Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

A RIVER COMBINE—PROFESSIONAL. boat. Women can do things like that, but if a man does it, soon he ain’t shaving, he don’t take his cold bath, an’ fustest he knows he’s shiftless, no ‘count, ragged, dirty, miserable. I wondered who this girl was, course. She was brave—Lordy, but it took nerve for her to come down that coiling old run- ning lake if she didn’t have to! But she wasn’t the kind of a girl anybody asks questions of, free and easy. When she danced she found her skirt too tight, and slipped it off so casual and easy that in trying to run the music right I didn’t really notice she was in knickerbockers till after- ward. Course, professional people are that- away. In no time we knowed we'd be teaming it. We both were tired after supper. 1 stirred up the soft coal I’d found in a tow barge wreck on a sandbar, opening up the front gates in the fireplace stove I had for a heater. She sat into a low rocking chair, and I kittering across from her in an old armchair I’d picked up in a drift pile. I’d relined my shanty cabin with building pa- per, but some curling wisps of cold circled around from the north wind so the fire felt mighty comfortable. ‘“‘ How come hit you’re a shanty ponte she asked, quick as that. Course, nobody asks questions like that down the rivers if you ain’t off the bank, or one of them writin’ fellers or a sneakin’ detective. I couldn’t answer first off. A man don’t. tell even a pretty girl some things, and I mout say, specially a pretty girl. I knewed, though, I’d tell her when I’d laid tongue to words quiet enough to use. “Why,” I answered, careless like, after a minute, “I jes’ come down. I jes’ took my fiddle an’ come down—” “No you didn’t!” She shook her head. “Tt wan’t thataway. You know theory. You’ve taken lessons—real lessons, on the violin. Nobody who hadn’t done that could play river music the way you do. Besides, you talk river talk like you learned it in school.” ‘Tain’t no use trying to fool some wom- en. I never met one I could fool. That's be’n my experience. Perhaps some’rs 939 there’s women I could hoodwink, but they ain't on old Mississip’! “Course, ’m from up the bank,” I ad- mitted. ‘I just tripped away down same’s anybody.” “Same as anybody!” she nodded. ‘“That’s so—I came because I couldn’t stand bein’ a dancing girl in a hick town! And you?” ‘“Why—why—” You know how a man don’t talk of some things when he has to, an’ can’t get out of it. ‘“ I couldn’t stand being a fiddler in a hick town, when— when—” [ couldn’t say it. much to say it. “TI know!” she said. ‘“ Somebody thought more of good business than of good music?” “* Jes’ so!” I told her. ‘“‘ You know some girls, they don’t want a fellow, a sweet- heart, a husband that don’t know nothing but music, sort of no ’count in the chamber of commerce and on Main Street.”’ “Yes, suh!”’ she nodded. “I'd no right to ask you. I wanted to know, I had to know. I could tell you was white, honest —the way a good man is when he thinks he’s lost out. Musicians, artists, writers— big ones, but undiscovered — always feel they’re mean an’ trifling beside of good money makers. You're thataway!” I hadn’t never looked at hit before the way she put it. I jes’ knowed I had a pow- erful big ache down around my heart, where I’d felt like a humming bird looking into a big rose in those old days. Yes, suh. Now I saw that girl lookin’ into the fire, her eyes full. She had a mighty powerful mouth and jaw, but she hadn’t no way of controlling her eyes. They’d twinkle, and they’d fill up, the way they had, feeling sorry for me. I reckon just that one look I had at her face before that fire in the red light—I was obliged to save kerosene, an’ she’d turned the light down, knowing it, even if I did have lots to eat on board. You see—well, course a man picks up eats down the rivers—a shoat here, a yearling there; maybe some chicks and so on, be- sides game, if he’s anyways slick and don’t givvadamn. ‘“ Prenaux!” she said to me, the first I Some things hurt too COMIG DOO! (©