Part 40 (1/2)
”And what I got from the real-estate feller last night,” adds the hotel clerk, ”must 'a' come nigh to cleanin' _him_ out.”
Another spell of quiet. Then----
”I wonder,” _re_marks the station-agent, ”if that Rockafeller telegram was _genuwine._”
The postmaster throwed up his hands. ”We're it!” he says. ”We sole our sand fer a song, and we bought it back at a steep figger.”
”With all that money,” adds the hotel clerk, ”they must 'a' had to walk bow-laigged.”
”My friends,” says the station-agent, ”the drinks is on us!”
And me? Wal, I wandered 'round fer a while--like I was plumb loco. When I landed up at last, I seen somethin' white in front of me. It was a sign, and it said, ”The Lloyd Addition.”
I sit down on my little pile of stakes, and pulled out the last letter I'd got from Macie.
”Dear Alec,” it begun, ”I'm so glad you got you' land----”
I didn't read no further. I looked off acrosst the mesquite in the _di_rection of Briggs City. ”The land ain't no good,” I says. ”And all my money's gone.” And I laid my haid down on my arms.
Just then, outen a bunch of gra.s.s not far off, I heerd the s.p.u.n.ky little song of a lark!
I riz up.
”Anyhow,” I says, ”I'm goin' home. Mebbe I look like a b.u.m; but I'm goin' back where I got some friends! I'm goin' back where they call me Cupid!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
AND A BOOM AT BRIGGS
I GOT back all right. It takes two dollars and six-bits to git from Goldstone to Briggs City on the Local. But if you happen to have a little flat bottle in you' back pocket, you ride in the freight caboose fer nothin'. I _had_ a flat bottle. I swapped ”The Lloyd Addition” fer it.
When I hit ole Briggs City, she looked all right t' _me,_ I can tell y'. And so did the boys. And by noon I was plumb wored out, I'd ga.s.sed so much.
Wal, I went over and sit down on the edge of Silverstein's porch to rest my face and hands. Pretty soon, I heerd a hoss a-comin' up the street--_clickety, clickety, clickety, click._ It stopped at the post-office, right next me. I looked up--and here was Macie!
Say! I felt turrible, 'cause I hadn't slicked up any yet. But she didn't seem to notice. She knowed they was somethin' gone wrong though, 'fore ever I said a word. She just helt out one soft little hand.
”Never you mind, Alec,” she says; ”never you mind.”
My little gal!
”It means punchin' cows fer four years at forty per, Macie,” I says to her.
”I'll wait fer you, Alec,” she answers.
She'd gone, and I was turnin' back towards Silverstein's, when--I'm a son-of-a-gun if I didn't see, a-comin' acrosst from the deepot, one of them land-sharks! It was Porky, with that wedge-coat of hisn, and a seegar as big as a corn-cob!
Say! I duv under the porch so quick that I clean scairt the life outen six razorbacks and seventeen hens that was diggin' 'round under it. And when I come out where the back door is, I skun fer Hairoil Johnson's shack to borra a dif-f'rent suit of clothes offen the parson. Next, I had my Santy Claus mowed at the barber-shop.