Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

RESURRECTING And so Alabama Slim went to the old cemetery in as strange a quest as ever engaged the actions of a mortal man. He was looking for his.own grave. Slim was not proud or introspective; had he been so, his feelings would have received a mortal hurt. Weeds and briers, and not flowers, grew on his grave, which was sunk- en in near the head. This neglect was recompensed, however, by the tombstone, a yellow marble slab bearing the beautiful inscription: WILLIAM THOMPSON. A Goed Husband and a Kind Father. The beasts of the field seek their lairs at night, The little bird- they go to their nest; He’s gone to Abraham's bosom, To his beloved rest. —By His Loving Wife. The phrase, ‘“‘ By His Loving Wife,” in view of consequent events, savored of du- plicity, but, all in all, he liked the inscrip- tion. Blind to the unconscious irony con- tained in “‘ To his beloved rest,” he thought it a beautiful line. His lachrimal glands were stimulated by the half-pint of whisky on his empty stomach into secretions of self-pity. ‘“‘ Not perzactly gone,” he corrected, re- reading the inscription; ‘‘ but gone by proxy.” When he returned, chastened and sad- dened, to the cooperage, Mr. Fatty Trigg thought he saw in him a new man, and he marveled at the wonders of such a friend- ship. Fatty knew himself to be coarse, of the earth earthy, and without delicate sen- sibilities; but he was not without appre- ciation of qualities that he did not possess. “Don’t take it so hard, Slim,” he begged. ‘‘ All frien’s mus’ die. Me, I don’t take things to heart. Take this dollar an’ fetch us some oysters an’ cheese, an’ when you come back I’ll tell you what may turn out | good news.” While they sat over the feast Fatty un- folded his plans. The fireman and night watchman of the stove-foundry across the Street was talking of quitting. It was a sinecure, too—two dollars a night for ALABAMA SLIM. 93 throwing a few spoonfuls of coal in the fur- nace and patrolling the yard two or three times with a six-shooter. ‘“An’,” Mr. Trigg dilated further, ‘““we can lay out here on the sawdust to- gether. The boys go on their jamborees here, an’ sometimes fergit where they hide their whisky. I don’t.” Once more hope sprang eternal in Slim’s breast, but his mild eyes became dewy. ‘“T was jes’ thinkin’,” he apologized, “‘ of pore Bill—Bilt Thompson. He had his faults, but he was a mighty good feller.” II. AFTER an Odyssey of wide wanderings and a return home to find himself dead, buried, and forgotten, and his wife married to another man, I am pleased to find Slim. Peters, alzas Alabama Slim, zée Bill Thomp- son in happier surroundings. If he was dead, he was in heaven; certainly this was not the other place. He had returned look- ing for one thing, and had found another; but his luck was that of a man scratching in the dust for a lost dime and finding a diamond. Nor had Fatty overdrawn the liquid pos- sibilities of the place, which fairly ran in whiskies. Kegs of beer were also tapped Saturday nights by molders and coopers, and the two watchmen were always asked to participate. And frequently, as Fatty said, celebrat- ing parties forgot where they had hid their whisky. For this Slim received the munificent sum of two dollars the night. He found lodgings in a shack back of the foundry, gratis, and the cost of his food, even for his prodigious appetite, was negligible. He soon became part of his surroundings—or, rather, they became a part of him. Many around the foundry kept chickens, which had a habit of laying in the foundry yard, and not infrequently the hens themselves strolled in and stuck their heads inside the furnace. Friendship between the two watchmen soon grew into a David and Jonathan pact. If one wished to be absent a while at night, the other looked after his work. Each was a full, satisfying complement of the other. comicloool. CO