When I shook hands with Mary Blaisdell and left her standin’ under the
wistaria vine at the front door of the little old house that had
belonged to Henry, all I said was for her to keep a stiff upper lip and
not to be any bluer than was necessary. "Ostable’s lost a good
postmaster," says I, "and you’ve lost a kind, thoughtful, providin’
brother. I know it looks pretty foggy ahead to you just now and you
can’t see how you’re goin’ to get along; but you keep up your pluck and
a way’ll be provided. Meantime I’m goin’ to think hard and perhaps I can
see a light somewheres. My owners used to tell me I was consider’ble of
a navigator, so between us we’d ought to fetch you into port."
Her eyes were wet, but she smiled, rainbow fashion, through the shower,
and said I was awful good and she’d never forget how kind I’d been
through it all.
"Whatever becomes of me, Cap’n Snow," she says, "I shall never forget
that."
What I’d done wa’n’t worth talkin’ about, so I said good-by and hurried
away. At the top of the hill I turned and looked back. She was still
standin’ in the door and, in spite of the wistaria and the hollyhocks
and the green summer stuff everywheres, the whole picture was pretty
forlorn. The little white buildin’ by the road, with the sign,
"Post-office" over the window, looked more lonesome still. And yet the
sight of it and the sight of that sign give me an inspiration. I stood
stock still and thumped my fists together.
"Why not?" says I to myself. "By mighty, yes! Why not?"
You see, Henry Blaisdell was one of the few Ostable folks that I’d known
as a boy and who was livin’ there yet when I came back. He was younger
than I, and Mary, his sister, was younger still. I liked Henry and his
death was a sort of personal loss to me, as you might say. I liked Mary,
too. She was always so quiet and common-sense and comfortable. _She_
didn’t gossip, and the way she helped her brother in the post-office was
a treat to see. She wa’n’t exactly what you’d call young, and the world
hadn’t been all fair winds and smooth water for her, by a whole lot;
but, in spite of it, she’d managed to keep sweet and fresh. She and
Henry and I had got to be good friends and I gen’rally took a walk up
towards their house of a Sunday or managed to run in at the post-office
buildin’ at least once every week-day and have a chat with ’em.
When I heard of Henry’s dyin’ so sudden my fust thought was about Mary
and what would she do. How was she goin’ to get along? I thought of that
even durin’ the funeral, and now, the day after it, when I went up to
see her, I was thinkin’ of it still. And, at last, I believed I had got
the answer to the puzzle.
Half the way back to the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes
and Fancy Goods Store," I was thinkin’ of my new notion and makin’ up my
mind. The other half I was layin’ plans to put it through. When I walked
into the store, Jim Henry met me.
"Hello, Skipper," says he, brisk and fresh as a no’theast breeze in dog
days, "did you ever hear the story about the office-seekin’ feller in
Washin’ton, back in President Harrison’s time? He wanted a gov’ment job
and he happened to notice a crowd down by the Potomac and asked what was
up. They told him one of the Treasury clerks had been found drowned. He
run full speed to the White House, saw the President, and asked for the
drowned chap’s place. ’You’re too late,’ says Harrison, 'I’ve just
app’inted the man that saw him fall in.’"
I’d heard it afore, but I laughed, out of politeness, and wanted to know
what made him think of the yarn.
"Why," says he, "because that’s the way it’s workin’ here in Ostable.
Poor old Blaisdell’s funeral was only yesterday and it’s already settled
who’s to be the new postmaster."
Considerin’ what I’d been goin’ over in my mind all the way home from
Mary’s, this statement, just at this time, knocked me pretty nigh out of
water.
"What?" I gasped. "How did you know?"
"Why wouldn’t I know?" says he. "I got the advance information right
from the oracle. I was told not ten minutes since that the app’intment
was to go to Abubus Payne."
I stared at him. "Abubus Payne!" says I. "Abubus—Are you dreamin’?"
He laughed. "I’d never dream a name like 'Abubus,’ he says, ’even after
one of our Poquit House dinners. No, it’s no dream. The Major was just
in and he says his mind is made up. That settles it, don’t it? You
wouldn’t contradict the all-wise mouthpiece of Providence, would you,
Cap’n Zeb?"
I never said anything—not then. I was realizin’ that, if I wanted Mary
Blaisdell to be postmistress at Ostable—which was the inspiration I was
took with when I looked back at her from the hill—I’d got to do
somethin’ besides say. I’d got to work and work hard. And even at that
my work was cut out from the small end of the goods. To beat Major
Cobden Clark in a political fight was no boy’s job. But Abubus Payne!
Abubus Payne postmaster at Ostable!! Think of it! Maybe you can; _I_
couldn’t without stimulants.
You see, this critter Abubus—did you ever hear such a name in your
life?—had lived around ’most every town on the Cape at one time or
another. He and his wife wa’n’t what you’d call permanent settlers
anywhere, but had a habit of breakin’ out in new and unexpected places,
like a p’ison-ivy rash. He worked some at carpenterin’, when he couldn’t
help it, but his main business, as you might say, had always been
lookin’ for an easier job. In Ostable he’d got one. He was caretaker and
general nurse of Major Cobden Clark. His wife, who was about as
shiftless as he was, was the Major’s housekeeper.
And the Major? Well, the Major was a star, a planet—yes, in his own
opinion, the whole solar system. He was big and fleshy and straight and
gray-haired and red-faced. He belonged to land knows how many clubs and
societies and milishys, includin’ the Ancient and Honorable Artillery
Company of Boston and the Old Guard of New York. He had political
influence and a long pocketbook and a short temper. Likewise he suffered
from pig-headedness and chronic indigestion. ’Twas the indigestion that
brought him to Ostable and Abubus; or rather ’twas his doctor, Dr.
Conquest Payne, the celebrated food and diet specializer—see
advertisements in ’most any newspaper—who sent him there. Abubus was
Doctor Conquest’s cousin and I judge the two of ’em figgered the Clark
stomach and income as things too good to be treated outside of the
family.
Anyway, the spring afore I landed in Ostable, down comes the Major, buys
a good-sized house on the lower road nigh the water front, hires Abubus
and his wife to look out for the place and him, and settles down to the
simple life, which wa’n’t the kind he’d been livin’, by a consider’ble
sight. But he lived it now; yes, sir, he did! He lived by the clock and
he ate and slept by the clock, and that clock was wound up and set
accordin’ to the rules prescribed by Dr. Conquest Payne, "World Famous
Dietitian and Food Specialist"—see more advertisin’, with a tintype of
the Doctor in the corner.
Nigh as I could find out the diet was a queer one. It give me dyspepsy
just to think of it. Breakfast at seven sharp, consistin’ of a dozen nut
meats, two raw prunes, some "whole wheat bread"—whatever that is—and a
pint of hot water. Luncheon at quarter to eleven, with another
assortment of similar truck. Afternoon snack at three and dinner at
half-past seven. He had two soft b’iled eggs for dinner, or else a
two-inch slice of rare steak, and, with them exceptions, the whole bill
of fare was, accordin’ to my notion, more fittin’ for a goat than a
human bein’. He mustn’t smoke and he mustn’t drink: Considerin’ what
he’d been used to afore the "World Famous" one hooked him it ain’t much
wonder that he was as crabbed and cranky as a liveoak windlass.
However, it—or somethin’ else—had made him feel better since he landed
in Ostable and he swore by that Conquest Payne man and everybody
connected with him. And if he once took a notion into his tough old
head, nothin’ short of a surgeon’s operation could get it out. He’d
decided to make Abubus postmaster and he’d move heaven and earth to do
it. All right, then, it was up to me to do some movin’ likewise. I can
be a little mite pig-headed myself, if I set out to be.
And I set out right then. It may seem funny to say so, but I was about
as good a friend as the Major had in Ostable. Course he had a tremendous
influence with the selectmen and the like of that, owin’ to his soldier
record and his pompousness and the amount of taxes he paid. And he and I
never agreed on one single p’int. But just the same he spent the heft of
his evenin’s at the store and I was always glad to see him. I respected
the cantankerous old critter, and liked him, in a way. And I’m inclined
to think he respected and liked me. I cal’late both of us enjoyed
fightin’ with somebody that never tried for an under-holt or quit even
when he was licked.
So that night, when he comes puffin’ in and sets down, as usual, in the
most comfortable chair, I went over and come to anchor alongside of him.
"Hello," he grunts, "you old salt hayseed. Any closer to bankruptcy than
you was yesterday?"
"Your bill’s a little bigger and more overdue, that’s all," says I. "See
here, I want to talk politics with you. Mary Blaisdell, Henry’s sister,
is goin’ to have the post-office now he’s gone, and I want you to put
your name on her petition. Not that she needs it, or anybody else’s, but
just to help fill up the paper."
Well, sir, you ought to have seen him! His red face fairly puffed out,
like a young-one’s rubber balloon. He whirled round on the edge of his
chair—he was too big to move in any other part of it—and glared at me.
What did I mean by that? Hey? Was my punkin head sp’ilin’ now that warm
weather had come, or what? Had I heard what he told my partner that very
mornin’?
"Yes," says I, "I heard it. But I judged you must have broke your rule
about drinkin’ liquor, or else your dyspepsy has struck to your brains.
No sane person would set out to make Abubus Payne anythin’ more
responsible than keeper of a pig pen. You didn’t mean it, of course."
He didn’t! He’d show me what he meant! Abubus was the most honest, able
man on the whole blessed sand-heap, and he was goin’ to be postmaster.
Mary Blaisdell was an old maid, good enough of her kind, maybe, but the
place for her was some kind of an asylum or home for incompetent
females. He’d sign a petition to put her in one of them places, but
nothin’ else. Abubus was just as good as app’inted already.
We had it back and forth. There was consider’ble chair thumpin’ and
hollerin’, I shouldn’t wonder. Anyhow, afore ’twas over every loafer on
the main road was crowdin’ ’round us and Jim Henry Jacobs was pacin’ up
and down back of the counter with the most worried look on his face ever
I see there. It ended by the Major’s jumpin’ to his feet and headin’ for
the door.
"You—you—you tarry old imbecile," he hollers, shakin’ a fat forefinger
at me, "I’ll show you a few things. I’ll never set foot in this rathole
of yours again."
"You better not," I sung out. "If you dare to, I’ll—"
"What?" he interrupts. "You’ll what? I’ll be back here to-morrow night.
Then what’ll you do?"
"I’ll show you Mary Blaisdell’s petition," I says. "And the names on
it’ll make you curl up and quit like a sick caterpillar."
"Humph! I’ll show _you_ a petition for Abubus Payne, next postmaster of
Ostable, with a string of names on it so long you’ll die of old age
afore you can finish readin’ ’em. Bah!"
With that he went out and I went into the back room to wash my face in
cold water.
I wrote the headin’ to the Blaisdell petition afore I turned in that
very night. Next mornin’ I hurried over and, after consider’ble arguin’,
I got Mary to say she’d try for the place. All the rest of that day I
put in drivin’ from Dan to Beersheby gettin’ signatures. And I got ’em,
too, a schooner load of ’em. I had the petition ready to show the Major
that evenin’; but, when he come into the store, he had a petition, too,
just as long as mine. And the worst of it was, in a lot of cases the
same names was signed to both papers. Accordin’ to those petitions the
heft of Ostable folks wanted somebody to keep post-office and they
didn’t much care who. They wanted to please me and they didn’t like to
say no to the Major.
He was mad and I was mad and we had another session. But he wouldn’t
cross the names off and neither would I and so, after another week, both
petitions went in as they was. All the good they seemed to do was that
we each got a letter from the Post-office Department and Mary Blaisdell
was allowed to hold over her brother’s place until somebody was picked
out permanent. And every evenin’ Major Clark came into the store to tell
me Abubus was sure to win and get my prediction that Mary was as good as
elected. One week dragged along and then another, and ’twas still a
draw, fur’s a body could tell. The Washin’ton folks wa’n’t makin’ a
peep.
But old Ancient and Honorable Clark was workin’ his wires on the quiet
and I must give in that he pulled one on me that I wa’n’t expectin’. The
whole town had got sort of tired of guessin’ and talkin’ about the
post-office squabble and had drifted back into the reg’lar rut of
pickin’ their neighbors to pieces. The Major had set ’em talkin’ on a
new line durin’ the last fortni’t. He’d been fixin’ up his house and
havin’ the grounds seen to, and so forth. Likewise he’d bought an
automobile, one of the nobbiest kind. This was somethin’ of a surprise,
'cause afore that he’d been pretty much down on autos and did his
drivin’ around in a high-seated sort of buggy—"dog cart" he called
it—though 'twas hauled by a horse and he hated dogs so that he kept a
shotgun loaded with rock salt on his porch to drive stray ones off his
premises.
"Who’s goin’ to run that smell-wagon of yours?" I asked him, sarcastic.
He kept comin’ to the store just the same as ever and we had our reg’lar
rows constant. I cal’late we’d both have missed ’em if they’d stopped. I
know I should.
"Humph!" he snorts; "smell-wagon, hey? If it smells any worse than that
old fish dory of yours, I’ll have it buried, for the sake of the public
health."
By "fish dory" he meant a catboat I’d bought. She was named the _Glide_
and she could glide away from anything of her inches in the bay.
"But who’s goin’ to run that auto?" I asked again. "’Tain’t possible
you’re goin’ to do it yourself. If she went by alcohol power, I could
understand, but—"
"Hush up!" he says, forgettin’ to be mad for once and speakin’ actually
plaintive. "Don’t talk that way, Snow," says he. "If you knew how much I
wanted a drink you wouldn’t speak lightly of alcohol."
"Why don’t you take one, then?" I wanted to know. "I believe ’twould do
you good. That and a square meal. If you’d forget your prunes and your
nutmeats and your quack doctorin’—"
He was mad then, all right. To slur at the "World Famous" was a good
deal worse than murder, in his mind. He expressed his opinion of me,
free and loud. He said I’d ought to try Doctor Conquest, myself, for
developin’ my brains. The Doctor was pretty nigh a vegetarian, he said,
and my head was mainly cabbage—and so on. Incidentally he announced that
Abubus was to run the new auto.
"Abubus!" says I. "Why, he don’t know a gas engine from a coffee mill!
He wouldn’t know what the craft’s for."
"That’s all right," he says. "He’s been takin’ lessons at the garage in
Hyannis and he can run it like a bird. He knows what it’s for. He! he!
so do I. By the way, Snow, are you ready to give up the post-office to
my candidate yet?"
"Give up?" says I. "Tut! tut! tut! I hate to hear a supposed sane man
talk so. Mary Blaisdell handles the mail in the Ostable post-office for
the next three years—longer, if she wants to."
"Bet you five she don’t," he says.
"Take the bet," says I.
He went out chucklin’. I wondered what he had up his sleeve. A week
later I found out. Congressman Shelton, our district Representative at
Washin’ton, came to Ostable to look the post-office situation over and,
lo and behold you, he comes as Major Cobden Clark’s guest, to stay at
his house.
When Jim Henry Jacobs learned that, he took me to one side to give me
some brotherly advice.
"It’s all up for Mary now," he says. "She can’t win. Clark and Shelton
are old chums in politics. There’s only one chance to beat Payne and
that’s to bring forward a compromise candidate—a dark horse."
"Rubbish!" I sung out. "Dark horse be hanged! Shelton’s square as a
brick. Nobody can bribe him."
"It ain’t a question of bribin’," he says. "If it was, you could bribe,
too. Shelton is square, and that’s why he’d welcome a compromise
candidate. But if it comes to a fight between Mary Blaisdell and Abubus
Payne, Abubus’ll win because he’s the Major’s pet. Shelton knows the
Major better than he knows you. Take my advice now and look out for the
dark horse."
But I wouldn’t listen. All the next hour I was ugly as a bear with a
sore head and long afore dinner time I told Jacobs I was goin’ for a
sail in the _Glide_. "Goin’ somewheres on salt water where the air’s
clean and not p’isoned by politics and automobiles and congressmen and
Paynes," I told him.
I headed out of the harbor and then run, afore a wind that was fair but
gettin’ lighter all the time, up the bay. I sailed and sailed until some
of my bad temper wore off and my appetite begun to come back. All the
time I was settin’ at the tiller I was thinkin’ over the post-office
situation and, try as hard as I could to see the bright side for Mary
Blaisdell, it looked pretty dark. The Major would give that Shelton man
the time of his life and he’d talk Abubus to him to beat the cars. I
couldn’t get at the Congressman to put in an oar for Mary and—well, I’d
have discounted my five-dollar bet for about seventy-five cents, at that
time.
I thought and thought and sailed and sailed. When I came to myself and
realized I was hungry the _Glide_ was miles away from Ostable. I came
about and started to beat back; then I saw I was in for a long job. Let
alone that the wind was ahead, ’twas dyin’ fast, and if I knew the signs
of a flat calm, there was one due in half an hour. I took as long tacks
as I could, but I made mighty little progress.
On the second tack inshore I came up abreast of Jonathan Crowell’s house
at Heron P’int. Jonathan’s just a no-account longshoreman or he wouldn’t
live in that place, which is the fag-end of creation. There’s a
twenty-mile stretch of beach and pines and such close to the shore
there, with a road along it. The first eight mile of that road is pretty
good macadam and hard dirt. A land company tried to develop that section
of beach once and they put in the road; but the land didn’t sell and the
company busted and after that eight mile the road is just beach sand,
soft and coarse. The strip of solid ground, with its pines and
scrub-oaks, is, as I said afore, twenty mile long, but it’s only a half
mile or so wide. Between it and the main cape is a tremendous salt
marsh, all cut up with cricks that nobody can get over without a boat.
Jonathan’s is the only house for the whole twenty mile, except the
lighthouse buildin’s down at the end. The land company put up a few
summer shacks on speculation, but they’re all rickety and fallin’ to
pieces.
I knew Jonathan had gone to Bayport, quahaug rakin’, and that his wife
was visitin’ over to Wellmouth, so when the _Glide_ crept in towards the
beach and I saw a couple of folk by the Crowell house, I was surprised.
I didn’t pay much attention to 'em, however, until I was just about
ready to put the helm over and stand out into the bay again. Then they
come runnin’ down to the beach, yellin’ and wavin’ their arms. I thought
one of ’em had a familiar look and, as I come closer, I got more and
more sure of it. It didn’t seem possible, but it was—one of those
fellers on the beach was Major Cobden Clark.
"Hi-i!" yells the Major, hoppin’ up and down and wavin’ both arms as if
he was practicin’ flyin’; "Hi-i-i! you man in the boat! Come here! I
want you!"
That was him, all over. He wanted me, so of course I must come. My
feelin’s in the matter didn’t count at all. I run the _Glide_ in as nigh
the beach as I dared and then fetched her up into what little wind there
was left.
"Ahoy there, Major," I sung out. "Is that you?"
"Hey?" he shouts. "Do you know—Why, I believe it’s Snow! Is that you,
Snow?"
"Yes, it’s me," I hollers. "What in time are you doin’ way over here?"
"Never mind what I’m doin’," he roared. "You come ashore here. I want
you."
If I hadn’t been so curious to know what he was doin’, I’d have seen him
in glory afore I ever thought of obeyin’ an order from him; but I was
curious. While I was considerin’ the breeze give a final puff and died
out altogether. That settled it. I might as well go ashore as stay
aboard. I couldn’t get anywhere without wind. So I hove anchor and
dropped the mains’l.
"Come on!" he kept yellin’. "What are you waitin’ for? Don’t you hear me
say I want you?"
I had on my long-legged rubber boots and the water wa’n’t more’n up to
my knees. When I got good and ready, I swung over the side and waded to
the beach.
"Hello, Maje," I says, brisk and easy, "you ought not to holler like
that. You’ll bust a b’iler. Your face looks like a red-hot stove
already."
He mopped his forehead. "Shut up, you old fool," says he. "Think I’m
here to listen to a lecture about my face? You carry Mr. Shelton and me
out to that boat of yours. We want you to sail us home."
So the other chap was the Congressman. I’d guessed as much. I went up to
him and held out my hand.
"Pleased to know you, Mr. Shelton," says I. "Had the pleasure of votin’
for you last fall."
Shelton shook and smiled. "This is Cap’n Snow, isn’t it?" he says, his
eyes twinklin’. "Glad to meet you, I’m sure. I’ve heard of you often."
"I shouldn’t wonder," says I. "Major Clark and me are old chums and I
cal’late he’s mentioned my name at least once. Hey, Maje?"
The Major grinned. I grinned, too; and Shelton laughed out loud.
"I never saw such a talkin’ machine in my life," snaps Clark. "Don’t
stop to tell us the story of your life. Take us aboard that boat of
yours. You’ve got to get us back to Ostable, d’you understand?"
"Have, hey?" says I. "I appreciate the honor, but.... However, maybe you
won’t mind tellin’ me what you’re doin’ here, twelve miles from
nowhere?"
The Major was too mad to answer, so Shelton did it for him.
"Well," he says, smilin’ and with a wink at his partner, "we _came_ in
the Major’s auto, but—"
He stopped without finishin’ the sentence.
"The auto?" says I. "You came in the auto? Well, why don’t you go back
in it? What’s the matter? Has it broke down? Humph! I ain’t surprised;
them things are always breakin’ down, 'specially the cheap ones."
_That_ stirred up the kettle. The Major give me to understand that his
auto cost six thousand dollars and was the best blessedty-blank car on
earth. It wa’n’t the auto’s fault. It hadn’t broke down. It had stuck in
the eternal and everlastin’ sand and they couldn’t get it out, that was
the trouble.
"But Abubus can get it out, can’t he?" says I. "Abubus runs it like a
bird, you told me so yourself. Now a bird can fly, and if you want to
get from here to Ostable in anything like a straight line, you’ve _got_
to fly. By the way, where is Abubus?"
Three or four more questions, and a hogshead of profanity on the Major’s
part, and I had the whole story. He and Shelton had started for a ride
way up the Cape. They was cal’latin’ to get home by eleven o’clock, but
the machine went so fast that they got where they was goin’ early and
had time to spare. Shelton happened to remember that he’d sunk some
money in the land company I mentioned and he thought he’d like to see
the place where 'twas sunk. He asked Abubus if they couldn’t run along
the beach road a ways. Abubus hemmed and hawed and didn’t know for
sure—he never was sure about anything. But the Major said course they
could; that car could go anywhere. So they turned in way up by Sandwich
and come b’ilin’ down alongshore. Long’s the old land company road
lasted they was all right, but when, runnin’ thirty-five miles an hour,
they whizzed off the end of that road, ’twas different. The automobile
lit in the soft sand like a snow-plow and stopped—and stayed. They tried
to dig it out with boards from Jonathan Crowell’s pig pen, but the more
they dug the deeper it sunk. At last they give it up; nothin’ but a team
of horses could haul that machine out of that sand. So Abubus starts to
walk the ten or eleven miles back to civilization and livery stables and
the Major and Shelton waited for him. And the more they waited the
hungrier and madder Clark got. ’Twas all Abubus’s fault, of course. He
ought to have had more sense than to run that way on that road, anyhow.
He ought to have known better than to get into that sand, a feller that
had lived in sand all his life. He was an incompetent jackass. Well, I
knew that afore, but it certainly did me good to hear the Major confirm
my judgment.
I went over and looked at the automobile. It had always acted like a
mighty lively contraption, but now it looked dead enough. And not only
dead, but two-thirds buried.
"Well?" fumes Clark, "how much longer have we got to stay in this hole?"
"It’s consider’ble of a hole," says I, "and it looks to me as if she’d
stay there till Abubus gets back with a pair of horses. Considerin’ how
far he’s got to tramp and how long it’ll be afore he can get a pair, I
cal’late the hole’ll be occupied until some time in the night."
That wa’n’t what he meant and I knew it. Did I suppose he and Shelton
was goin’ to wait and starve until the middle of the night? No, sir; the
auto could stay where it was; he and the Congressman would sail home
with me in the _Glide_.
"I hope you ain’t in any partic’lar hurry," says I, lookin’ out over the
bay. There wa’n’t a breath of air stirrin’ and the water was slick and
shiny as a starched shirt. "The _Glide_ runs by wind power and there’s
no wind. This calm may last one hour or it may last two. As long as it
lasts I stay where I am."
What! Did I think they would stay there just because I was too lazy to
get my whoopety-bang fish-dory under way? Stay there in that
sand-heap—sand-heap was the politest of the names he called Crowell’s
plantation—and starve?
"Oh," says I. "I won’t starve. I’m goin’ to get dinner."
Dinner! The very name of it was like a life-preserver to a feller who’d
gone under for the second time.
"Can you get us dinner?" roars the Major. "By George, if you can I’ll—"
"Not for you I can’t," I says. "You live accordin’ to the Payne
schedule, on prunes and pecans and such. The prune crop ’round here is a
failure and I don’t see a pecan tree in Jonathan’s back yard. No, any
dinner I’d get would give you compound, gallopin’ dyspepsy, and I can’t
be responsible for your death—I love you too much. But I cal’late I can
scratch up a meal that’ll keep folks with common insides from perishin’
of hunger. Anyhow, I’m goin’ to try."