* * * * *
Taos changes trains at Chicago, and he shakes hands with me and Aurora.
He tells us where to meet him in a week, and then leaves. Aurora is some
sudden herself. She rushed me to a place where you send telegrams, and
from there to--I reckon it was the court-house or the city hall, and
then shoved me into a taxi cab and we went to the preacher’s house.
It took that sad-faced jasper about a minute to put hobbles on my
freedom, and we didn’t no more than get out of that place before she
starts educating Yallerstone Brown. I never knowed that I was so
ignorant. She starts in on eating with a knife, and ends the first
lesson with a sermon on putting my feet on the table.
She orates that I’m to be sober, shaved and sanitary all the time. She
chases me into a store and slides me into a suit of clothes that looks
like I was dressed for a funeral, and then I has to trade my perfectly
good boots for a pair of shiny shoes with buttons on. Then she bought
me a cane.
“I ain’t crippled--yet,” says I.
“You carry that cane!” says she. “One doesn’t have to be crippled to
carry a cane.”
“One end or the other,” says I. “Can I keep my gun?”
“Gun? Certainly not! You’ll put it in the bag.”
“Bag?” I asks. “If I’ve got to pack a cane I ain’t going to have no bag.
Folks might think I was a chicken thief.”
Right there I found out what a bag is. We got into a cab, and when we
got out we’re at the depot.
“Two tickets to Hillsdale,” says she to the ticket-man.
“Hillsdale?” I croaks.
“Where we will live,” says she.
“Amarilly would enjoy this,” says I, after she got through telling me
how to act when I got off the train.
“Amarilly?” she asks. “Who is she?”
“Friend of mine. Been with me over a year.”
“Relative?” she asks.
“Nope, no relative.”
“You--you haven’t been really with her, have you?” she wails. “Not all
that time?”
“Yes’m. Me and her has taken some goshawful trips together.”