Honest to grandma, Hank, you ain’t got no cause to get sore. What do I
care whether you stole a calf or not? You say no, and that settles it
with me. Why talk about it any more?
I don’t care if you did steal it, Hank. It don’t make me no difference,
Hank, ’cause, when I’m a friend, I’m a friend. I said yes, just like you
would if a man asked you if you knowed the Boer War was over. You don’t
know the Boers ever had a war, Hank, but you say yes to keep out of a
argument. What’s a calf, anyway, Hank? If you want to steal from a
widder woman, it’s your business. Of course, some folks would turn up
their nose at you if they knowed you done that, but with me it don’t
make no difference.
If you stole it to try and get a start in the cow business, Hank, I’m
for you, but, if you stole it to get a poker stake from, I don’t
approve—unless it was a game among friends. _Sabe?_
I wish I’d ’a’ kept my mouth shut about it, ’cause you crabbed all the
way through your letter and never mentioned money. If you was so
interested in calves, Hank, you might ’a’ shipped it to me. Calves bring
good money here. Well, Hank, I thought I’d write so you would know I am
back in Mesquite. The old town looks just the same. Me and Emmeline
ain’t had no good chance to become reconciled as yet, and it seems to me
that, when a dog is down, they all tries to kick him.
I tries to talk things over with her uncle, but he ain’t the kind of a
_hombre_ what listens to reason. I done my best, Hank, and that’s all
any man can do. I says to him—
“You ain’t playing square with me and the public when you kicks me out
of my business like this,” says I.