no more than a plain lie I asked the lady quick what we could do for her.
"Perfumery was wanted, so I passed the bottles out. Mrs. Major would take a lady-like sniff and say, 'Dee-lee-shus! Ha-oow do eeyou lieek that, Ma-JAW?'
"And when de major laid his hands on the right one of the numerous bottles floatin' in the atmosphere about him he'd hold it a yard off, give a snort like a buzz-saw striking a knot, and after a minute's silence roar, 'Ain't that nice, b-y-y-y GOSH!' and slam the bottle down.
"It was tryin' on the nerves. First place, the way he come out with that 'b-y-y-y Gosh!' hit you in the pit of the stomach like standin' alongside a bass-drum, and it was only a question of time when he slammed one of them bottles through the show case. So I flagged Hadds for help, and the two of us plied the lady with perfumery so fast that the Major couldn't get his oar in, at which he cut loose for himself, wanderin' around behind the counter, smellin' of every bottle on the shelves.
"It ain't everything in a drug store has as pleasant a greetin' for your nose as perfumery, and once or twice, when I looked around, to kind of keep cases on him, I see the Major had struck a shock. But at last he come across a sample that pleased him. I saw him swig a good lungful of it, and his mouth opened wide with delight.
"'Well, I guess you'll be amused for a while,' thinks I. So I paid no more attention.
"The next thing Hadds looks up. 'Here!' he yells; 'drop that!That's chloroform, you bull-head!'
"The call come too late—leastways, to work as intended. The Major dropped the bottle, but he also dropped himself, two shelves, and about six dozen glass jars of everything you ever heard of. Powers of darkness! Flat on his back laid the hero of many charges, whilest over his manly form and face trickled cough mixture, Canady balsam, liniment, sugar syrup, castor oil, and more sticky, oily, messy kinds of stuff than I'll ever tell you. The worst of it was that a bottle of carmine had landed last in the wreck and, bustin', flew over everything. As there wasn't a dry spot for a rod it looked like the Major had done a turn of bleedin' at every vein same as the young man we used to read about at school. In fact it was much worse than that. It appeared to be the most awful tragedy any one man ever was concerned in.
"Before we got our wits about us poor Mrs. Pumpey see her Major afloat on a gory sea, and without askin' for explanations she give a loud holler and fainted on our stock of fancy dishes.
"'Here's where we make a lot of money, I don't think,' screeches Hadds—he was an excitable person, that Hadds. 'Come!' he hollers, 'help me get 'em out of here! There's enough chloroform loose to sleep the bunch of us!'
"We lugged the Major and his wife to the back of the store. I made a piller for her out'n some rolls of wall-paper, but the Major had to get along as best he could. There he lay, his little round stummick stickin' in the air, breathin' like a wind-broken horse.
"Keno Jim and me looked after the lady whilest Hadds pranced around the Major and cussed scientific cuss-words. Of course, Keno and me didn't know no more what to do than a photograft of the Wild Man of Borneo when there was a fain tin' woman in the question. As I said, I hadn't been married enough to learn, and the present line of Mrs. Scraggses was healthy, whatever other faults they might have. Hadds 'ud come over and tell us half of something, and then rush back to the Major, tearin' his hair.
"'Blast it, Hadds!' says Keno, 'quit callin' the man names and let us know what to do for this woman.'
"'Give her a drink of whisky!' yells Hadds. 'Come here, Zeke, and see what ails this beggar now!'
"If he hadn't called me off like that lots of things wouldn't happened. 'Look at him!' says Hadds, and grinds his teeth. 'Forty dollars' worth of stuff smashed—charge it, of course. Prob'ly he's goin' to die on our hands—'twould be just like his unmerciful nerve. Pass me that bottle of ammonia, Zeke.'
"Then Keno hollered for me. He'd pried the Majoress' mouth open, stuck a cork in to it keep it so, and then fed her the revivifier. She wasn't a handsome woman at the best, but with that cork in her mouth——!
"'I gave her to there of whisky,' says Keno, indicatin' about four Swede fingers on a water tumbler. 'Do you think that'll bring her to ?'
"'Like a bear trap,' says I. 'Do you mean to say you sluiced that much raw jump-and-holler into a woman that can't stand uncooked water? Well, you are an allotropic modification of the genus jackass, like Hadds says of the Major.'
"Keno got purple in the face. He slammed the glass down and walked out. 'Now you can look after your own women,' says he, bitter. Them scientific cuss-words cut him to the heart.
"I looked at the lady. The color was coming back to her face. Evidently she'd be around in a minute or two. Then Hadds fairly whoops at me:
"'Come here! Come 'here! You're a nice pardner, you are, standin' there with your hands in your pockets!'
"'Well, what'll I do, Hadds?' says I.
"'Do? I don't care what you do, so long's you don't look so aggravatin' useless. D'yer think this specimen of an officer and gentleman appears to be—what in blazes is he doin' now?'
"'Don't abuse the poor cuss,' says I. 'He really couldn't help it.' Then I had an inspiration. Several times in my life I've been afflicted that way. 'See here,' says I, 'he took his dose through the nose. Why don't you give him the remedy the same way? Try a pinch of that Scotch snuff.'
"'Why, sure!' says Hadds. He'd tried anythin' at that stage of the game.
"Well, dear friends and brothers, it ain't down in the farmer-coop-here, nor no other agriculcheral reports, and I dunno as you could bank on it in every case, but from what I see on this occasion, if you ever happen to have a friend or relative that's over-indulged in choreform and can't seem to recall himself, wait till he takes a deep breath, and mix about an ounce of Scotch snuff in his air supply. It may work wonders.
"'Hoor-rash-o!' says the Major, comin' to a sittin' position. 'Hoor-rash-o!' says he again, and then he went off like a pack of firecrackers. A sneeze wouldn't more'n get fairly started before another'd explode in the middle of it. And the Major was as powerful a sneezer as he was talker. Gee! them bass sneezes of his sounded like a freight-engine exhaust. Mind you, he didn't open his eyes; just sat there, covered with carmine and soothin' syrup, rockin' backward and forrard and sneezin' like George Washington. There was somethin' kind of horrible about it. Me 'n' Hadds looked on petrified.
"Then, 'Oh, my poor husband! What are they doin' to you?' says a v'ice behind us, and the Majoress skipped across the floor and fell on the Major. That's the word for it; she let go all holts an' dropped, gatherin' him up in her arms.
"'What did you say, Willie?' she asks.
"'Hoor-rash-o!' says the Major. 'A-kissh-uuu! ha-ha-hrrrum-pah!A-ketcheer! Aketcher-hisssh-hoor-rash-o!'
"Now, Hadds, when he see the lady weepin' that way, was all broke up. He didn't know about Keno's goblet full of whiskey, so he thought it was genuine emotion.
"'Don't cry, ma'am,' says he. ''Twill be all right in a minute. That red's nothin' but carmine and simple syrup—it'll all come out in the wash, and sneezin's good for the man.'
"The Mayoress she rose and looked at Hadds. There was a glare in her eye more'n human. I read in a book once about the tremenjous dignity of the lady the trouble was all about. It didn't seem reasonable any female person could act that way till I see the Majoress. She had dignity enough for two maiden ladies at a niece's weddin' and a nigger head-waiter. The way she laid holt of Hadds' collar was impressive a great deal more than I'm able to tell you. Poor Hadds was faded. He looked like a pup caught with a chicken in his mouth. They made a grand march to the general goods counter, the Majoress still resemblin' a foreign queen. Arrived there, she took up a hairbrush, and with a motion the grandest I ever see in a human bein' she brought it down atop of Hadds' head. Whacko!—Christmas, what a crack.
"'Now, will you let my Willie alone?' says she.
"Hadds jumped up and down and rubbed his head.
"'What ails you?' says he, near cryin'.
"'Hadds!' I remonstrated to him, 'remember you're speakin' to a lady.'
"'Lady!' yells Hadds. 'Lady! Look at the lump on my head!'
"It was at this unfortunate minute a young feller see fit to come into the store to buy some matches. He stopped a minute, as he took a general view. There was the Major, apparently bleedin' profusely, yet not carin' a great deal, seemin' more concerned in rockin' bac'ard and forrard and sneezin'. His manner seemed to say, 'So long as you don't interfere with the innocent pleasures of a sneeze I don't care what breaks.' There was Hadds rubbin' his head: there was me with my mouth open; and there was the Majoress, leanin' over the counter and smilin' a dark, mysterious smile.
"The customer didn't know what to do.
"'Well?' says the Majoress, sharp and businesslike.
"The young feller jumped.
"'I beg your pardon,' says he. 'I'd like a box of matches.'
"The Majoress shook her head.
"'People don't always get what they like in this world,' says she.
"'No,' says the young feller. 'No, ma'am.' And then come an awkward silence.
"The Majoress still shook her head.
"'This is a sad world,' she says.
"'Yes, ma'am,' says the young feller, edgin' for the door.
"'But you can have the matches,' says she.
"With that she hit him square between the eyes with a ten-cent box.The young feller drew himself up proud.
"'I don't come in here to get insulted,' says he.
"The Majoress resumed her mysterious smile.
"'Why not?' says she.
"The young feller opened his mouth twice, but nothin' to suit the occasion seemed to occur to him. He wheeled and tried to walk off dignified, but the matches snappin' under his feet spoiled the effect.
"'By-by!' says the Majoress; 'come again!'
"She grabbed a tray of mouth-organs and heaved it after him; they scattered like a shrapnel shell. The young feller didn't wait to close the door. We heard him gallopin' up the board walk like he was needin' fresh air. We stood stock still for a matter of five seconds, I reckon; Hadds and me scart to move, and the Majoress with her brow wrinkled in thought. All of a suddent, with no more warnin' than a streak of lightnin', she burst out cryin'. 'Oh, oh, oh!' says she, 'how I have been deceived in men!' Then to relieve her feelin's she got to work with both hands.
"There was a genuine Sand-hill cloudburst of hair-brushes and combs, porous plasters, tooth-powder, tooth-brushes, pomade, soap, Jew's-harps, playin'-cards and the old Boy knows what all. It struck me then what a waste of time it was for a citizen to get loaded and tear the linin' out of a saloon; the place where you can really get the worth of your time and money is a drug store. Hadds and me made one desp'rate plunge for her through the terrific fire she kept up. I don't suppose that lady could hit a barn with a rock, unless she was inside of it, under ordinary conditions; but I'll bet she didn't miss one out of a possible ten that night. She caught me under the eye with a mouth-organ, on top of the head with a jar of tooth-powder, whilest smaller articles flew off'n me in all directions.
"Hadds took holt of her hands and talked implorin'.
"'Please, ma'am!' says he, 'please? Don't throw things around like that! Remember they cost money! We can't sell tooth-brushes after you've strewed the floor with 'em! I ask you please! Please!'
"'Villain!' says she haughtily. 'How dast you put your evil hands on me?'
"'Hadds,' says I, 'leggo the lady. We pass. Let us retire behind the prescription counter and bear up like men. There's only one thing on earth that E. G. W. Scraggs is willin' to admit has him trimmed to a peak, and you see that same before you now. 'Twas ever thus since childhood's hour, when my maiden Aunt Susan took the raisin' of me. Take any form thou wilt but this, and my firm nerve ain't goin' to tremble; but stacked again this form, my nerve is floppin' like a hotel wash in a hurricane.'
"So I slung Hadds over my shoulder and we went behind the prescription counter.
"I tried to distract his mind by tellin' him a funny story. However, the rip-split-smash outside kind of jumbled three yarns into one. Besides, Hadds was foamin' so it was all I could do to keep him from goin' over and kickin' the Major, who still was oblivious to surroundings, and enwrapped in the gentle art of sneezin'. Then there come a fearful bump from outside. I knew by that a showcase was no more.
"'Zeke!' yells Hadds, 'think of somethin' before that woman has us all in.'
"'Haddsy, old horse,' I says, 'we've only got one show. If we can create a diversion we win. My head's that rumpled, the only thing strikes me is for us to go out there and play cat-fight. Holler, and meaowl, and spit, and screech, and jump around till she can't help but look at us. That's the way I uset to amuse the twins when they needed killin'; of course we'll look like a pair of fools——'
"'Yes!' hollers Hadds. 'What do we look like now? You get three guesses!'
"'Come along!' says I.
"Well, dear friends and brothers, our hearts was in that diversion, let alone the stake we'd invested in the store. If you don't think one bald-headed E. G. W. Scraggs and one red-headed Tommy Hadds put up a high-grade article of cat-fight I don't know how I'm goin' to prove to the contrary; but it was so.
[Illustration: "Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight."]
"Why, we buck-jumped four foot in the air, sideways, edgeways and straight pitch-and-teeter; we mi-auwed, and scratched, and tore and rolled over, and kicked with our hind legs, and such yells was never heard in a human habitation before nor since.
"It worked. The Mayoress stopped and leaned over the counter.
"'Warm it up, Hadds!' I whispers. 'We got her lookin'!'
"So then we rollicked for a ramps. I see the Majoress smile; she p'inted her finger toward us.
"'S-sick 'em!' says she. 'Sick 'em, Towser!'
"It would have been all right; we was playin' on velvet, and could have led that woman out of the store as easy as anything if that concussed Major hadn't 'a' come to in the wrong place.
"I caught one glimpse of him holdin' tight with both hands to a shelf, with his eyes jumpin' out of his head and his face as white as flour.
"Of course no man would really believe that the spectacle of two grown men playin' cat-fight in the ruins of a drug store, whilest his own wife looked on and said 'Sick 'em!' was anything but an optickle delusion, caused by reasons he was familiar with.
"'It's never come like this before!' hollers the Major, and then he goes down backward for the final touch, carryin' away a kerosene lamp, and the same landin' in a barrel of varnish.
"Well, sir, what with the stuff that was loose around there and the varnish, my coat tails was afire when I lugged the Major out to where Hadds was industriously savin' the Mayoress' life.
"The two hose companies got out in good shape, but a most unforchinit dispute over who was to claim first water on the fire led 'em to use axes and spanner wrenches and sections of hose on each other whilst our drug store burned green and purple and pink, neglected. Inside of ten minutes eight firemen was ready for the hospital; a good citizen took the Major and Majoress in for the night, and all that was left of our promisin' business enterprise was a small heap of wood ashes and a very bad smell.
"'Well,' says I, 'shake, Hadds; it's all over.'
"He grabbed my hand, weepin'.
"'No, it ain't, Scraggsy, Old Man Rocks,' says he. 'You stood by me noble, and I'll do the same by you.' He fumbled in his pocket. 'I've saved a complete equipment from the wreck,' says he, and with that he hauls out a couple of decks of cards and a box of poker chips. 'All is lost save honor, Zeke," says he, 'but I reckon we can raise a dollar or two on that.'
"I was so moved in my feelin's I could only shake his manly hand.
"When I could speak, says I, 'We'll rise like a couple of themFenian birds from the ashes, pard.'
"And hope springin' eternal once more in our chests, we took a little drink at Jimmy's place and went to bed happy."
"It's a great misfortune to be superstishyous," said Mr. Scraggs. "Such a thing would never have troubled me if I hadn't a-learnt from experience that facts carried out the idee. Now, you take that number thirteen. There's reason for believin' it's unlucky. One reason is, when things is all walkin' backwards folks says they're at sixes and sevens. Well, six and seven makes thirteen, so there you are."
"I ain't much more than arrived," replied Red, rubbing his head dubiously.
"I'm comin' fast," said Charley; "but don't wait for me, Zeke."
"Well, that's only speculation, anyhow," continued Mr. Scraggs indulgently; "and speculation has made heaps of trouble for piles of people if I'm to believe what I read, which I don't. But here's cold facts. I was born on the thirteenth of April, at a time when me and the country was both younger than we are now. Hadn't been for that I'd dodged considerable mishaps. It was on the thirteenth of October last, in the early mornin', that I mistook that rattlesnake for a chunk of wood and heaved him in the stove."
"Well, where's the bad luck in that?" asked Charley.
"Inquire of the snake," said Mr. Scraggs; "besides, he smelt awful. I don't seem to be able to bring back any mornin' I cared less for breakfast than that one. Suppose you was a happy rattlesnake, Charley, with a large and promisin' fambly; suppose, now, on a frosty thirteenth of October you crawled under the cook-stove to get warm the minute the camp cook opened the door, and, before you limbered up enough to bite him, cooky lays cold and unfeelin' hands upon you and Jams you into the stove—ain't the number thirteen goin' to carry unpleasant recollections for you from that on? Bet your life. Howsomever, these are only small details. My main proof that the number thirteen ain't any better than it orter be lies in the fact that one day I married the thirteenth in Mrs. Scraggs. If I'd never'd hearn of such a thing I'd know'd thirteen was no good from that time on. This ain't to cast reflections on the other Mrs. Scraggses, neither. I will say for them wimmen that anything simple-heartedness could do to prepare a man to meet his end cheerful they done. But Mehitabel the Thirteenth, of the reignin' family of Scraggs, was a genius. Uncle Peter Paisley uset to say that a genius was a person that could take a cork and a dryness of the throat, and with them simple ingrejents construct a case of jim-jams. More than one-quarter of the time Uncle Pete knew what he was talkin' about, too, and the rest of it he was too happy to care. Mehitabel was a sure-enough genius: she could make a domestic difficulty out of a shoestring, she could draw a fambly jar through a hole in a sock, and she could bring on civil war over the question of whether there was anything to quar'l about,
"Come Christmastime, I thought I'd leave home for a spell. There was an old friend of mine holdin' down a mine out in the hills. I knew he wouldn't have no company around, and I pined for solitude. There is a time in the affairs of men, as Shakespeare says, when a pair of cold feet beats any hands in the deck. Keno Jim said Shakespeare said so, and Shakespeare's too dead to argue.
"'So I puts on a pair of them long, slidin' snowshoes they call 'skees' and slips for William Pemberton and the lonesome mountains. People don't call a thing 'skee' unless they hev good reason for it. Before I caught the hang of them durn disconnected bob-sleds I saw where the 'skee' come in. The feller that loaned 'em to me kindly explained that you slid down the hills on 'em, and it was great sport. When I clumb the first hill and stood perspirin' on top I felt entitled to a little sport. 'Hooray!' says I, and pushed loose. It was a long, wide, high hill with trees and things on it. Some time after I started, say about three seconds, I thought I'd like to slack a bit and view the scenery. The way I was travelin' the scenery looked like the spokes of a flywheel. I left my stummick and my immortal soul about ten rods behind me. You could play checkers on my coat-tail, as the sayin' is. Man! And I pushed up a hurricane. It cut my eyes so I cried icicles a foot long.Roar-row-roor-s-s-wish! we went in the open, andme-a-arrr! we ripped through the timber. I crossed a downed log unexpected and flew thirty foot in the air. Whilst aloft I see a creek dead ahead of me. There wasn't nothin' to do but jump when I come to it, so I jumped. I don't care a cuss whether you believe me or not, dear friends and brothers, but I want to tell you right now that I cleared the creek with something like one hundred and eighty feet to spare! At which I took to throwin' summersaults. I threw one solid quarter-mile of summersaults before that suddent cravin' was satisfied.
"'Y-a-as,' says I when I picked myself up. 'Well, I reckon I've done enough of this here skeedaddlin' for one mornin'. So after that I went along quiet and dignified to William Pemberton's.
"I hit his cabin on Christmas Eve, findin' him very low-spirited. It seems that he was expectin' an attack from some people anxious to jump the claims, thereby gettin' the mill standin' on the property. The feller that hired Billy as watchman promised him everything and forgot it. Billy was almighty faithful but hot-tempered'
"'Think of it!' says he to me. 'I gets word two days ago that the gang is comin' to hop me, and old man Davis ain't even sent me a rifle, like he agreed. What does he expect? Does he have illusions that when they come squirtin' lead at me I'm goin' to peg at 'em with snowballs?'
"Then he laid back, fightin' for breath, and kickin' out with his legs till I loosened his collar. It was a terrible strain, bein' watchman of a mill under them conditions, with a disposition like this. I pitched in to make him feel better. After I'd narrated some incidents that went to make up livin' with Mrs. Scraggs he chirped up considerable. 'Well, sir! Thisisa gay world, ain't it?' says he. 'I wisht I could offer you something to drown your sorrers in, Zeke, but unless you happen to have brought along the makings of a flowing bowl we can't put an end to 'em at this ranch.'
"Well, now, that was sorrerful tidin's. I reckon William took notice of my face—Christmas Eve, alone on top of a God-forsaken mountain and not a smell of anything to make the sun rise in our souls—oh, murder!
"'I feel awful bad about this, Zeke,' says he.
"'Don't mention it,' says I as soon's I could tune my pipes to a cheerful lie. 'Your presence is sufficient.'
"'But I have an idee,' says he, pushing his finger agin my ribs. 'Don't git excited, Zeke, only to be cast down the harder, but there's a chance. All last summer we had stockholders' investigation meetings, and the way old man Davis led 'em to make investigations through a glass darkly was a sin and a scandal. The altytood was too altytoodinous for strangers, says old man Davis, and therefore they must take a drink; and it was too cold and too hot, too wet and too dry, and if everything else failed it was too cussed mejium for them to live through it without takin' a drink. The consequence was that all I remember about a stockholder is that he's a kind of man with wibbly-wabbly knees and feet that wants to swap sides, who spends his time hiccupin' up and down the mine trails, findin' specimens when and where old man Davis wills.'
"William Pemberton smote his forehead with the flat of his hand—everything took hold of Williamsovi'lent. 'I give you my word, Zeke,' says he, 'that them horse-car busters picked hunks of red serpentine, loaded with gold from the Texas Star, out of our white quartz ledges that never see gold since Adam played tag, and believed it was all right—just the same as the gent pulls a rabbit out of your hat at the show, and you're convinced that rabbit was there all the time unbeknownst to you. And to think—' he says.
"'Sit down, William, sit down,' says I. 'I don't know what to do for appleplexy.'
"'Well, I'll sit down to oblige you, Zeke; but to think of them flappy-footed yawps puttin' away good liquor by the pailful—pailful?' yells William scornful. 'Barrelful—steam-enjine b'ilerful—
"'Well,' says I hastily, 'you was sayin' you had an idee?'
"'Oh, yes!' says he. 'It don't stand in reason they rounded up every last bottle, so it occurred to me that if we hunted we might make discoveries.'
"'Why, so we could!' I hollers loud and hearty, with more notion of creatin' a diversion, however, than any rank faith in my havin' a good time off what old man Davis overlooked. 'It'll be like hide-and-go-seek of a Christmas Eve when we was kids, William.'
"So we scrimmaged round here and there till there was only one closet in the cabin left.
"'I saved it till the last—it's the most likely,' says William.'Shine a light on our departing hopes, Ezekiel.'
"He put his hand very careful toward the back. 'E. G. W., says he,' 'my fingers have teched something cold and smooth, just like a bottle—pull hard, Ezekiel.'
"I took a long breath and pulled hard.
"'Itisround,' says William Pemberton. 'Itisa bottle.'
"Nothin' could be heard but the beatin' of our hearts.
"'Is it—is it—heavy, William?' I falters. Then you couldn't hear nothin', for our hearts had cease to beat. He let loose of a roar same as a lion that's skipped atop of his prey.
'Ezekiel G. W. Scraggs!' he shrieks, 'she's full!'
"'I wish no better luck myself,' says I. 'Trot her out!'
"When the light of the lantern fell upon that bottle we got a shock. Instead of the cheerin' color that usually fills useful bottles, the contents of this here one was green—green as grass off a June hillside.
"'Well!' says William, 'what in—where in—why, it's perfumery!' he hollers, and raises it for a smash.
"'Hold, William! Hold!' says I. 'It's got red sealin'-wax on the top. If you break it before we take a sample you and me is the best of friends parted in the middle, not to mention the disturbance we'll make in this room.'
"So I took it away from him and looked at it in the candle-light. Sure enough, there was the inspirin' words on it, 'Liqueur—Creme de Menthe.' A furreign way of spellin' liquor, to be sure, but what's a letter or two out of the way, so long as the results is in sight?
"'William,' says I, 'L-i-q, lick, u-e-u-r, er—licker. Get glasses, William, and let us be joyful.'
"William mumbled somethin' about green not bein' a joyful color, but he went and did as I told him.
"That stuff smelt of perpemint, fearful. It was a young ladies' bevridge if ever I hit one. We sot opposite each other, filled a tumbler apiece, says, 'Here's how,' and waited. We waited quite some time.
"'Ezekiel, do you notice anythin'?' says William. Well, to tell the truth, I hadn't; yet it might only been fancy, so I says, 'Seems to me Ido, William—nothin' vi'lent, nor musical, nor humorous—but a kind of a tranquil, preliminary, what-you-might-call-indication of somethin' to follow.'
"'Huh,' says William, 'let's try another.
"We was careful to load to the brim this time. After five minutes I says, 'Are you sure you don't notice nothin,' William?' I observed a risin' color in his face.
"'U-m-m—y-a-as,' says he most sarcastical; 'I notice somethin', Ezekiel—a strong smell of peppermint—not escaped you, perhaps? Well, there's just one more swig of green paint goin' to force itself into the midst of William Pemberton, and if there ain't more to show for it than the present odor and a sensation 'sif I'd been turned inside out and exposed to the wintry blasts you'll hear from me, Ezekiel. I've stood,' says William, 'about all I'm prepared to stand. The next act will be for me to proceed to get a move on.'
"Knowin' what a powerful disposition he had I most sincerely hoped our next glass would bring about satisfactory conclusions. I downed her, but it had got to be all I could do, I felt a freezin' cold in my vitals, like William had complained of, instead of the warmth and comfort for which I looked. Y-a-as, I swallered that glass by main strength, like a snake would a hop-toad—kinder lengthened myself until I was outside of it.
"'Tick-tick-tick,' remarks William's clock on the wall. When it had arranged its hands before its mild countenance in such a way as to inform me that twenty minutes, mountain time, had done all the elapsin' possible, I slid my anxious gaze on William. He held to his chair with both hands, and white spots showed in his cheeks, the way he chawed his teeth together.
"'Ahem,' says I, clearin' my throat, 'Hum—ah, do you—er—do you no—'
"I got no farther. William leant over and bent his finger double agin my chest. 'Full well,' says he in a tone of v'ice not loud but so loaded with meanin' it bumped on his teeth—'full well, Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs, do I assimerlate what the results of such a course will be, but if you should persume to ast me any more if I notice anything I shall at once arise and bat you in the eye—I am beyond carin' for conserquences.'
"'Now, now, now! What is the use of gettin' so excited? Take a drink of water—you'll bust your b'iler, foamin' like that,' I says.
"'Water!' says William. 'Ha, ha, ha.' It wasn't no giggle, that laugh of his. It was one of them blood-curdlers you read about.
"'All right," says he, brisk, 'to oblige you—remember that.' He turned the dipper upside down, then heaved it through the window. 'Sufferin' Ike'' says he, "I can't even taste it—nothin' but cold, cold. Went down my gullet like a buckshot down a ten-foot shaft.' He struggled for air and continued; 'Here am I,' says he, 'William Pemberton, celebratin' Christmas by dyeing my linin' green and smellin' like a recess in a country school.' His ventilation give out again, whilest he worked his face into knots and flew his hands around. 'You come along with me,' says he, 'and I'll show you a Christmas celebration.'
"I grabbed him. 'William,' I says, 'your eye is desperate. You explain to me before you scuff a foot.'
"'Leggo me,' he says; 'I tell you, leggo me, Zeke Scraggs. I'm goin' to have my revenge. I'm goin' to take ten cases of giant powder and blow the mill of Honorable John Lawson Davis, Member of Congress, Champion Double-Jointed, Ground-and-Lofty, Collar-and-Elbow, Skin and Liar, so high in the air that folks'll think there's a new comet, predictin' war and trouble.'
"'William,' I says 'you ain't goin' to do no such thing—that's wicked, that is.' I tried to speak stern, but this here Christmas hadn't amounted to much so far, and I never had seen a stamp mill blew up, so I couldn't help wonderin' how it would look.
"'See here!' says he, 'I'll admit many a time you've licked me in a friendly way, Ezekiel, and I'm obliged to you; but, now, be you, or ben't you, my guest?'
"'I be,' says I.
"'Then don't let's hear no more out of you,' he says, 'but come along.'
"'The powder'll be friz,' I hints, still tryin' to switch him off.
"'Not much,' he says. 'She's down a cellar twenty foot deep—come on.'
"'Just as you say, William,' I remarks—the only thing to do.
"So we toted ten cases of giant to the bottom of the mill, fixed the cap and fuse careful, touched her off, and walked away from there.
"Whilest I wouldn't have you think for a minute, dear friends and brothers, that I uphold any conduct like that, for my part I'm willin' to admit there's things less exhileratin' than standin' on a small rise, of a clear, fine, moonlight winter night, waitin' to see a fifty-stamp mill go off,
"And she went. Let me repeat it: she went. We first ketched a smack on the soles of our feet, and then that mill flew to a fiery finish. Jeehoopidderammity! It was simply gorgeous.
"We didn't have time to take it all in, howsomever, for after the first blast a big, black thing sailed over our heads with the fearfullest screech that ever scart a man to death.
"'Zeke,' says William, hangin' on to my neck, 'did I hear somethin', or is it that cussed green ink workin'?'
"'I thought I observed a sound,' says I; 'and whatever it was lit yonder. Let's go see.
"William hadn't intended to go and see at all. In fact, I dragged him by the hair and belt the hull distance—not that I was exactly afraid, but nothin' is so lonesome when you have company.
"There was a hole in a snowbank where whatever it was went in. I started to paw down, but William was for bunchin' it.
"'I tell you, let it be and hump yourself out'n here,' says he. 'It's after me because I blew up the mill; it's the devil, that's what it is.'
"'Is it?' says I. 'Well, let's have a look at him. My veins is full of cream de menthy, and I'll knock his horns off'n him if he gives me any lip.'
"Just then the snowbank heaved up. It wasn't no devil—that is, not exactly. It was a lady. I'd a bet on it if I'd had time to think. I might have known there was no place on top of this footstool where E. G. W. Scraggs could rest his weary feet without some female happenin' in the same spot at the same time. I should have took William's advice, but it was now too late.
"We stood around kinder awk'ard, with her brushin' snow from herself, till I says, 'Well, good-evenin', ma'am.'
"First off she says good-evenin', too, out of surprise. Then she begun to talk altogether different. She described William and me by sections, goin' into particulars, and nobuddy'd loaned us money on her recommend. I was used to this at home, so I spoke up nice and silent in our defense. There ain't quite so much noise when only one is talkin.'
"Finally, when her breath give out, William says very humble, 'Would you mind informin' us, ma'am, how you come to be in these parts just now?'
"She explained fully that, in answer to an advertisement in the paper, she was slidin' over to Squaw Creek. The advertisement called for a wife for a farmer, to be forty years old, or thereabouts, able to cook, plow, do washing and light blacksmith's work, and to have a capital of five hundred dollars to invest in the concern.
"'An' now,' says she, beginning to weep, 'I'd camped in that mill, an' I was only for steppin' out to git a bit of a stick to cook me soopper, an' I was on me way back, when a-r-rur-BOOMP! it ses, an' where's the five hoondred dollars that I left there, I dunno? Agghh woosha-woosha the day, ye divils, ye! An' me hoopled t'rough the air like a ol' hat—bad cess to yer ugly faces! The cuss o' Crom'll lie heavy on ye for mistreatin' a poor, lone widdy woman!'
"'Well, ma'am,' says I, 'I wouldn't take the loss of the money to heart. When the gentleman sees your face he won't care.' Usually, you can kinder edge around the rough places with that game of talk. But it didn't go here.
"'Aggh, g'wan, ye bald-headed ol' pepper-mint lozenger!' she hollers. 'D'ye s'pose I niwer see a lookin'-glass? Where's the man'll marry me widout me money? "Me face is me forchune, sor," sez she. "Tek it to the gravel bank an' have it cashed, then," sez he. Where's the man that'll have me, face an' all, lackin' the coin? Woora, woora, answer me that!'
"Well, as usual, it was up to me. There wasn't no escapin' it. A man might just as well meet his fate smilin' as trailin' his lip on the ground, for my experiences teaches, dear friends and brothers, that Fate just naturally don't care a wooden-legged tinker's dam.
"'Madam,' says I, removin' my hat and bowin', 'the honorable name of Scraggs is at your disposal.'
"'Eh?' says she. 'What's that you're sayin'?'
"'I repeat, plainly and sadly, ma'am, that one-fourteenth of my heart and hands is at your disposal.'
"'Heh?' says she again. 'An' what's the one-foorteeneth mane?'
"'I have now,' I replies, 'thirteen wives—'Before I could get another word out she was ra'rin.'
"'Oh!' she yells, 'ye villyan! Ye long-legged blaggard! Ye hairless ol' scoundrel of the world! How dast ye?' She begun lookin' around for a club, so I talked fast.
"'It's my religion, ma'am,' says I. 'I'm a Mormon by profession, mixed with accident. Think a minute before you do somethin' that'll cause general regret.'
"'Well,' she says, calmin' down, 'is there e'er an Oirish leddy in the lot?'
"'Not one, up till this joyful present,' I answers. 'I don't rightly know what country they hail from, but I can truthfully add that I'm not thinkin' of takin' up homestead rights there.'
"'Aggh, g'long wid yer jokin',' says she, as kittenish as anything. 'Yer only foolin', ye are.' "'Ma'am,' says I, 'if you say the word I shall at once proceed to get my fiery, untamed skees and go gallopin' over the mountains to make you the fourteenth Mrs. Scraggs with all speed and celery possible. You have only to speak to turn this dreadful uncertainty into a horrible fact. I pay for what I break; that's me, Jo Bush.'
"'Well, ain't this suddent!' she says. 'But I'll not stop ye from yer intentions—men is that set in their ways! Run along, now, loike a good choild!'
"'Well, good-by, William!' I says when we started, 'You see how it is yourself!"
"He cried on my coat collar. I honest believe that grass-juice had a jump or two in it, so darned insijous a man wouldn't notice.
"'To think it was me brought this on,' he hollers. 'Me an' my revengeful nature! You try to forgive me, Ezekiel. And we everlastingly did wind up that mill, anyhow!'
"'William,' says I, 'take no heed. No man is above what happens to him, unless like he'd been atop of the mill when she dispersed. I forgive you—good-by.'"
Mr. Scraggs puffed his pipe thoughtfully. "Thirteen," he ruminated, and shook his head. "Tell me not them mournful numbers."
"But," interrupted Charley, "I don't see as you was any worse off than before?"
"Me?" replied Mr. Scraggs in surprise. "Me? No,Iwasn't any worse off. But, as I said before, inquire of the snake.
"Mrs. Mehitabel Thirteenth Scraggs opened up on me a few mornings after that, and my latest acquisition instantly laid hold of her by the hair of her head and beat her with a fryin'-pan till Number Thirteen had to take to her feet and stay that way for a week.
"'Youwilltalk to my ol' man like that, willyou?' says Bridget. 'Well, mind you this, now! If he nades batin'I'llbate him, but fur anny skimpy, yaller critter like yerself to so much as give him a sassy look I'll construe as a mortial offense. Run along, now, run along, and git him his breakfas', or I'll strangle ye with me foot!'
[Illustration: "Youwilltalk to my ol' man like that, willyou?"]
"No," said Mr. Scraggs, sadly. "I wasn't no worse off. If so it hadn't 'a' been Bridget took a drop too much at the drug-store one night, and another drop too much over the edge of the canon on the way home, I reckon I'd had some good out of life. But it wasn't to be, it wasn't to be. Drowned in the bud by the inflooence of that cussed unlucky number, thirteen."
"There was a man," said Mr. Scraggs, "who said, 'Deliver me from my friends.' Now, I ain't goin' so far as to say I indorse that statement, nor I ain't standin' still so strong as to say I don't. But I know this: An enemy will do something for you every time, whilest most friends won't, and, moreover, I ain't ever had any enemy who furnished me with as much light entertainment as my friend Pete.
"I am speakin' from this here point of view. The real joyousness of life consists of being busy. We won't take no vote on the subjeck; we'll just admit it. Hence an enemy, that is an enemy, when you be in good health and able for to look after the enemy part from your side, is a great source of innercent amusement. A man gets so durn practical, he don't take no interest in all the pleasant rocks and bushes strewed over the country by the beneficent hand of Providence. He shacks along on his little old cayuse, with his mind occupied on how many things he can't do next, and he gits plumb disgusted. But suppose there's a chance of an able-bodied enemy, aided and abetted with a gun, a-hidin' behind each and every one of them rocks and bushes? Don't life take on an interest? I bet you money! The imaginations of that man's mind gets started up. Life becomes full of chances. The man, he's interested in his life because the other feller wants to take it away from him. A good enemy in a lonesome country means more to that man than her best friend's widower means to a maiden aunt. You bet.
"Red and me differs there, I know, but his idees gets sifted through that crop of red alfalfa he wears, whilest I present a clean proposition to any idee that comes boundin' o'er the lee, or to wind'ard, or any direction she chooses to bound. Yessir; when I begin to feel that life ain't worth livin' give me an enemy or a friend like Pete Douglass.
"It ain't for me to poke no fun at Pete's looks. There's a place where a humarious turn of mind orter stop. Pete's looks was too serious for any man to get comic about. It appeared as if his features had been blowed on to his face by a gale of wind; his whiskers had a horrified expression, like they'd made their escape if they hadn't been fastened on, and he was double-jointed in every point of the compass. When he stood up straight he give you more the impression of sittin' down then a man sick a-bed could. I dunno how it come, but everything old Pete looked like, seemed precisely the reverse.
"The way I got acquainted with Pete was when he put his hard coin agin a French tin-horn's race-track game. There was little horses running around a board, and you put your money where you thought it would win, but you never thought right, because the Dago had a stick under the table that pulled them races to suit his fancy.
"It stood to reason that taking money off'n a man who'd play such a game was inhumanity in the first degree, so when Pete's last dollar departed I entered that horse-race with a gun, just as I had no business to, and I says to the tin-horn, 'Look-a-here, you put that money across the board, or I'll play a tune on you,' and so he shouldn't think I was interferin' out of an idle curiosity, I pointed the weapon at him.
"'O-rrr righ'!' says he; 'Tooty-sweet.' I lost a good deal of patience on the spot. You see, it seemed like he was tryin' to be entertaining. I say, by way of an amoosin' remark, that I'm goin' to play a tune on that tin-horn, and he gayly tells me to toot sweet! Well, I don't want to harrow your feelin's. Anyway, Pete got his money and Frenchy returned to the land where his style of remarks was more appreciated, a little later.
"So Pete, he grasps my hand with tears in his eyes and considerable blood on his nose, where I'd accidently hit him with the Dago, and he says I'm his friend forever, and he'll show me what friendship really means. That's why I'm inclined to say that for rest and recreation I'll take an enemy. Whether our friend and brother, Mr. Douglass, was the luckiest or unluckiest man on earth, I've never been able to figger out. He personally explored the bottom of every old prospeck hole in the country. He was romantic by disposition, Pete was, and loved to go for walks at night. If he didn't turn up for breakfast I took down the coil of rope and proceeded until I found the right hole, because you could bet as safe that he was at the bottom of one of 'em as you could that the bottom itself was there.
"When I asked him, 'How come you to do it, Pete?' he allus answered, 'I dunno; I got to thinkin' about somethin'.' If anything valooable had occurred to Pete, whilest he was in one of them thinking spells, he'd have been one of these here geniuses.
"When a saw mill sent a slab sailin', or bust a belt, Pete was at the center of the disturbed districk. He fell off every foot log in ten miles; why, he was drowned fourteen times in three weeks!
"The bar we was workin' had a tunnel about a hundred foot long. Follerin' the pay streak made us turn at right angles, so it was dark back there. One day Mr. Pete was pushin' the car whilest I got dinner and his candle burned out. He takes a stick of giant powder, puts cap and fuse on it, lights it careful, jabs it in a frame for a candle, and trots for outdoors with the car—never knowin' anything onusual had took place. Just as I slapped the last flapjack and straightened up to yell, 'Come and get it!' here come Pete and the car like magic right acrosst the creek, followed by the most dust I ever see in my life.
"I watched him end-over-ending as he come, and I couldn't get near enough to the happenings to even wonder why.
"He landed on top of a quakin' asp and the car rolled over the dinner.
"I ain't declarin' that I was perfectly reasonable; I was surprised. When I was young and soople I've done twenty-odd foot in a running jump, but to see a man jump two hundred foot and carry a hand-car along with him was a branch of sport new to me, and perticler when done by a man like Pete.
"'Why,' says I, as I climb the tree and helped him down, 'however did you come to do it?'
"'I dunno, Zeke,' says he, 'honest to Gosh'—Pete never used a cuss-word—'honest to Gosh,' says he; 'I dunno. The last I remember was thinkin' why this here law of gravitation couldn't be made to work as a man wanted it, when "bump" says somethin' behind me, and I went right along, as you see. I tried to figger it out, comin', but turning handsprings made me dizzy.'
"These are points to show life as lived by my friend Pete Douglass. His autogeography would be plumb full of happenin's. At first sight, lookin' careless, you'd say, 'Why, here's the most unforchinit cuss I ever heard about,' but on a sober thought, to a man accustomed to havin' sober thoughts, it seemed as if there was luck in the bank, to pull through such performances and live to tell the tale.
"I mentioned this idee to Pete.
"'Why'' says he, 'I should holler horray every time I'm most killed,' he says. 'Is that what you mean?'
"'Look-a-here,' says I, 'I'm able to mean all I'm capable of meanin' without any outside help. I mean you're the great human paradox—less human and more paradox then I've seen advertised at a circus—and whilest you're perpetual dodging one horn or t'other of a dilemma, any friend of yours is getting bunked square between the two. If anything 'ud keep a man from being selfish, you would,' says I. 'D——d if I ain't spent two-thirds of my time and drawed some on the last, fishin' you out of messes. Now,' I says to him, 'why don't you get married and settle up?'
"Dear friends and brothers, that was just a piece of pursyflage. I know women better than any man I ever met that I felt knew less. I've seen wimmen so foolish I wouldn't believe anything more foolish could exist, if it hadn't a-been I'd seen still more foolish wimmen with these same eyes. But a woman who'd marry Pete was beyond my expectations. It took a lady with a turble brain-power and a deliberate intention to arrive at that state of mind; so when Pete says to me, 'That's just what I be goin' to do, Zeke,' he had me swallowing my breath.
"I gathered my fadin' strength and gained perticlers.
"Seems there was a lady 'bout thirty or forty years older than she oncet had been, who did plain washin' for the Royal Soverign Prince boys. The R. S. P. mine was run rather irregular. The boys took the clean-ups for wages, and the owner took the proceeds from stock he sold as dividends. I may mention there was less in clean-ups than there was in stock, so the future Mrs. P. Douglass was buckin' fate in the shape of a brace game. They was an awful nice set of boys, the Royal Soverign Princes, but when you divide thirty dollars and fifty cents amongst fifteen men for a month's wages, the washer-lady can't expect city prices.
"Pete had gained a holt on this lady's affections by falling into the flume and allowin' himself to be piped over the waste-gate. She took care of him for three weeks, at the end of which time Pete arose, renewed, refreshed, and more full of determined uselessness than ever. Any woman will love any man that bothers her enough. A man's idee of romance is to do what he wants to, or to be comfortable; a woman's idee of romance is to feel that she's obliged to do what she really wants to do, under such circumstances as will allow her to call it a great sackerfice, or to be made uncomfortable, which is her real notion of comfort. You have only to look at a woman's housekeepin' to reelize the restfulness she finds in keepin' things disturbed all the time. I have looked upon the housekeepin' of enough Mrs. Scraggses to be able to speak with the v'ice of experience, if not the v'ice of wisdom.
"So Mrs. Maggy Watson, the lady of which I heretofore speak, become unamored of Pete during the time he was such a pesky nuisance around the place, an' when he writ her, later, that he thought they'd orter form a close corporation an' issue the holy bonds of matrimony, why, she writ him straight back again that the scheme had been in her mind for some time, and she'd 'a' mentioned it to him only it seemed like meddlin' in his personal affairs.
"First off, it seems a-kind of unjustitude that a man like me should have a load of Mrs. Scraggses forced on him, whilest a man like Pete gets the kindest and obliginest sort of woman; but after all, I was able to take care of myself, and that bunch of wild cats, too, for a while, and Pete certainly needed a lady with a good disposition. You'll allus find, on investigatin' things, that they ain't a mite worse than you thought they was. Mighty often it is the horny-handed foot of misfortune that kicks a man into the green pastures of prosperity—the only question is: kin he eat grass?
"So it come about with Pete, all along the line. He'd gone and got married so ordinary it wouldn't attracted nobuddy's attention, only he was so overjoyed to find that I took sides with him that he sasshayed gayly forth for firewood and cut himself in the small of the back with the ax. Don't ask me how he done it, It's the only case on record. Pete was thinkin' of somethin' at the time, and could only remember a sudden pain in the back. So Pete was laid on the bed of sufferin' oncet more, him bein' so uset to it he took it without a holler, only this time he thought it was prutty serious.
"'Zeke,' says he, 'I've come to the cash-up so frequent I dunno just what's about to happen, but if it should be I was goin' to die for fair this time, I want Maggy to git my money, and I want you to take it to her.'
"'All right, Pete, I will,' says I.
"'Shack along, then,' says he.
"Pete mixed me some. 'I ain't goin' to leave you like this,' I says.
"'Yes, you be, too,' he says, sassy as thunder. 'The only time I kin git what I want is when I'm sick a-bed. I ain't goin' to rest happy nor do nothin'—not eat nor drink—till I know that woman has the chink. I can't say I've made a great job of livin', but I'm goin' to die like a house a-fire, if so the play comes that way,' he says. 'You put a little grub and water nigh me, and I'll just figger on being a full-sized man for oncet; you don't understand what a power of good it does me to think about it,' says he.