Didn’t you get my letter? If not I can say that I ain’t no better off
than I was before I wrote you. I’m glad I didn’t write to Windy or
“Hondo” Huddleson, ’cause I know they wouldn’t loan me two-bits if I was
to give them a handful of twenty-dollar gold pieces for security.
Honest, Hank, if air cost half a cent for a billion cubik miles them two
fellers would smother to death inside of twenty seconds. I hates to
think that I know anybody what is so tight.
I ain’t living at home yet, Hank, but I expect to soon. If a man’s place
ain’t at his wife’s side where is it? A feller what herds sheep for
Uncle Gabe is staying up at the house now and he’s a simp, Hank. His
name is “Stony” Wells. I seen him and Emmeline, my wife, down at the
store and he bought her some candy hearts. Any man is a simp what will
buy candy hearts for a married woman, ain’t he, Hank?
It made me sore, Hank, for her to act like her husband didn’t have
enough money and principal to buy candy for her, so I goes up to the
house to chide her about it. Uncle Gabe comes to the door and sort of
looks me over. Hank, that feller has got a eye like a mean bronc what
ain’t been showed the error of his ways. While I ain’t saying a word
against Emmeline, you understand, I wish I had knowed more about her
folks before the marriage.
“Can I do something for you?” he asks, like I was carrying a bunch of
stuff to sell him at so much down and the rest in a minute.
“I come to see my wife, Mister Galesburg,” says I. “You don’t need to
call her ’cause I’m coming inside.”
“Somebody must have give you the wrong steer, if you think so,” says he.
“Did somebody tell you that you could bust into my house without a
invite?”
Ain’t he a queer pelican, Hank? Just as though I has to ask somebody for
a invitation to see my wife.
“Well,” says I, “I don’t know how you feel about it, but I wasn’t raised
a pet, and I does some things no matter what the consequences. I’m free,
white and twenty-one, and I’d admire to see you step to one side.”
He did, Hank. Emmeline has got sort of a loving disposition, and Aunt
Phoebe ain’t no danged Nero, but when there’s so much sweetness in a
fambly there has to be a little gall to balance things. Uncle Gabe steps
to one side, as I orders him to, Hank, and when I starts to go past him
he hits me so hard that I goes out near the front gate and stands on my
head in a currant bush.
When I got up he’s standing there filling his pipe, and when he sees me
go to my hip he grins like a over-grown pup. Honest, when he grins I
think of a Airedale dog.
“You might imitate Aladdin,” says he. “Rub your shining lamp and wish
for a gun. Badman from Bitter Crick soaked his gun for hooch, eh?”
I’m just about to give him the laugh, ’cause I didn’t soak my gun for
booze at all, Hank, I let Sam Fletcher have it for room rent, when here
comes Emmeline and Aunt Phoebe around the corner of the house.
“Dobie Dalton, you been fighting again!” says Emmeline, sort of
mad-like, and I has to laugh, even if I am mad, ’cause the joke’s on her
this time.
“Dear Emmeline,” says I, “you’re all wrong, ’cause I didn’t do a bit of
it. I came up here to take you away with me, and that dog-faced relative
of yours by marriage hit me without warning. I don’t want my sweet
little wife to live in the same atmosphere with a sheep-herding cross
between Jesse James and a timber-wolf.”
“Just where do you intend to take her?” asks Uncle Gabe, just as though
it was any of his business and believe me, Hank, I told him where to
head in at.
“Go get your hat on, Emmeline,” says I, “I’m going to take you with me
like a married man ought to.”
“Go ahead with him, Em,” says he.
“The walk will do you good, and we’ll have supper ready at five.” Then
he turned to me: “Where you going to put her—in a public corral? You
ain’t got the price of a room.”
“Yes,” says Emmeline, “I would like to know where you are going to take
me, Dobie.”
“Wife,” says I, just like that, Hank, “wife, I’m going to take you with
me down to the post-office and maybe over to the depot, and then I’ll
take you to the best hotel in the city.”
You see, Hank, I figured that as soon as you got my letter you would
either send me a letter with some money in it or maybe telegraft some to
me. You know I didn’t come right out and ask you for money, Hank, but I
tried to hint strong enough for you to understand. I figured on it
strong, but I must have figured wrong. Emmeline went over to the
post-office with me and then over to the depot, but there wasn’t a
thing, Hank. If you sent me anything it’s lost.
“Now,” says Emmeline, “let’s go up to the hotel, Dobie, I’m all tired
out.”
Now, Hank, you see how trusting a friend can put you up against it. I
makes a bluff and gets called, and I ain’t even got a face card to lay
down on the table.
“Emmeline, my dear,” says I, “have you got any of that thirty-two
dollars left?”
“I never had it, Dobie,” says she. “Didn’t you spend it?”
Dear Hank, this is the last sheet of paper I got, so I’ll have to tell
you the rest later. Don’t let that thirty-two dollars scare you from
sending me a little if you got it, ’cause I ain’t got that thirty-two
dollars. Six-bits would look like a pirut’s hoard to me right now. If
Windy or Hondo asks about me, Hank, you tell them I’m lousy with coin
and doing well. If I have to sleep much longer at Sam Fletcher’s I’ll be
lousy but not with wealth. Do you know what I’d do if I knowed you was
facing starvation or sheep-herding, Hank? I am waiting to hear from you
anxiously. Y’rs very truly,
Dobie Dalton, care of gen. del.
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