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.
"Well, he had me to a standstill. It was cussed to leave a hurt
man all alone, but I could easy appreciate the way he felt. If a
man can't take no pride in himself the hull blamed business comes
down to shovelin' dirt for nothin'.
"'Pete, I'll do it,' I says, and I shook hands with him.
"'Now, see that!' says he. 'That's the first time you've ever
treated me like an ekal, Zeke; and I can tell you I don't like to
be pitied no more'n any other man. God knows there wouldn't 'a'
been a perter monkey in the bunch, if so it hadn't come I was
scart, or thinkin' of somethin' else, when a hot-box arrived. The
good Lord took the trouble to make me, and it seems kind of
onjustifiable for me to prove He plumb wasted His time. You tell
Maggy I done it for her. I ain't hidin' my light under a bushel,
because I need it to see by. Ouch!' says he. 'This racket hurts!'
"I reckon it did. I sewed him up with a piece of deer-sinew and a
darning-needle. Never was a great hand at tailorin', nohow, and
Pete's hide was that tough I mostly had to pound the needle through
with a chunk of wood.
"Well, I fixed him comfortable as I could, and prepared to start.
"'Zeke,' says he, 'don't'--he kinder swallered hard--'don't be no
longer'n you kin help,' says he. There come a tear in his eye.
'An' take my respects to Maggy,' says he.
"'Shaw, Pete!' says I. 'Now, don't you go borrowin' no
trouble--that's so easy to git without collaterial, it ain't worth
the time. I'll be back imejate.' I patted him on the shoulder and
he squeezed my hand hard.
"'No man could be a better pardner than you be, Zeke,' says he. 'I
ain't a mite afraid of nothin' when that bald head of your'n is in
sight, an' you understand a feller--it's a tough play for a rooster
that don't come by sand natural.'
"'You got plenty of sand, Pete,' says I, 'all the trouble is, you
let it git choked in your hoppers. By-by.' And away I went,
slopin' fast, with Pete's forty-eight dollars down in my jeans.
"I was so took up with his affairs I didn't watch out careful, and
that ain't wise in a hard-luck country. All of a suddent I hears a
v'ice say, 'Puttee hands light uppee!' Sounds like I'd struck a
day nursery, but that ain't so, for just before I hears them words
there popped out from behind a rock a Chinaman--not, by no means,
one of these here little Charlie-boys that does your wash and gives
you a ticket with picters of strange insecks painted on it, but a
whoopin', smashin' old Tartar pirate, seven foot by three, with
mustaches like two tails of a small hoss, and cheekbones you could
hang your hat on. More'n that, he was armed and equipped with two
hoss-pistols as required by circumstances.
"That tired feelin' come over me, and I stretched; yessir, the
hands of E. G. W. Scraggs went up toward the sky.
"My yaller friend next requested me to produce. Well, now, that
was Pete's money. I'd 'a' took a chance at v'ilent physicule
exercises, but I see the time had come to talk.
"'My Christian friend and brother,' says I, 'before we converse
upon the root of all evil, let me put you on to the fact that my
name is E. G. W. Scraggs.'
"'Ah!' says he, backin' up, 'Sclaggsee!'
"'Sclaggsee!' I hollers, and we near met on the spot. 'Don't you
say that agin!'
"'Ah!' says he.
"I noticed his guns was wobblin'.
"'Ah!' says I. 'You're darned right. Now, I'll make you this
proposition. I got forty-eight dollars in my pocket that don't
belong to me. If we let things slide by as if they had not
happened I'll give you two dollars for the use of that money until
Tuesday next--pay you fifty dollars next Tuesday, at Jimmy Holt's
place--get me?'
"'Gettee money now,' says he, cunnin'.
"'_P'raps_,' says I, 'but you won't be in condition to spend it for
some time.' He rolled his eye off'n me, and at that instant Mary
Ann, the faithfullest gun that ever stood between me and a
gentleman whose intentions weren't good, appeared upon the scene.
"'Don'tee shootee, Sclaggsee!' he screeches.
"'You call me "Sclaggsee" oncet more, and I won't leave nothin' of
you but a rim,' says I. 'As for the other proposition, it
goes--Tuesday next. Jimmy Holt's place, I put you in hand fifty
dollars, you cock-eyed, yaller, mispronouncin' blasphemy on a
heathen idol! Although I ain't been near enough to a cherry tree
to cut one down, the word of Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs is
as good as the Father of his Country,' says I. 'He beat me at that
last game, but I can stick to my sayin' like a porous plaster. You
get the money; I will lie for the fun of the thing, but not for no
dirty fifty dollars,' says I. 'You goin' toward town?'
"'Yes,' says he.
"'Well, git your plug, and we'll amble along together.'
"So we rode in, right cheerful, instead of quar'lin'. I made him
come along to Maggy's cabin, to show it weren't a bluff about the
money.
[Illustration: "So we rode in, right cheerful."]
"Poor Maggy, she wipes her eye on her apron, and says she'll start
for our camp at oncet.
"I called the Chinaman aside, confidential. "'You take care of
lady!' I shrieks at him. 'Lady--you take care!' I dunno why it is
you think if you holler loud enough you can make a man understand
anything, but it's a fact.
"My chink bobs his head. 'Take clare laly,' he says.
"'Yaas!' says I. 'I rustley monnellee!'
"He bobs his head again.
"'Lusselleemonellee!' he answers, kind of vacant.
"I sot down. 'Twas clear he didn't have no idee of my
conversation. So we went over it for two hours, me drawin' maps
and wigglin' my fingers, and makin' faces to illustrate a man with
an ax-cut in the small of his back, and a lone widder-woman takin'
care of him, till at last, by bringin' hands, face, and feet all
into the game, with a small hunk of kerfoozled English language
here and there, a light broke on his heathen soul. He near bobbed
his head off.
"'Me makee all lightee for Sclaggsee, you bettee, hellee dammee!'
says he.
"He was that earnest I overlooked the name. 'Good,' says I. 'Now,
Charlie, you cut wood, haul water, and keep things goin' out there
and your fifty is waitin' for you on Tuesday.'
"Maggy did a crow-hop when she found she had to travel with the
chink, but I told her it was O.K., so she got aboard an Injin pony
and off they goes to Pete.
"Well, dear friends and brothers, I sincerely hope you've never had
to raise fifty dollars in a busted camp. The boys done the best
they could, but a can of corn had to stand for fifty cents, and a
pair of pants that would take Tartar Charlie somewheres about the
knees drew a credit of two-fifty. Four iron knives and a busted
coffee-pot stood for a case, and a pair of scissors with one blade
broke half off, and a mouth-organ that only sounded in spots, was
equal to two iron dollars. I got eighteen fifty in cash and the
balance was junk.
"'Well,' says I, 'he's no better'n a road-agent, and I can't help
it, nohow.'
"For all that, I sot in Jim Holt's place of a Tuesday afternoon
feelin' low-spirited when I looked at the heap, when who comes
sailin' in at the door but Tartar Charlie, wearin' a grin that took
two turns and a half around his face.
"'Laly comee!' says he. 'Petee comee!'
"'On what?' says I, ashamed to show surprise to a yaller Chinaman.
"'Joss man fetchee!' says he.
"'Certainly!' says I. 'That's what he ought to do; don't get
excited.' I did my wonderin' about the joss man in private. 'Sit
down, Charlie.'
"So Charlie, he sot down and watched me rifflin' the cards.
"'Playee poker?' says he.
"'As a relaxiation, Charles,' says I. 'Poker is a business for
gentlemen of means--gottee nomonee!'
"'Me stakee you,' says he. 'Likee poker.'
"So Jim and some of the other boys come over, and Charlie and me
begun to draw cards. After we dubbed through a few deals, gettin'
on to each other's play, I see Charlie stow away a pair of aces.
Now, ordinarly, I'd complained, but, under the circumstances, it
didn't appear to me to be the decent thing to do, so I motioned to
Jim, and he slid me a pack with the same sort of backs.
"After that you never in all your borned days see such hands on a
poker table. Why, a king-full wasn't worth raisin' back on. A set
of fours was the least a man could have confidence in, and only if
it was on his own deal, at that.
"Howsomever, havin' a hull pack at my disposal, whilest Charlie
could only use his hold-outs, I worked him down to tin cans of
vegetables, the busted coffee-pot, and the pants.
"He, bein' as game as any white man, jack-potted the lot. It was
just draw cards and show down for the money. Darned if he didn't
get the best of me.' How I come to pick out the queen of diamonds
to match a straight club flush is one of them things that won't be
revealed till Judgment Day. There wasn't nobuddy more surprised
than me. This brought us down to even Stevens, and I felt
irritated, so I come back at him with one play for the bunch. He
agreed, and I dealt him four aces, pat. I was going to draw to
fill my straight color. I snaked out the three I had on my knee,
and was just goin' to insert 'em where they'd do the most good,
when Pete's v'ice says: 'Well, Zeke!'
"It was a joyful v'ice, but I knowed he'd seen my play. I dropped
them cards.
"'One minute, Pete,' says I. I called across the table to Charlie,
'Show openers and win!' And when he laid down them bullets I'd give
him with my own hands, my heart broke inside me. But I couldn't
stand for a crooked play seen by Old Pete.
"I hopped up from the table and shook his hand, I shook Maggy's
hand, where she stood, smilin' bashful, and then I shook the hand
of a strange gent in black clothes, whose name was Mr.
Somethin'-or-other.
"Pete explained to me that the gent was a minister travelin'
through the country, who'd offered him and Maggy a ride to town.
'We thought we might as well get hitched at the same time,' says
Pete, 'and I sure wanted to see you, Zeke.'
"'Yes,' says Maggy. 'It wouldn't seem right to get married without
you bein' there, Mr. Scraggs. To think of what you've done for
Pete! And that Charley High-ball there is just the blessedest
angel that ever was! Why, he got some stuff in the woods and put
it on Pete's back, and made him well in a minute, you might say.
And there warn't nothin' he wouldn't do for us. And I'm just the
happiest woman ever was,' says Maggy, wipin' her eyes on her apron
some more.
"'Well!' says I, brisk, tryin' to forgit that lost fifty. 'Why
don't you and Pete sign the pledge right here and now?--how's that,
friend?' I asks the minister.
"'Why, ah! says he. 'Ah! It doesn't seem quite the proper place--'
"'What's the matter with this place?' says Jim. He took a great
pride in his saloon. He had glass mirrors up that cost him a
hundred plunks apiece. 'If you think,' says he, 'that there's a
prettier little joint in town than this, why, don't let me keep
you.'
"That minister was cut out fer the business. He hedged his bet so
quick, I admired him.
"'That's just it,' he says loud and hearty. 'I look upon matrimony
as a solemn affair, and I was afraid our friends would be
distracted from the seriousness of the ceremony by the
surroundings.'
"'Don't say a word!' says Jim, wavin' his hand. 'You have put the
next round on me; but I guess Pete and Maggy has had seriousnesses
enough, just as she slides--heh?'
"'You're talkin' blue checks, Jim,' says Maggy, through her apron.
'I don't reckon I'll ever get too gay to hurt me, nor Pete, nuther.'
"'Very well,' says the minister--and we had the weddin'. Charlie
High-ball burnt punk that smelled strong but fine, and swung his
arms, Jim and the rest of the boys sayin' 'amen' every time there
come a stop, and all the proceedin's goin' on grand, till the
preacher got to the last of it, and then Pete broke in:
"'I copper that statement,' says he. 'I wouldn't run against you
for the world, old man, but here I got to. We ain't "man" and
wife, for I ain't never been a man since I growed up: Maggy, she's
the man and wife both. Say "husband and wife," to oblige.'
"The preacher looked at Pete mighty kind.
"'Husband and wife,' says he. Then Maggy busted out, 'He's the
best man that ever lived!' says she.
"'May you live long and happy years together,' says the preacher,
and he had a different look on his face--more's if it was a
pleasure instead of business he was attendin' to.
"Whilest we stood there, kinder awk'ard, Charley made a high play.
He gathered all his winnings in a heap. 'For laly,' says he,
makin' her a bow.
"Maggy, she cried. Everybody'd been so good to her, she said, and
she weren't able to turn a hand for her part, and so forth, and we
was all kind of pleasantly miserable for a while, till Jim sings
out, 'Here, this ain't no weddin' hilarity--guide right to the bar!'
"There we all lined up, Charlie High-ball and all.
"'What'll you have, sir?' says Jim, askin' the minister first out
of manners.
"'The same as the rest,' says the minister like a man.
"'Mr. Scraggs?' says Jim.
"'Ginger ale, says I. And every man and woman took ginger ale,
which is a beverage that 'ud drive a man to drink. Howsomever, we
showed that preacher he didn't hold over us, speck nor color, when
it come to a showdown. And he savvied the play, too. He watched
the line drinkin' its ginger ale.
"'Gentlemen,' says he, 'I'm glad to know you--I think I'll stay in
your town a while, but now'--and he kind of twinkled around the
eyes--'I hope you will excuse me.' With that he vanished, leaving
us to take a little antidote for that there ginger ale.
"And Pete and Maggy? Well, dear friends and brothers, you never
saw nothin' like it--they think as much of each other as two men
would! And the way Pete can iron a b'iled shirt is a wonder. . . .
Yaas; he found his job at last; plain and decorative ironin'.
Often I've seen Maggy, holdin' up a batch of clo's, with pride just
oozin' out of her, and heard her say, 'There ain't a person in
these here United States that kin slip a flatiron over dry-goods
the way my Pete kin.'"
VII
THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
"Once upon a time," said Mr. Scraggs, "there come a profound peace
on my household. It was 'Zeke, what kin I give you for dinner
to-day?' and 'Zeke' this and that, until I says to myself, 'We're
going to have cyclones followed by a heavy frost if I tarry here,'
so I pulled my freight to Arizona, till this unnatural condition of
things passed away. I understand Mrs. Scraggs in her war-paint,
but Mrs. Scraggs with her eyes uprolled to Heaven and a white dove
perched on each and every ear is a thing I'm not goin' to witness
the spoilin' of, if I kin help it.
"I loafed around a little town, wearin' the counters shiny,
entertainin' myself every minute by wonderin' what in thunder I'd
do with the next one, till Fate, that's always seemed ready and
eager to butt into my affairs, sent me down to the railroad station
one morning.
"There got off'n the train a little stout man, with a clean baby
skin and clean baby eyes. He looked as if he'd got born into this
wicked world with a bald spot, gray side-whiskers and a pair of
gold-rimmed specks. He made me feel sad--not that he weren't
cheerful enough, but his rig was that of a parson, and a parson
naturally reminded me of matrimony, and there was only one thing
worse than loafing around Jim Creek, and that was matrimony.
'Yes,' I says to myself, lookin' at that nice, clean old gentleman,
'he little knows the trouble he's made in this world. And yet,'
thinks I, willing to be square, 'I don't know as you could have
kept 'em apart, even if there weren't no ministers. Man is born to
trouble as a powder-mill is to fly upward. Male and female He made
'em, after their kind; and it's only reasonable that they've been
after their kind ever since. And more'n that, that gentleman would
have checked my wild career--he'd have held me down to one. So why
should I wish to walk on his collar?'
"Whilest I was Hamlettin' to myself like that the old boy talked to
the station agent. Billy leaned on the truck and pointed to me.
'There's your man right now,' says he; 'Mr. E. G. Washington
Scraggs, the most famous guide and hunter in Arizona. I ain't got
a doubt you can secure his services,' and off goes Billy.
"Railroad men get used to takin' life on the run, from eatin' to
jokes. Bill never waited to see the effect of his little spring on
me.
"My friend comes up to me. 'Is this Mr. Scraggs?' he says.
"'I am a modest man by nature,' says I; 'and yet I cannot deny it.'
"He made me a bow. I made him a bow.
"'I am told, Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'that you are a celebrated
guide and hunter?'
"'If you go through this land believing all that's told you,' says
I, 'you'll have a queer sensation in your head. However, I can do
plain guiding and hunting, all right. What am I to guide, and who
am I to hunt?'
"'I shall explain to you," says he, taking off his specks and
tapping his hand with 'em--he was a nice, home-raised old
gentleman, but he sure did think his own affairs was interesting.
'It is this way,' says he: 'my ministerial labors
have--er--exhausted, that is to say, prostrated me. My physician
insisted I should come to this climate, where I am told it is
exceedingly dry and healthful, and live entirely out-of-doors; to
return to our healing mother, Nature; to salute the rosy youth of
Morning from a couch of sod, to bid farewell to Day from some
yearning height, far from the petty madness of cities--what did you
say, Mr. Scraggs?'
"'I said "Ya-a-s,"' says I, quick, because I'd forgot myself a
trifle.