"_That's My Dill Pickle!_"
Charming Billy Boyle was, to put it mildly, enjoying his enforced
vacation very much. To tell the plain truth and tell it without the
polish of fiction, he was hilariously moistened as to his gullet and
he was not thinking of quitting yet; he had only just begun.
He was sitting on an end of the bar in the Hardtip Saloon, his hat as
far back on his head as it could possibly be pushed with any hope of
its staying there at all. He had a glass in one hand, a cigarette in
the other, and he was raking his rowels rhythmically up and down the
erstwhile varnished bar in buzzing accompaniment, the while he chanted
with much enthusiasm:
"How old is she, Billy boy, Billy boy?
How old is she, charming Billy?
Twice six, twice seven,
Forty-nine and eleven--"
The bartender, wiping the bar after an unsteady sheepherder, was
careful to leave a generous margin around the person of Charming Billy
who was at that moment asserting with much emphasis:
"She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother."
"Twice-six's-twelve, 'n' twice-seven's-four-r-teen, 'n' twelve 'n'
fourteen's--er--twelve--'n'--fourteen--" The unsteady sheepherder was
laboring earnestly with the problem. "She ain't no spring chicken, she
ain't!" He laughed tipsily, and winked up at the singer, but Billy was
not observing him and his mathematical struggles. He refreshed himself
from the glass, leaving the contents perceptibly lower--it was a
large, thick glass with a handle, and it had flecks of foam down the
inside--took a pull at the cigarette and inquired plaintively:
"Can she brew, can she bake, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Can she brew, can she bake, charming Billy?"
Another long pull at the cigarette, and then the triumphant
declaration:
"She can brew n' she can bake,
She can sew n' she can make--
She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother."
"She ain't s' young!" bawled the sheepherder, who was taking it all
very seriously. "Say them numbers over again, onc't. Twelve-'n'-fourteen--"
"Aw, go off and lay down!" advised Charming Billy, in a tone of deep
disgust. He was about to pursue still farther his inquiry into the
housewifely qualifications of the mysterious "young thing," and he
hated interruptions.
"Can she make a punkin pie, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Can she make a punkin pie, charming Billy?"
The door opened timidly and closed again, but he did not see who
entered. He was not looking; he was holding the empty, foam-flecked
glass behind him imperatively, and he was watching over his shoulder
to see that the bartender did not skimp the filling and make it
two-thirds foam. The bartender was punctiliously lavish, so that a
crest of foam threatened to deluge the hand of Charming Billy and
quite occupied him for the moment. When he squared himself again and
buzzed his spurs against the bar, his mind was wholly given to the
proper execution of the musical gem.
"She can make a punkin pie,
Quick's a cat can wink her eye--"
Something was going on, over in the dimly lighted corner near the
door. Half a dozen men had grouped themselves there with their backs
to Billy and they were talking and laughing; but the speech of them
was an unintelligible clamor and their laughter a commingling roar.
Billy gravely inspected his cigarette, which had gone cold, set down
the glass and sought diligently for a match.
"Aw, come on an' have one on me!" bawled a voice peremptorily. "Yuh
can't raise no wild cattle around _this_ joint, lessen yuh wet up good
with whisky. Why, a feller as long as you be needs a good jolt for
every foot of yuh--and that's about fifteen when you're lengthened
out good. Come on--don't be a damn' chubber! Yuh got to sample m'
hospitality. Hey, Tom! set out about a quart uh your _mildest_ for
Daffy-down-Dilly. He's dry, clean down to his hand-made socks."
Charming Billy, having found a match, held it unlighted in his fingers
and watched the commotion from his perch on the bar. In the very midst
of the clamor towered the melancholy Alexander P. Dill, and he was
endeavoring to explain, in his quiet, grammatical fashion. A lull
that must have been an accident carried the words clearly across to
Charming Billy.
"Thank you, gentlemen. I really don't care for anything in the way
of refreshment. I merely came in to find a friend who has promised to
spend the night with me. It is getting along toward bedtime. Have your
fun, gentlemen, if you must--but I am really too tired to join you."
"Make 'im dance!" yelled the sheepherder, giving over the attempt to
find the sum of twelve and fourteen. "By gosh, yuh made _me_ dance
when I struck town. Make 'im dance!"
"You go off and lay down!" commanded Billy again, and to emphasize his
words leaned and emptied the contents of his glass neatly inside the
collar of the sheepherder. "Cool down, yuh Ba-ba-black-sheep!"
The herder forgot everything after that--everything but the desire to
tear limb from limb one Charming Billy Boyle, who sat and raked his
spurs up and down the marred front of the bar and grinned maliciously
down at him. "Go-awn off, before I take yuh all to pieces," he urged
wearily, already regretting the unjustifiable waste of good beer.
"Quit your buzzing; I wanta listen over there."
"Come on 'n' have a drink!" vociferated the hospitable one. "Yuh got
to be sociable, or yuh can't stop in _this_ man's town." So insistent
was he that he laid violent hold of Mr. Dill and tried to pull him
bodily to the bar.
"Gentlemen, this passes a joke!" protested Mr. Dill, looking around
him in his blankly melancholy way. "I do not drink liquor. I must
insist upon your stopping this horseplay immediately!"
"Oh, it ain't no _play_," asserted the insistent one darkly. "I mean
it, by thunder."
It was at this point that Charming Billy decided to have a word.
"Here, break away, there!" he yelled, pushing the belligerent
sheepherder to one side. "Hands off that long person! That there's
_my_ dill pickle!"
[Illustration: "HANDS OFF THAT LONG PERSON! THAT THERE'S _MY_ DILL
PICKLE."]
Mr. Dill was released, and Billy fancied hazily that it was because
he so ordered; as a matter of fact, Mr. Dill, catching sight of him
there, had thrown the men and their importunities off as though they
had been rough-mannered boys. He literally plowed his way through them
and stopped deprecatingly before Billy.
"It is getting late," he observed, mildly reproachful. "I thought I
would show you the way to my room, if you don't mind."
Billy stared down at him. "Well, I'm going to be busy for a while
yet," he demurred. "I've got to lick this misguided son-of-a-gun
that's blatting around wanting to eat me alive--and I got my eyes on
your friend in the rear, there, that's saying words about you, Dilly.
Looks to me like I'm going to be some occupied for quite a spell. You
run along to bed and don't yuh bother none about _me_."
"The matter is not so urgent but what I can wait until you are ready,"
Mr. Dill told him quietly, but with decision. He folded his long arms
and ranged himself patiently alongside Billy. And Billy, regarding him
uneasily, felt convinced that though he tarried until the sun
returned Mr. Dill would stand right there and wait--like a well-broken
range-horse when the reins are dropped to the ground. Charming Billy
did not know why it made him uncomfortable, but it did and he took
immediate measures to relieve the sensation.
He turned fretfully and cuffed the clamorous sheepherder, who
seemed to lack the heart for actual hostilities but indulged in much
recrimination and was almost in tears. "Aw, shut up!" growled Billy.
"A little more uh that war-talk and I'll start in and learn yuh some
manners. I don't want any more of it. Yuh hear?"
It is a fact that trifles sometimes breed large events. Billy, to make
good his threat, jumped off the bar. In doing so he came down upon
the toes of Jack Morgan, the hospitable soul who had insisted upon
treating Mr. Dill and who had just come up to renew the argument. Jack
Morgan was a man of uncertain temper and he also had toes exceedingly
tender. He struck out, missed Billy, who was thinking only of the
herder, and it looked quite as though the blow was meant for Mr. Dill.
After that, things happened quickly and with some confusion. Others
became active, one way or the other, and the clamor was great, so
that it was easily heard down the street and nearly emptied the other
saloons.
When the worst of it was over and one could tell for a certainty what
was taking place, Charming Billy was holding a man's face tightly
against the bar and was occasionally beating it with his fist none too
gently. Mr. Dill, an arm's length away, had Jack Morgan and one other
offender clutched by the neck in either hand and he was solemnly and
systematically butting their heads together until they howled. The
bartender had just succeeded in throwing the sheepherder out through
the back door, and he was wiping his hands and feeling very well
satisfied with himself.
"I'd oughta fired him long ago, when he first commenced building
trouble," he remarked, to no one in particular. "The darned
lamb-licker--he's broke and has been all evening. I don't know what
made me stand for 'im long as I did."
Billy, moved perhaps by weariness rather than mercy, let go his man
and straightened up, feeling mechanically for his hat. His eyes met
those of the melancholy Mr. Dill.
"If you're quite through"--bang! went the heads--"perhaps we may as
well"--bang!--"leave this unruly crowd"--bang!!--"and go to our room.
It is after eleven o'clock." Mr. Dill looked as though his present
occupation was unpleasant but necessary and as though, to please
Billy, he could keep it up indefinitely.
Charming Billy stood quite still, staring at the other and at what he
was doing; and while he stared and wondered, something came into the
heart of him and quite changed his destiny. He did not know what it
was, or why it was so; at the time he realized only a deep amazement
that Mr. Dill, mild of manner, correct of speech and wistful-eyed,
should be standing there banging the heads of two men who were
considered rather hard to handle. Certainly Jack Morgan was reputed a
"bad actor" when it came to giving blows. And while Alexander P. Dill
was a big man--an enormous man, one might say--he had none of the
earmarks of a fighting man. It was, perhaps, his very calmness that
won Billy for good and all. Before, Charming Billy had felt toward him
a certain amused pity; his instinct had been to protect Mr. Dill. He
would never feel just that way again; Mr. Dill, it would seem, was
perfectly well able to protect himself.
"Shall we go?" Mr. Dill poised the two heads for another bang and held
them so. By this time every one in the room was watching, but he had
eyes only for Billy.
"Just as you say," Billy assented submissively.
Mr. Dill shook the two with their faces close together, led them to a
couple of chairs and set them emphatically down. "Now, see if you can
behave yourselves," he advised, in the tone a father would have
used toward two refractory boys. "You have been acting boorishly and
disgracefully all evening. It was you who directed me wrong, to-day.
You have not, at any time since I first met you, acted like gentlemen;
I should be sorry to think this country held many such brainless
louts." He turned inquiringly toward Charming Billy and nodded his
head toward the door. Billy, stooping unsteadily for his hat which he
discovered under his feet, followed him meekly out.