'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 them
Fenian 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."
V
THE MOURNFUL NUMBER
"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,