never more take two wraps around a cayuse with them legs of mine, and
chase a skitty steer some more. “No,” says I, “cow-punching is a lost
art.” A feller gets all broke up and tackled with rheumatism before
he’s--he’s--well, I ain’t sixty yet, by a durn sight. Anyhow, a feller
gets broke up any time, and I think of those lovely homes and nice
beds, and it seemed great.
“‘The gent behind the counter of the hotel shoved a book and a pen at
me. I looked at ’em, wonderin’ if it was an autograft album. The little
gals uster have ’em when I was young, and you put your John Hancock
down and then something about the rose is red and the violets blue--I
forget the rest.
“‘I felt queer. It didn’t seem like a man of my size oughter be writing
sich sentiments in a large book with lots of people looking on.
“‘Howsumever I done it, and the clerk says to me, “You come from the
playful districts, just outlying the land of fun, don’t you?” and he
added that too much gayety weren’t a good thing.
“‘He came to about ten words about it, when I took the flat of my hand
and patted him on the back of his head. His nose bled all over the
book, and everybody seemed to think there was a kick comin’.
“‘At last they showed me where I was wrong, and instead of fussing
around that pesky hotel, I spent the night in a calaboose. It was one
of the pleasantest little jails I ever inhabited--airy, kind of roomy,
when I lay on the floor with my head in one corner and my feet in
the other--but, toward morning, I got restless and horrible hungry.
I hadn’t et the night before, forgetting my supper in the fuss they
made about that autograft album, so I shoved my bird-cage door off its
hinges and started for grub.
“‘I come upon the jailer eating his midnight meal--pie, cake,
eggs--everything. He looked at me and reached for his gun. I took hold
of him and reached for his lunch. I et that lunch and gave him one iron
dollar, handed him the door, and said, “You keep this, so you don’t
work any racket on me stealing your property; or, if you like, I will
walk around town with it and you can swear your affidavit that I am
still behind the jail door--if you only stand in front of me and look.”
“‘He was a nervous kind of critter that wasn’t fit to take care of a
bunch of sheep, let alone running a jail. Couldn’t get anything out of
him. He was excited, so I spread them bars on the door apart, stuck his
head in, let them snap back on his neck and sung him, _Come, Birdie,
Come and Live With Me_!
“‘He certainly was a comic-looking jailer, sitting back there with
his head peeking through the door. The other fellers in there laughed
to beat anything, and wanted me to cut ’em loose, but I couldn’t do
that--havin’ come to the town for peace and quiet.
“‘Howsumever, I recovered the goods they took from me, and fed the boys
a little out of the thimbleful of high jumps I carried in my behind
pocket, until everybody was singing, dancing jigs, and so happy that it
did sure look like a little bird-cage filled with the merriest chirpers
that ever teetered on a limb.
“‘Come daybreak, I says good-by to the crowd and started out to see the
city. I turned into the business district, but the stores wasn’t open
yet, so I naturally meandered anywheres my fancy led me.
“‘Some of them nice houses were sending up a curl of smoke for early
breakfast, and some of them was tight shut, where the fellers that led
easy lives weren’t up yet, but was sleeping peacefully in security, and
I felt over-lonesome. Seemed like I hadn’t got what was coming to me,
that I couldn’t have a little shack with red roses on it, and some
nice, kind woman--that would think a durn sight more of me than I was
wuth--to keep my feet out of the drafts for the rest of my days.
“‘It was a purty sunrise. It ketched holt of the trees, it scattered
red on the window-panes. The chickens was crowin’ and cacklin’ around.
The dogs come out and give me a wet wallop on the back of my hand, or
chased after me till I had to send them home. And the cats was sitting
up on top of the fence-posts waiting for a friendly scratch on the
back, and I did feel my life was wasted.
“‘So I hiked out of that to a hill I see in the distance to think
things over, and they was more’n plenty. Shaking my head to myself and
thinking of what I had lost, I happened to look at my watch and found
out I had near lost my lunch, for one thing; so I did the turn back to
town at a good, easy lope.
“‘Them young ladies that waited on the table took care of me in good
shape. They called me “Grandpaw,” but it weren’t in no way sassy, and I
give ’em a five-dollar gold-piece to get some of the green, blue, red
and yeller flyabout things that gals like; and the men they was nice
and polite to me, too, till, by and by, here comes a committee of five
to wait on me, and explain I should oughter go back to jail.
“‘Again it looked as if I should have to subdue some trouble, but only
a minute. I showed them that the finish of their jail was ineveetible,
if they kept sticking a man in who was bound and determined to carry
off a hunk of their jail every time he wanted to come out again; and,
more’n that, would feel it his bounden duty to shoot, and would shoot,
and, as a matter of fact, _did_ shoot a hole through the hat of the
most pushin’ of the crowd; and I simply says: “Instead of all this
fuss and fiddle about nothing except them sentiments I wrote in your
hotel-book, which seem to displease you, let us have a little treat.”
“‘It is no use talking, there is plenty of good in everybody. We had
that little treat, and they found out who I was, and, by-and-by, one
feller says: “We have got you noosed as an inhabitant of this here
town. Don’t you try to break away, but remember you have got your
picket-pin in your own hands. Turn yourself loose, and please us all
the more.” So that day was right pleasant and cheerful.
“‘The town paper come out with a notice that the eminent citizen,
“Long John,” alias “Texas Brown,” alias “Whipsaw Brown,” alias
“Johnny-on-the-seven-spot Brown,” had been overtaken by the town
of Abraham Lincoln, and that for the present the map of said town
contained him as its most important business center.
“‘The shops all shut up, and that town and me had a fly through space
together that the citizens won’t forget for several weeks. But when
I woke next morning, I says to myself: “This looks like the same old
thing, whilst I came here hunting for peaceful domestic joys.”
“‘So I got up in the cool of the morning with scarcely a pain in my
head, and sails out to more retiring districts.
“‘I saw before me the nicest little house you ever did see. There was
all kinds of posies in front of it; its fence was as shiny as a set of
false teeth; the grass was cut short and tidy. It weren’t painted too
many colors. In fact, it was just right, and feelin’ poetic, I said
aloud: “O happiness, here’s where thou hast planted thy stakes. Inside
this small claim, with all its tips, spurs, angles and variations,
there sure runs a pasture of high-grade, free millin’”--but I got
no further, for from out that shell that looked so good to me there
come a yell like as if a mounting-lion had switched his tail into
a wolf-trap. A sound of breaking furniture come to my ears. Also,
something as if a man was cussin’ from the very inside of his heart
outward, and I gathered that a lady was either being beat by her
husband, or else was beating her husband. Of course, in the former
case, I was bound to interfere, not knowin’ the rules of married life.
“‘I waved my right foot in the air and slipped the door off its hinges,
and there appeared before me sich a scene as I never would suppose
could appear before anybody in a house with posies in front of it, and
vines crawling over it, and sich nice, clean winders.
“‘The lady, who was a stout-built female something under six feet, had
a little dark-complected man under the crook of her arm, and whilst she
spanked him with the stove-lid she hollered “Help!” and “Murder!” That
poor little--I mean to say, that scoundrel--had kicked over most of the
truck that was movable, the cat and dog was gobblin’ what would have
been breakfast if this unhappy dispute hadn’t come about, and they was
growling and snapping and spitting, too.
“‘There weren’t no peace about it.
“‘Just as my eyes got used to this, the little man made a violent
effort, caught the lady by one foot, and pushed. She lost her balance
and fell agin the crockery-box. That lost its balance and fell on both
of them. All I could see was two pair of feet. Nothing could be more
painful than to see a lady covered with crockery and a large closet.
“‘I got in front to straighten things up again, and the gentleman bit
me in the leg. I called “Peace!” to him, but he didn’t care. Then I got
the thing half-straightened up--you will notice by this lump under my
right ear where the lady took me one with the stove-lid.
[Illustration: “Don’t you dast touch my husband!” says she. Page 253]
“‘I kept right on with the good work, and, although it seems
onreasonable to the untutored, and yet absolutely necessary under the
conditions, I put one foot on the lady and pulled as much as I could of
the gent away from her.
“‘Something whizzed over my head and took my brand-new Stetson right
along with it into the fire that the upset cook-stove had started.
My foot slipped on a piece of pertater, and I come down right in the
middle of domestic bliss. The lady wrapped one hand in my hair, and hit
me with the other fair hand that weighed about eight pounds.
“‘“Don’t you dast touch my husband!” says she. “You big brute, what do
you mean?”
“‘“Ma’am,” says I, kind of jerky--for the little dark-complected feller
had squirmed loose and was basting me with a section of stove-pipe,
accusing me of striking his wife--“ma’am,” I says, “I don’t hardly
reckon you are doing the right thing by me. I only wanted to keep you
from harm”--and them was my last words.
“‘My good intentions had soured on their stomachs. The pair of them
done more things with me in one-half minute than a monkey could think
of in one-half a month. Most of my scratches and eighty per cent. of
the cuts is healed. They spoiled that bed of posies by dragging me over
them, and I put the fence a little out of plumb by trying to regain
some of the dignity that ought naturally to belong to a man. That is to
say, I took hold of the fence and tried to stand up, but me and two of
the pickets hit the middle of the road. I carried those pickets with me
just because I was dazed.
“‘I turned up at the hotel still holdin’ ’em, and all the male
citizens there assembled expressed their surprise in one voice. Them
nice waiter-ladies got rags and things, and patched me up the best
they could. The hotel man loaned me two drinks, and it seemed as if
somewhere in the back part of me, where the real “Long John Brown” had
took to the brush during the scrimmage, there was a stir, and by-and-by
I come to.
“‘Immejitely I whooped up them steps to my room, packed my grip and
come down front again. I ain’t braggarty a bit when I say them people
was sorry to see me go, and coaxed me to try another whirl.
“‘They almost had me, when down the street in the distance here come
that fine-built, up-standing female and the little dark-complected man,
and I heard the woman holler to a neighbor that they was out to catch
an eight-foot-high, bow-legged critter, with hair and whiskers like a
billy-goat, that had broke into their house without cause or reason,
smashed all the crockery, knocked the stove into junk and inflicted
upon their persons some injuries they could show, and some they
wouldn’t.
“‘I turned to the crowd at the bar, and says, “That is the piece of
beautiful domestic life I tried to help. Are you fellers now goin’ to
stand for me?”--and them fellers put down their glasses, and walked so
fast they got jabbed in the doorway, lightin’ out of that.
“‘One lad says to me, “You know I’m your friend, but--”
“‘“Yes,” I says, “I know you are my friend, and you know that nothing
could hurt my feelings worse than to see a friend of mine get hurt, so
you are putting out where it ain’t likely to happen.”
“‘“Yes,” he says, kind of hurried. “That’s it. That lady’s run for
mayor of this town twice without anybody asking her, or saying anything
about it. She’s elected herself twice, only casting one vote. We keep
the City Hall doors locked all the time. I meant to tell you that
the town wasn’t really run. She is, you might say, a determined
character,” and, he says, in a greater hurry yet, “Good-by.”
“‘The barkeeper had took down cellar, so I says “Good-by” to my
reflection in the lookin’-glass and skipped out the back way, behind
barns and sheds and barrels, so that lady couldn’t see me, and hid in
an empty coal-bin at the station until it come time for my train, and
here I be,’ says John. ‘Here I be, Scraggsy, old man; and, while I
ain’t in no way convinced but what domestic felicity is the one thing
on earth, yet I wish I hadn’t been so biggoty, and had asked you a few
facts concerning the female species before I started to put my notions
into practice.’
“‘Goin’ to stay quiet on the ranch now?’ I asked him.
“He rolled a cigareet with determination, and he answers, ‘Mebbe,’ and
the only other words I heard from him was when he stepped on a shoe
in his bare feet and come down on some place that was sore from the
kind attentions of his lady friend, and he strangled for three minutes,
gritting his teeth so I could hear ’em squeak in the darkness, and then
he says:
“‘Blessed be the peacemakers!’”
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of
inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.
Spelling of dialect words not changed.
Page 1: Transcriber added chapter number (“I”) to the heading, for
consistency with the rest of the book, and deleted the redundant
hemi-title.