Adventure Magazine Cover — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

Jest Jim, Fiddlin’ Jim 63 was ye mother’s name, son, and is she yit a- livin’?”’ “Dana, and she’s yit a-livin’.” “Dana?” Fiddlin’ Jim sat stiffly upright on the soap-box chair. He had never known an- other Dana. Then he believed he under- stood. His wife had married Bad Lot Hupple, his friend, after the cataclysm. Bad Lot had thought enough of him, Jim Braden, to name his son for him. It was good of Hupple to do it. He had heard, in prison ten years before, that Dana was dead. Somebody, he didn’t remember who, had written the chaplain to that effect, and the chaplain had told him. He hadn’t known how to read and write, and neither had Dana. No message, therefore, had passed between them after his being sent to the State’s prison. The fact that she was still living and married to Lot Hupple—he hadn't the least doubt of it— came as a very great surprize to him, and he was so intensely human that he hardly knew, at the first, whether to be sorry or glad. But when a full realization of the thing had broken upon him, he “looked up,” as the chaplain had taught him, and was glad. me ONCE more the cabin door creaked aye suddenly open, and there stepped across the rotting sill a big man, a Goliath of a man, smooth-faced and sun- burnt almost to the hue of weathered cop- per. He wore ill arranged and straggling jet-black ringlets of hair on his forehead, and his countenance branded him as one most sorely distraught. Fiddlin’ Jim recog- nized him immediately, rose and went to- ard him with outstretched hand. “H’lo, Lot!” he cried. “Shorely am glad to see ye, old friend!” Hupple had recognized Braden before en- tering the cabin; otherwise he would not have entered. He took Braden’s hand and pressed it half reluctantly, then dropped it. “What’s the matter wi’ ye, Lot?” smiled Fiddlin’ Jim. “How come it ye’re so pest- ered in ye mind, old friend?” Bad Lot, the Goliath, didn’t answer. He took two short, staggering steps backward, as do dark villains of the footlights. Jim Braden went on: “Ve shorely ain’t drunk, Lot?” He was still smiling; his topaz eyes were sparkling in the firelight. ‘“Didn’t ye know it’s as much fun to play off drunk as it is to ack- shully be drunk, and a feller don’t have no habbergosh taste in his mouth nor no head- ache in his head the next mornin’! Honest, what’s wrong, old friend?” “Tt’s the law, Fiddlin’!’ Hupple ex- claimed, his voice hoarse and a little shaken. “Tm ina mess. I = He broke off and turned toward the open- mouthed boy on the hearth. ‘“What’re you a-doin’ yere, Little Jim?” he demanded. The answer came quietly, readily: “Mother sent me to look ye up, pap. She said to tell ye Bill Freer and* three other men is a-watchin’ the house, and fo’ you not to come home ontel she gi’ ye a sign by hangin’ a white cloth on the cedar in the front yard where she usually hangs the wash.”’ Bad Lot clenched his hands and swore under his breath. He looked toward the now deeply concerned face of Fiddlin’ Jim. “Tell me about it, Bad,” Braden urged. Hupple turned to the sober-eyed Little Jim. He did not notice that the lad wore Fiddlin’ Jim’s old coat; Braden and the lad, themselves, had forgotten it for the moment. ‘‘Son,” said Hupple, “sneak down to the creek that runs jest below here and ye’ll find a path a-takin’ square out to the left, along the bank. Put ye feet in that path and itll carry ye home. ‘Tell ye mother I onder- stand. Hurry up, son!” The boy rose and slipped obediently into the night. Bad Lot crumpled to the soap- box chair. “T didn’t want him to hear, Fiddlin’,” Hupple began. “I’m a-goin’ to tell ye everything, Fiddlin’. It was thisaway: “You know how it allus was wi’ me. I was borned onder a bad star, seems like. When anything bad was done, it was allus blamed on me. Well, when you was took. to the penitench, I thought ye’d never come back, and Dana, she didn’t think ye’d ever come back. I got sorry fo’ her, a- seein’ her work so hard to make a livin’— you know Dana well enough to know she wouldn’t never be nobody’s cook, nor sponge offen nobody. I allus loved her, which same ye also know. You a bein’ took to the pen gi’ her a divo’ce, natchelly. I begged her to marry me and le’ me do the work fo’ us, and she fin’lly done it. It was most—mostly ’cause I was yore friend, Fiddlin’, that she married me. —comicbooks.co