After all danger from drought is a long time past, Magpie points out the duty of a real honest-to-grandma citizen. He orates openly that the future of a city is only as broad as the inhabitants will allow. He asks Dirty Shirt if his views are narrow.
“Wide as the ocean, and beggin’ to expand,” says Dirty.
“I’m the widest human bein’ yuh ever seen, Magpie. Dog-gone me if I ain’t wider than anythin’ anybody ever seen. How about you, Ike?”
“I’ve got you skinned about four ways from the jack,” says I, and somehow I believed it.
Magpie got in between us and took Dirty’s gun away from him.
“Killin’ ain’t expansion,” explains Magpie. “Piperock has entertained too many times in the interests of the undertaker. Piperock is so far behind the times that the seventeenth generation of Montana’s human race has started and finished and we’re still runnin’ the wrong way of the track.”
“Are we that far behind the rest of the world?” asks Dirty, tearful-like.
“Further,” assures Magpie.
“Then let’s be up and doin’,” urges Dirty. “My ⸺, I never realized that we was runnin’ in the dust. How does we start in to speed up the old buggy?”
“I,” says Magpie, “I am the little jigger who is goin’ to lead Piperock to th’ promised land. I am the pelican which is goin’ to make Piperock a place of honor and glory and a social center. I has been throwed down by the best citizens, you know it? Puttin’ their personal feelin’s ahead of the best interests of the city, they has laid down upon their labors, willin’ to let poor old Piperock slumber and waller in the dust of decay; but the womin can see what it means to the city, and they’re firm as rocks. I have got one of the best dances yuh ever seen, gents.
“The ordinary poetry of motion is the weavin’s of a drunken Siwash with a sprained ankle beside this here dance of mine. Miss Harrison said it had anythin’ beat she ever seen.”
“Do yuh have music for this kind of dancin’?” asks Dirty.
“Well, kinda,” assures Magpie. “Frenchy Deschamps’ jew’s-harp and Bill Thatcher on his wind-pipe. Bill bought it a short time ago. Said that ever time he got a bull-fiddle busted it cost him ten dollars for a new one; so he buys him a wind-pipe. If anybody shoots holes in that thing he can patch it up.”
“That’s a new instrument on me,” says Dirty.
“That’s it,” says Magpie. “We’re so far behind the times, Dirty, that we don’t recognize things that the rest of the world has been usin’ for years.”
“My ⸺!” wails Dirty. “This is awful, Magpie. I’m grateful to yuh for callin’ my attention to same. Ain’t you grateful, Ike?”
“Remains to be seen, as the feller said when he dug into a Injun grave.”
“Ike’s grateful,” says Magpie. “Ike’s the gratefulest human bein’ on earth.”
“That ain’t no ways true,” objects Dirty. “I’m the most gratefulest.”
I gets between Magpie and Dirty and makes ’em put up their guns. Then we all took a last look at the inside bottom of the jug of pain-killer.
Piperock appreciates art, there ain’t no question about that. There’s fellers in town for this social event that ain’t been outside their dug-outs since the big blow. Plain and fancy horse-thieves, unsuccessful rustlers, hairy old shepherds that says “Ya-a-a-ss” and “No-o-o-o,” just like a sheep, and others too numerous and or’nary to mention.
Scenery Sims is setting in front of the Mint Hall with a sawed-off shotgun on his lap, but he lets us in.
“How does she look, Scenery?” asks Magpie.
“Well,” squeaks Scenery, “everythin’ is all right so far, but them ex-dancers is all back from Paradise. The women is all up there in the hall now. Bill Thatcher is drunker’n seven hundred dollars, and somebody has hit Frenchy in the mouth and kinda crippled his part of the orchestra. Shouldn’t be s’prized if there’d be buzzards circlin’ Piperock in the mornin’.”
We went up into the hall, which is all fixed up for the social doings. They’ve got the stage all curtained off and the room is full of chairs. Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Tilton, Mrs. Gonyer, Mrs. Holt, Mrs. Wheeler and Mrs. Steele are there. Magpie leads me and Dirty up to the stage and in behind the curtain.
“My ⸺!” gasps Dirty. Sheep!”
“There’s four sheep tied up back there—all rams.”
“Sheep—yes,” agrees Magpie. “Them is what Miss Harrison calls ‘atmosphere.’”
“At⸺ Oh, my!” gasps Dirty. “What’s she mean, Magpie?”
“Accessories to my dance,” explains Magpie. “I’m the star performer in ‘The Shepherd’s Awakening.’”
“What do we do?” asks Dirty.
“You fellers are fauns.”
“I’m the old buck deer—me,” declares Dirty. “You’re more cockeyed than me, Magpie, if you can see me with four spindle legs and a spotted hide.”
“A faun,” says Magpie, “a faun is a thing that looks like a human bein’, but ain’t. It wears skin pants, but from there on up it’s plumb nude. On its head is little horns, and it’s got a tail like a goat. It plays a tune on a wooden whistle.”
Me and Dirty looks at each other, kinda foolish-like.
“I think it’s lovely of you two gentlemen to step in the breach,” says Mrs. Tilton.
“Step in the—oh—!” croaks Dirty, wild-eyed. “This is terrible!”
“It will be a big thing for Piperock,” says Mrs. Gonyer, “and it will teach the male sex that the women are the real progressives. Don’t you think so, Mr. Harper?”
“There’s goin’ to be a lesson taught,” says I. “Experience is a great teacher, but I ain’t never learned much. I thought I was wise, but I finds that— Well, I ain’t never wore a tail like a goat and blowed on a wooden whistle yet.”
“I hope that Testament’s skin pants will fit Mr. Harper,” says Mrs. Tilton. “Mr. Harper is a little wider across than the Reverend.”
“Mr. Jones will be a little snug in Sam’s,” opines Mrs. Holt, “but he don’t have to do only one little dance.”
Dirty’s bad eye rolls a complete circle and then stops with a dead center on the tip of his nose. He grabs me by the arm and flops down in a chair.
“Ike,” he gasps, “Ike, shoot me while there is yet time.”
“Shoot yourself—you’ve got a gun,” says I.
“I know it, bub—but I’m so nervous I’d miss.”
Dirty just sits there and sweats.
“Them sheep—has they been trained?” I asks.
“They’ve been here two days,” says Magpie. “They ought to be used to the stage.”
Sudden-like we hears a crash down-stairs, the sound of loud voices raised in anger, and then up the stairs comes Judge Steele, Wick Smith, Pete Gonyer, Art Wheeler and Sam Holt. They’ve got Scenery Sims in their clutches, and he’s squeaking like a rusty gate. They files into the door, and Magpie greets ’em with a gun in each hand.
“Come ye in anger?” asks Magpie.
“Kinda,” admits Pete. “This whangdoodle tried to stop us.”
“Put your hands up!” snaps Magpie, and the whole gang reach upward. “Take their guns away, Scenery.”
“Now,” says Magpie, “what’s eatin’ you backsliders?”
“Ma-a-a,” wails Testament. “You ain’t aimin’ to carry out your threat, are ye?”
“I’m goin’ to dance—if that’s what you mean,” says Mrs. Tilton, mean-like.
“Arabellie, does you mean that you womin—” begins Wick.
“Wick Smith, you started this,” says Mrs. Smith. “You told me I was narrer. You said I was fifty years behind the times, didn’t you?”
“That ⸺ Magpie Simpkins put them words in my mouth, Arabellie.”
“I won’t stand for it!” yelps Pete. “No woman of mine can⸺”
“Pete, you shut your face!” whoops Mrs. Gonyer. “If you don’t want to see me imitate a raindrop—vamoose. I sure am goin’ to rattle on the roof.”
“I’ll git out a injunction,” says Judge Steele. “By mighty, I’ll declare it a public nuisance! I’ll stop this here⸺”
“You’ll set down and keep your face shut,” says Magpie. “You five pelicans are goin’ to set right down and look and listen. Has you all got tickets?”
None of ’em has bought a ticket, and they opines they won’t.
“Scenery,” says Magpie, “take two dollars from each of ’em.”
Them five arose up an yelped like a pack of wolves, but Scenery got ten dollars out of the bunch, and then we made ’em take front seats.
We hears some gosh-awful sounds coming up the stairs, and into the door comes Bill Thatcher. He’s got one of them Scotch wind-pipe instruments and it’s wailing like a lost soul. Behind him comes Frenchy Deschamps. Neither of ’em are in any shape to make music for anything except a dog-fight, but they flops down in their chairs at the front of the stage and acts like they meant business.
Scenery recovers his sawed-off shotgun and sets down on the corner of the stage, where he can watch them disgrunted husbands.
Me and Dirty follows Magpie to a place he’s got partitioned off for a dressing-room. Through the curtain we can hear Yaller Rock County beginning to come in. Me and Dirty are just sober enough to kinda be indifferent to death or taxation.
Magpie gives us our costumes, which consists of cowhide pants with a tail tied on, and a jigger made like a cap, with yearlin’ calf horns sticking out the side. He also gives us each a little whistle made of a willer.
“Where’s the shirt?” asks Dirty.
“Fauns don’t wear shirts.”
“What do you wear, Magpie?”
Magpie holds up a mountain-lion skin and a breech-clout. Dirty looks things over and then says to Magpie:
“If you escape, Magpie, will yuh do me a favor? In my cabin—in a old trunk, is a suit of clothes. I paid sixteen dollars for it the year Bryan run for free silver, but I never wore it. Will yuh see that they lays me out in it? Lawd knows I don’t want to be buried in a outfit like this.”
From outside we hears “Fog-horn” Foster’s voice—
“We-e-e-ll, come on, you mockin’-birds!”
“The house must be full,” opines Magpie, fastening his lionskin.
“Full of hootch and ⸺” sighs Dirty, sliding into his cow skins. “I’m goin’ to die like a ⸺ cow, I know that.”
“My gosh!” grunts Magpie. “I’ve plumb forgot we ain’t got no announcer since the judge quit. Ike, will you do the announcin’?”
“Then I won’t have to dance?”
“Sure you’ll have to dance, but all you’ve got to do, Ike, is to tell ’em what is comin’ next. The first thing on the program is a solo dance, which is knowed as ‘The Gatherin’ Storm,’ by Mrs. Smith; and then she gets assisted by the five ‘Raindrops,’ consistin’ of Mrs. Holt, Mrs. Tilton, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Gonyer and Mrs. Wheeler. Mrs. Smith is doin’ the solo in place of the departed champeen dancer of the world. Will yuh do this for me, Ike?”
“Do it for Magpie,” urges Dirty. “Do anythin’ to get it over.”
I went on to the stage, and I got the shock of my life. Them females are out there, and I’m a danged liar if they ain’t undressed about as much as possible. I takes one look and staggers for the curtain. I hears one of them women bust out in a “haw! haw!” as I went past, but I never stopped to think that I wasn’t wearing any more than the law allows.
I steps out through the curtain and looks around. Never did the old hall hold as many folks. Fog-horn Foster and Half-Mile Smith are settin’ in the front row, across the aisle from each other. They stares at me for a moment; then both gets up like they was walking in their sleep, steps for the aisle and bumps together.
Fog-horn hit Half-Mile and Half-Mile hit the floor, after which Fog-Horn went right on up the aisle. Half-Mile got up, looks at me again, and follers Fog-Horn, but he ain’t tryin’ to catch Fog-Horn—he’s tryin’ to go past him.
“My ⸺” gasps “Cinch” Culler, lookin’ wild-like around. “Won’t somebody please hold me? I won’t be responsible⸺”
“Ladies and gents,” says I. “I’m out here to let yuh know what’s comin’ off.”
“Wait a minute,” says Abe Mudgett, standing up. “I’ve got my two sisters here with me, and if anything more’s comin’ off⸺”
“Set down!” squeaks Scenery, waving his shotgun at Abe, and Abe sets down.
“Now,” says I, “I’m out here to announce that the first thing on the program is Mrs. Smith. She’s goin’ to imitate a storm comin’ up, and then Mrs. Holt, Mrs. Tilton, Mrs. Wheeler, Mrs. Steele and Mrs. Gonyer are goin’ to show yuh what raindrops look like. This here⸺”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roars Pete Gonyer, but his laugh don’t show that he’s tickled so awful much.
“Haw! Haw! Haw! Mrs. Smith is goin’ to imitate— Haw! Haw! Haw!”
“Haw! Haw!” howls Wick. “My wife looks as much like a storm as yours does like a raindrop, Pete.”
“My wife,” states the judge, standing up, “my wife ain’t goin’ to do no ⸺ fool thing of the kind. I’ll show her⸺”
“Set down!” yelps Scenery. “Set down, you old Blackstone blatter! This is once when you don’t hand down no decisions.”
“Git off the stage and let ’er rain!” howls Telescope Tolliver. “I’ll see it through if I have to wear a slicker.”
“Ready for us to play?” asks Bill Thatcher, kicking Frenchy to wake him up.
“Use your own judgment, Bill,” says I. “I’ve done all I can, and now I’m goin’ to let nature take her course.”
I starts to step back through the curtain, when “Polecat” Perkins yells—
“Ike, I was wrong—you’re only half-cow.”
I gets back inside. Them women are all scared plumb stiff, but Mrs. Smith wheezes—
“Ladies, we’ve made our bluff—let ’er go!”
Just then Bill Thatcher’s instrument begins to wail and wail, shutting off all chances for Frenchy Deschamps to be heard.
“Sweet Marie!” howls Mrs. Smith. “Gee cripes, don’t he never learn a new tune?”
I ducks out of sight and the curtain slides back.
If Mrs. Smith knew anything about dancing she forgot every step. She trots out on the stage and starts something like Kid Carson used to call “shadow-boxing.” Then she turns around about three times, stubs her toe and falls down. Standing in a line across the stage is the rest of them females, with their hands up in the air like they was being held up by somebody with a gun.
“A-arabellie!” wails Wick. “My ⸺, woman, git out of sight!”
Mrs. Smith gets to her feet and yelps back at Wick:
“Git out of sight yourself—if you don’t like it! I’ll teach you to flirt with a dancer. Start the music over again, Bill.”
“Em-m-m-i-lee!” shrieks Sam Holt. “Ain’tcha got no modesty? Go put on your shoes and socks!”
Bill Thatcher starts squealing on his instrument again, and Mrs. Smith starts doing some fancy steps.
Wow! Here comes Judge Steele, Art Wheeler, Pete Gonyer, Testament Tilton, Wick Smith and Sam Holt, climbing right over the top of folks.
“Git ba-a-a-ck!” squeaks Seenery, waving his shotgun. “Stop it! Whoa, Blaze!”
“Look at the wild man!” howls somebody, and here comes Magpie across the stage hopping high and handsome.
“Stop ’em, Scenery!” whoops Magpie. “Dog-gone ’em, they can’t bust up my show!”
Man, I’ll tell all my grandchildren this tale. Them outraged husbands came up on that stage, while Yaller Rock County yelled itself hoarse and made bets on whether it would be an odd or even number of deaths. Magpie hit Pete in the neck and Pete lit with one leg on each side of Bill Thatcher’s head. Wick Smith got hold of his wife and them two started a tug of war.
Me and old Sam Holt got to waltzing around and around, which wasn’t a-tall pleasant, being as I’m barefooted and Sam ain’t. I seen Mrs. Wheeler and Art locked in mortal combat, and just then I hears Dirty Shirt Jones yelp—
“Heavy, heavy hangs over your head—”
I whirls just in time to see what’s coming, but I can’t escape. Dirty Shirt has turned the atmosphere loose. Them four he-sheep—four ungentlemanly woollies, with corkscrew horns, are buck-jumping across that stage, seeking what they may hit. I swung around to meet the attack, and I reckon the leading sheep hit him a dead center, ’cause I felt the shock plumb to me.
Maybe it hit Sam a little low, because it knocked all four of our feet off the floor, and the next in line picked us in the air and stood us on our heads.
I seen Wick Smith, braced against the edge of the stage, trying to pull his wife over the edge, the same of which is a invitation to a sheep, and the old ram accepted right on the spot. Mrs. Smith grunted audibly and shot into Wick’s arms. Scenery Sims starts to skip across the stage, but a ram outsmarted him, and I seen Scenery turn over gracefully in the air and shoot, regardless, with both barrels of that sawed-off shotgun.
Them load of shot hived up in the chandelier, the same of which cut off our visible supply of light.
I heard the crashing of glass, and I figures that the hallway is too crowded for some of the audience. I lays still, being wise, until the noise subsides, and the crowd has escaped. Then I moves slowly to my hands and knees. I feels a hand feeling of my legs, and then a hand taps gently on my horned cap.
“I—I thought,” whispers old Sam’s voice kinda quavering-like, “I—I thought they was all old ones, but a sheep’s a sheep to me.”
Bam! Something landed on my head, and I seen more bright lights than there is in a million dollars worth of skyrockets. Then things kinda clear up, and I hears old Sam saying to himself:
“Well, I killed one of the ⸺ things. If I go carefully⸺”
I can dimly see old Sam sneaking for the front of the stage. I’m mad. I got up and sneaked right after him. No man can mistake me for a sheep and get away with it. I jumps for old Sam’s back, and just then he seems to kinda drop away from me. I reckon he forgot about the five-feet drop from the stage, and I know danged well I did. I reckon I sort of lit on my head and shoulders on top of somebody. There comes a squeak from Bill Thatcher’s instrument, and then all is quiet.
I wriggled loose and starts to get up, but a strong hand grabs me by the ankle, yanks me off my feet, and I hit my head on a chair. I kinda remember being dragged down them stairs, and then I feels my carcass being dragged over rough ground. It was a long, hard trip, and I reckon I lost about all the skin on the upper half of my body. Finally I bumps over a step, gets yanked inside on to a carpet, and then I hears a voice very dimly—
“Sweetheart, I brought thee home.”
Then a light is lit, and I sees Mrs. Smith putting the chimney on a lamp. Without turning she says—
“I reckon you’ll confine your love to me after this, eh?”
Then she turns and looks at me, setting there on the floor with my back propped up against a chair. I looks around. Just inside the door, sitting on the floor, is Wick. Mrs. Smith looks at me and then at him. Then she wipes her lips and stares at Wick.
“Sweetheart, eh?” grunts Wick, getting to his feet. “Arabellie, ain’t you got no shame? Dancin’ up there without nothing on to speak of, and then you has the gall to bring your sweetheart home with yuh.”
“Did—did—didn’t I—bring you home, Wicksie?”
“You—know—danged—well—you—didn’t. I always knowed you was kinda sweet on Ike Harper.”
“On that!” She actually yelped, and pointed her finger at me. “Sweet on him?”
I gets to my feet, but my legs ain’t very strong. I says:
“Lemme a-alone. I don’t want no man’s wife’s love—especially one what hauls me home by the ankle. When I git married I want a clingin’ vine—not a pile driver.”
I never did have much sense. A feller in my condition ought to keep his mouth shut and sneak away soft-like. I turns my head toward the door, and just then the weight of the world hit me from behind, and it was a lucky thing for that house that the door was open.
I landed on my hands and knees in the yard, with all the wind knocked out of my system. Wick has got some rose-bushes in his yard. Like a animal wounded unto death, I reckon I tried to crawl around on my hands and knees to find a spot to die in.
All to once I sees one of them ⸺ sheep. It’s only a short distance from me. I know if I move it’s going to hit me sure as ⸺ so I remains still. I’ll bet that me and the sheep never moved a muscle for fifteen minutes.
Then all at once the sheep spoke.
“For ⸺’s sake, if you’re goin’ to butt—butt and have it over with!”
I got to my feet.
“Get up, Dirty Shirt Jones,” says I. “What kind of a way is that to act?”
Dirty weaves to his feet and stumbles over to me.
“Ike, thank the Lord, we’re alive!”
“Don’t presume too much. Medical science says that a man can live after losin’ a certain amount of skin, but I’m bettin’ I’ve passed that certain limit. Let’s sneak home and save what life we’ve got left.”
We sneaked around the Mint Hall and Wick’s store, and at the corner we stumbles into somebody.
“Who goes there?” asks Dirty.
“Go ⸺!” wails Magpie Simpkins. “Help me, will yuh? I wrastled all the way down here with one of them ⸺ sheep and now I’m afraid to let loose.”
“You and your ⸺ atmosphere!” groans Dirty.
“I’m settin’ on it,” wails Magpie, “I’ve got a kink in my neck. Will yuh hold it down until I can get up?”
Just then a voice from under him starts singing very soft and low—
“There’s a la-a-a-nd that is fairer than this⸺”
Magpie gets to his feet and takes a deep breath.
“Testament,” says he, “what made yuh blat like a sheep?”
But Testament’s mind is not dwelling on sheep—not the kind of sheep that Magpie meant.
Then the three of us starts limping toward home.
“Mebbe,” says Magpie, kinda painful-like, “mebbe we progressed too fast. Piperock don’t appreciate it, gents, but this night the old town jumped ahead at least fifty years.”
“Jumpin’,” says Dirty, reflective-like, “Jumpin’ don’t hurt nobody, but, holy hen-hawks, it sure does hurt to jump that far and light so hard.”
We pilgrims along, everybody trying hard to make their legs track. Finally Magpie says—
“Personally, I think that interpretive dancin’ has anythin’ skinned I ever seen.”
“Me too,” says I, “and parts I never have seen.”
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 30, 1922 issue ofAdventure Magazine.
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 30, 1922 issue ofAdventure Magazine.