Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

870 was along to cuss everybody on the Straight H. Nice girl, Molly!. Well, to get back to Bill and his grin. I was in town waiting for his train to ar- rive, sitting in the shade, half asleep may- be, on the veranda of the hotel. The train got there while I was still taking it easy, and I didn’t meet the boy just then. I woke up to hear a lot of uncouth hombres laughin’ over in front of Jim Slade’s store. Out in front of Jim’s emporium was Old Rose’s half-dead white mare, hitched to her cart. Then I saw Old Rose herself stand- ing by, cussin’ most unladylike and other- wise expressin’ her opinion of a nice- lookin’ grinnin’ young feller whose clothes weren’t made for battlin’ with sage-brush. This was Bill Haskell. Bill had stepped into the store, it seems, to look for me. There he had seen Old ‘Rose, which he had never heard of, pickin’ up a sack of flour she had just bought off Jim and startin’ out the door with it on her shoulder. The other gents standing in front of the store, and knowin’ Old Rose, made no effort whatever to be chival- rous, but Bill steps up to her like Mr. Galahad and says: ‘* Allow me, please!” With that he takes the sack of flour on his own shoulder, not caring about the suit he was wearin’ at all, and carries it out to the cart. Old Rose is too flabber- gasted to say anything, but she don’t like it a little. Her motto is: ‘“ I won’t be be- holden to ye!” Bill puts the sack of flour on the cart, takes off his cityfied hat, and makes a bow like an actor I saw once in Kansas City. “Who be ye?” Old Rose demands. “ Bill Haskell, ma’am, at yer service!” he grins back, not knowin’ at all that the name of Haskell is a battle-cry to this here amazon. Well, she ups and slaps his grin- nin’ face, which goes on grinnin’ just the same, and then she lets him have it. What she told him about the tribe he belonged to would sure fill one of these geeny-geology books. Bill never says a word—just stands and grins at her, like she was Mrs. Vanderbilt handin’ him a cup of tea and him the guest of honor at this barbecue. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. That was where I woke up, when Old Rose had all those cracker hounds over at the store laughin’ at the show. Then she gets into her cart, not stoppin’ her cuss words at all, and leaves Bill, grinnin’ and wavin’ good-by. to her, in the center of that gang of roughnecks. I get over to Jim Slade’s just in time to hear him turn to the crowd and say: ‘“‘ What a splendid old lady! Can any one tell me her name?” That’s the way they bring ’em up back there east of the Hudson. That’s the way this younger generation is. Along comes a young feller like Bill, with no appreciation’ at all for the historic significance of a feud that has been kept goin’ nice for many years, and tries to spoil it all. | Well, I supplied the name of this splen- did old lady and a lot of other information about her that wouldn’t read well on her tombstone. Also, I went on to tell Bill about those yearlings and about gettin’ ’em up to the range pretty pronto. He listened attentively enough, but he just couldn’t get rid of that grin. If he stopped grinnin’ with his mouth, his eyes grinned, and just to show you that he couldn’t understand how a feud should be run here’s what he said: ‘“‘T like Mrs. Rose very much. She has. spirit. I’m sure we can come to some agree- ment with her.” Then he began to ask a lot of questions about huntin’ and fishin’ and such things, takin’ it for granted that Old Rose was settled with.. But I brought him back to those thirsty yearlings, which had me wor- ried. I told him all about the water we didn’t have, and how we got our slim sup- ply from the Valley Development Com- pany, and even took him past the pump to demonstrate just how tough a nut he had to crack. The same day I took him all over the home-place and on up to Old Rose’s line, to make it clear just how bad things were. Well, the boy had something above his necktie besides a derby, sure enough, for right away he discovered that Old Rose had to use our road in order to get from her place to the water supply. And when he found that out he goes on grinning more than ever. COMmMiCbMoolks.Gom ~“