Adventure, August 1917 — page 121: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Old Wade Speaks a Parable. an’ nods. He seems to have gone more nutty at the same time his pard has come right. An’ he tells ob how he is goin’ to pass in his chips, an’ says: * “Them fellers what does the preachin’ business an’ tells us sinners how to live an’ when to pungle, an’ sich like, tells us as how there is, somewheres, a water-hole all sur- rounded by trees, an’ tall grass, where we desert tramps kin prospect at will, an’ where there ain’t goin’ to be no sand-storms, an’ no heat, an’ no dyin’ of thirst an’ sich like. But take it from me, pard, that water-hole ain’t goin’ to be over-crowded if only them as is plumb onselfish gits a look in there. ‘“T opines, partner, that when we gits in line at the great final round-up, the Boss of the Ranch Eternal ain’t goin’ to pick outa whole heap of us what has the brand of genu- ine brother-like love stamped onto us. Lots of us has done some good, an’ some has done heaps of good between acts like, but there ain’t many of us what ain’t jumped some feller’s claim in the hills, while we was steerin’ down trail to the desert. ** “We're all livin’ in a little lean-to what has-took us all our lives to build, an’ most of the time it’s dark-like in our shack. An’ we sets in our little private wickiup that ain’t got no light but a taller dip, an’ at best don’t throw no light but a little ways; an’ we sets an’ figgers, an’ figgers as to how we kin git our neighbor down to his white alley, an’ then raise him out of the pot, so as to build a el to our lean-to, or buy another taller dip, so as we kin see better to do some _ more figgerin’, Or we meets a man er two what seems white, er we sees a vision of what might of been when we runs across a good woman—er we makes a strike in the hills, but—well, them’s only incer- dents. rs ‘“*“An’ at last we crawls into our little wickiup fer the long, long rest, an’ the taller dip sputters an’ melts down to a gob of grease in the block of wood where oncet it stood up straight in, an’ the shadders begins to thicken in the hut, an’ the night winds blows cold through the chinks ’tween the timbers, an’ we rolls up in our blankets an’— well, mebby we sees a vision in our dreams of that water-hole, an’ tall trees, an’ green grass an’ all that, an’ we wonders if it kin be real, er if it is only a mirage, an’ then we knows we is due to sleep, an’ we says good 119 night, an’—well, tomorrow ’aint come yet, so we don’t know—we don’t know, we don’t know.’ *fAn’ he breathes a long sigh, an’ smiles at Sob, an’ he has gone to the water-hole what is on the unknown side of eternity.” AND then Measles gets up and goes out to see if the burros are all right, ’cause he says there seems to be a sort of fog on the desert. . And Old Wade and I lays and looks up at the stars, and I wonder ir the water-hole isn’t located out there in space somewhere where there is plenty of room for all, and where each may have his own little wickiup, and have the company of that good woman we each know, throughout all time. And I asked Wade how Sob was cured of the sob habit. And Old Wade pokes the fire a little, and says: “When pard died, Sob went plumb nutty. An’ he grabs a knife an’ starts in to carve up the camp. I sees him headin’ fer me an’ tries to side-step him. But he seems to have picked me out for his meat. He rushes me, an’ makes a lunge at me with his knife. I don’t want to gun him, so I clubs my thirty-eight an’ when he makes another rush I cracks him on the bean. “He goes down in a heap an’ we couldn’t bring him to. So we packs him as comfort- able as we could in the wagon an’ rushes him to Daggett. We afterward takes him to Los Angeles to a knife doctor who chopped “his head-piece an’ found out his old trouble to be from some bone pressin’ on his brain. They fixes him up, somehow, an’ when he comes out, he comes out without his sob attachment.” And Measles comes in from communing with the burros, and says that he reckoned that booze was poor company for a man unless he was looking for trouble. Anyhow he was willing to speak up and say that Sob wasn’t the easy mark he had thought him to be. And Old Wade says: ‘Son, if yer is lookin’ to play the game of life through workin’ of easy marks, an’ if yer ever expects to amount to more’n a gob of grease, thinkin’ that way, fergit it! No man never pans out more dust than there is in the dirt, an’ if hedon’t earnit, hedon’t git it. 99 Which I allow is some parable. CoOmiclsoo CO 5}