Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

VINGO’S LADY SERPENT. had thrown a boomerang into the air and— well, you know the queer habits of boom- erangs. : IX. Wuen Uncle Dan Vickus reached the end of the three-mile road that ran from the commissary to Clayburn’s, he found the old man out in front with pails, rags and a bot- tle of furniture polish putting the finishing touches on the sky-blue roadster. Old man Clayburn was studying on taking Alvina out for a moonlight ride down Daytona Beach that evening with supper afterward at the chop suey restaurant. When Uncle Dan started telling him the story of the kiss, old man Clayburn sat down heavily on the running board and ‘began wiping his beardless chin with a rag soaked in furniture polish. And when Dan had finished, the old man called him a foul-mouthed scandal monger, a liar, an as- terisk old gossip toter and some stronger things. Old negroes love more than any- thing else to be the bearers of bad tidings, and they know they are going to be abused at first and they don’t mind. Uncle Dan was giving him some details and old man Clayburn was cursing him some more when Ed Randolph, fresh from his little chat with Alvina, ambled up. He and old man Clayburn hadn’t been speak- ing for several days. He listened for a while before he said anything. “Listen, pa,” he said finally—and it was the first time he had called the old man pa since the trouble over Alvina started. ‘ Lis- ten pa; what Dan says ain’t nothin’ but the truth. I’ve just had a talk with her, and she admits it’s true. And what’s more, she admits she’s been stringin’ all of us along and playin’ one,ag’in’ the other; and on top of all that she says she’s crazy mad in love with this Northern feller. So I reckon we’d better start patchin’ things up. What do you think?” “Me?” old man Clayburn whispered. ‘Why, Ed, I think—”’ He seemed to be having some trouble getting his breath. “I think—” But he couldn’t goon. He start- ed in wiping his chin and his cheeks with the furniture polish rag. Then he threw it down, stood up and looked at the shiny ‘blue car he had bought for courting pur- poses, and he shut his eyes as if the sight — of it made him feel sick. Then he rubbed his hand, as if he was dazed, across his forehead and staggered. His face had turned red, and now it — looked purple, and the veins in his forehead stood out sharp and clear as if they were going to burst. And as suddenly as that had happened, he turned pale—as white as death. He clawed the air a few times, then crumpled up and fell. Uncle Dan, who had seen this thing hap- pen before, yelled: ‘It’s a stroke, Mista Ed. Run fo’ a doc- tor!” Ed jumped into the fancy roadster and came into Vingo along that twisty, sandy road at thirty-five an hour. He stopped at the commissary long enough to tell me what — had happened, then drove on into Daytona for Doc Lafferty. Old man Clayburn was still unconscious when Ed returned with the doctor. The girls had put him to bed and were doing everything they could for him. Doc Lafferty worked over him for two solid hours before a quiver of life showed, Then the old man opened his eyes for a moment and said something that sounded like “‘ No fool like an old fool.” Shortly after that his heart started to flutter. His system was full of Jeff Barnes’s corn liquor, and he didn’t have much re- serve to fall back on. Some time around midnight his heart stopped beating entirely. x, * SHE couldn’t have killed him any more deliberately if she had stuck a knife into his heart,’ Christine said. man! Id like to kill her! Id love to sink my nails into that white neck!” I felt uneasier than ever. Christine and Belinda were quiet, sensible girls. It was enough to frighten you to hear Christine going on this way, so deadly, so dangerous. Well, you know how the quiet, sensible kind are when they’re stirred up. If you goad them so far they’re apt to do almost any- thing, and I didn’t want Christine to do anything rash. O “The poor old GComicbooks,. co