Mr. Scraggs Part 13

"'One minute, Pete,' says I. I called across the table to Charlie, 'Show openers and win!' And when he laid down them bullets I'd give him with my own hands, my heart broke inside me. But I couldn't stand for a crooked play seen by Old Pete.

"I hopped up from the table and shook his hand, I shook Maggy's hand, where she stood, smilin' bashful, and then I shook the hand of a strange gent in black clothes, whose name was Mr.

Somethin'-or-other.

"Pete explained to me that the gent was a minister travelin'

through the country, who'd offered him and Maggy a ride to town.

'We thought we might as well get hitched at the same time,' says Pete, 'and I sure wanted to see you, Zeke.'

"'Yes,' says Maggy. 'It wouldn't seem right to get married without you bein' there, Mr. Scraggs. To think of what you've done for Pete! And that Charley High-ball there is just the blessedest angel that ever was! Why, he got some stuff in the woods and put it on Pete's back, and made him well in a minute, you might say.

And there warn't nothin' he wouldn't do for us. And I'm just the happiest woman ever was,' says Maggy, wipin' her eyes on her ap.r.o.n some more.

"'Well!' says I, brisk, tryin' to forgit that lost fifty. 'Why don't you and Pete sign the pledge right here and now?--how's that, friend?' I asks the minister.

"'Why, ah! says he. 'Ah! It doesn't seem quite the proper place--'

"'What's the matter with this place?' says Jim. He took a great pride in his saloon. He had gla.s.s mirrors up that cost him a hundred plunks apiece. 'If you think,' says he, 'that there's a prettier little joint in town than this, why, don't let me keep you.'

"That minister was cut out fer the business. He hedged his bet so quick, I admired him.

"'That's just it,' he says loud and hearty. 'I look upon matrimony as a solemn affair, and I was afraid our friends would be distracted from the seriousness of the ceremony by the surroundings.'

"'Don't say a word!' says Jim, wavin' his hand. 'You have put the next round on me; but I guess Pete and Maggy has had seriousnesses enough, just as she slides--heh?'

"'You're talkin' blue checks, Jim,' says Maggy, through her ap.r.o.n.

'I don't reckon I'll ever get too gay to hurt me, nor Pete, nuther.'

"'Very well,' says the minister--and we had the weddin'. Charlie High-ball burnt punk that smelled strong but fine, and swung his arms, Jim and the rest of the boys sayin' 'amen' every time there come a stop, and all the proceedin's goin' on grand, till the preacher got to the last of it, and then Pete broke in:

"'I copper that statement,' says he. 'I wouldn't run against you for the world, old man, but here I got to. We ain't "man" and wife, for I ain't never been a man since I growed up: Maggy, she's the man and wife both. Say "husband and wife," to oblige.'

"The preacher looked at Pete mighty kind.

"'Husband and wife,' says he. Then Maggy busted out, 'He's the best man that ever lived!' says she.

"'May you live long and happy years together,' says the preacher, and he had a different look on his face--more's if it was a pleasure instead of business he was attendin' to.

"Whilest we stood there, kinder awk'ard, Charley made a high play.

He gathered all his winnings in a heap. 'For laly,' says he, makin' her a bow.

"Maggy, she cried. Everybody'd been so good to her, she said, and she weren't able to turn a hand for her part, and so forth, and we was all kind of pleasantly miserable for a while, till Jim sings out, 'Here, this ain't no weddin' hilarity--guide right to the bar!'

"There we all lined up, Charlie High-ball and all.

"'What'll you have, sir?' says Jim, askin' the minister first out of manners.

"'The same as the rest,' says the minister like a man.

"'Mr. Scraggs?' says Jim.

"'Ginger ale, says I. And every man and woman took ginger ale, which is a beverage that 'ud drive a man to drink. Howsomever, we showed that preacher he didn't hold over us, speck nor color, when it come to a showdown. And he savvied the play, too. He watched the line drinkin' its ginger ale.

"'Gentlemen,' says he, 'I'm glad to know you--I think I'll stay in your town a while, but now'--and he kind of twinkled around the eyes--'I hope you will excuse me.' With that he vanished, leaving us to take a little antidote for that there ginger ale.

"And Pete and Maggy? Well, dear friends and brothers, you never saw nothin' like it--they think as much of each other as two men would! And the way Pete can iron a b'iled shirt is a wonder. . . .

Yaas; he found his job at last; plain and decorative ironin'.

Often I've seen Maggy, holdin' up a batch of clo's, with pride just oozin' out of her, and heard her say, 'There ain't a person in these here United States that kin slip a flatiron over dry-goods the way my Pete kin.'"

VII

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

"Once upon a time," said Mr. Scraggs, "there come a profound peace on my household. It was 'Zeke, what kin I give you for dinner to-day?' and 'Zeke' this and that, until I says to myself, 'We're going to have cyclones followed by a heavy frost if I tarry here,'

so I pulled my freight to Arizona, till this unnatural condition of things pa.s.sed away. I understand Mrs. Scraggs in her war-paint, but Mrs. Scraggs with her eyes uprolled to Heaven and a white dove perched on each and every ear is a thing I'm not goin' to witness the spoilin' of, if I kin help it.

"I loafed around a little town, wearin' the counters shiny, entertainin' myself every minute by wonderin' what in thunder I'd do with the next one, till Fate, that's always seemed ready and eager to b.u.t.t into my affairs, sent me down to the railroad station one morning.

"There got off'n the train a little stout man, with a clean baby skin and clean baby eyes. He looked as if he'd got born into this wicked world with a bald spot, gray side-whiskers and a pair of gold-rimmed specks. He made me feel sad--not that he weren't cheerful enough, but his rig was that of a parson, and a parson naturally reminded me of matrimony, and there was only one thing worse than loafing around Jim Creek, and that was matrimony.

'Yes,' I says to myself, lookin' at that nice, clean old gentleman, 'he little knows the trouble he's made in this world. And yet,'

thinks I, willing to be square, 'I don't know as you could have kept 'em apart, even if there weren't no ministers. Man is born to trouble as a powder-mill is to fly upward. Male and female He made 'em, after their kind; and it's only reasonable that they've been after their kind ever since. And more'n that, that gentleman would have checked my wild career--he'd have held me down to one. So why should I wish to walk on his collar?'

"Whilest I was Hamlettin' to myself like that the old boy talked to the station agent. Billy leaned on the truck and pointed to me.

'There's your man right now,' says he; 'Mr. E. G. Washington Scraggs, the most famous guide and hunter in Arizona. I ain't got a doubt you can secure his services,' and off goes Billy.

"Railroad men get used to takin' life on the run, from eatin' to jokes. Bill never waited to see the effect of his little spring on me.

"My friend comes up to me. 'Is this Mr. Scraggs?' he says.

"'I am a modest man by nature,' says I; 'and yet I cannot deny it.'

"He made me a bow. I made him a bow.

"'I am told, Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'that you are a celebrated guide and hunter?'

"'If you go through this land believing all that's told you,' says I, 'you'll have a queer sensation in your head. However, I can do plain guiding and hunting, all right. What am I to guide, and who am I to hunt?'

"'I shall explain to you," says he, taking off his specks and tapping his hand with 'em--he was a nice, home-raised old gentleman, but he sure did think his own affairs was interesting.

'It is this way,' says he: 'my ministerial labors have--er--exhausted, that is to say, prostrated me. My physician insisted I should come to this climate, where I am told it is exceedingly dry and healthful, and live entirely out-of-doors; to return to our healing mother, Nature; to salute the rosy youth of Morning from a couch of sod, to bid farewell to Day from some yearning height, far from the petty madness of cities--what did you say, Mr. Scraggs?'

"'I said "Ya-a-s,"' says I, quick, because I'd forgot myself a trifle.

"'Ah!' says he, waving his specks in enthusiasm. 'The abiding peace of a life like yours!--I beg your pardon?'

"'I have an attack of this here bronco-kitus,' says I. 'I cough almost like conversation--go on.'

"'To live,' says he, 'in the great peace of these enormous s.p.a.ces--to spread G.o.d's clean sky above you and pa.s.s into a sleep where this sweet air shall hush me through the night, like the wind from angels' wings. With what a sick longing have I looked for this!