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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75018 ***
+
+
+
+“THE CURSE OF DRINK”
+
+By W. C. TUTTLE
+
+Author of “The Keeper of Red Horse Pass,” “Three On and Everybody Down,”
+etc.
+
+
+    THE COWTOWN OF SAN PABLO AIMED TO GIVE A PLAY FOR THE BENEFIT
+    OF PARSON JONES’ CANNIBALS. THOSE ABLE PUNCHERS, PEEWEE PARKER
+    AND HOZIE SYKES, AIMED TO ACT IN IT. THEY DID--QUITE SOME. BUT
+    WHEN THE LAST CURTAIN--AMONG OTHER THINGS--FELL, THE CHIEF
+    WINNER FROM THE RIOT WAS EVELINE ANNABEL WIMPLE.
+
+“Man,” says “Judgment” Jones, “is of few days and full of woe.”
+
+Well, I reckon he’s right. I’m of a cheerful disposition, kinda goin’
+through life with a wide grin, tryin’ to see everythin’ in the right
+light and do well by my feller man; but when Old Man Woe sneaks up
+behind and swats yuh with his loaded quirt--what’ll yuh have?
+
+“Peewee” Parker says that as long as yuh stick to what the good Lord
+ordained for yuh to do, yo’re all right. He picked me and Peewee to be
+first-class cowpunchers, that’s a cinch, ’cause we ain’t never goin’ to
+be no good for anythin’ else, if for that.
+
+And then there’s “Boll-Weevil” Potts, first name Hank. He’s about six
+feet six inches lengthways, and with no width to speak of; bein’ built a
+heap like a single-shot rifle. Hank’s all right, but nature was in a
+playful mood when she laid out his specifications. And he runs to ears
+so fluently that he has to wear a six and seven-eighths hat on a seven
+and a quarter head to keep it from wearin’ the top off his ears. As a
+distinguishin’ mark, he wears a brown derby.
+
+I don’t hold that any man has a right to wear that kind of a war-bonnet
+in a cow country. It is jist a invitation to those desirin’ a legitimate
+target. But Hank owns the No-Limit Saloon, along with the HP cow outfit,
+and that kinda gives him the right to look kinda doggy, as yuh might
+say.
+
+Me and Peewee runs the HP outfit for Hank. Peewee Parker weighs two
+hundred and fifty on the hoof, and he ain’t so awful tall. I’m “Hozie”
+Sykes, one of the real old Sykes family. My folks was in this country
+when the Mayflower came over. I’ve heard paw tell about one of his
+great, great grandfathers, who was livin’ down in Arizona at that time.
+He heard about this boatload of folks comin’ over; so the old man
+hitched up his oxen and headed for California. He said the damn’ country
+was gittin’ overrun with foreigners.
+
+I’m merely tellin’ yuh this to prove my pedigree. Peewee don’t know much
+about his family further back than two generations, but that don’t hurt
+his chances to be a good puncher. Owners of cow outfits don’t question
+yuh much, when yuh apply for a saddle-slickin’ job.
+
+Hank Boll-Weevil Potts married Susie Hightower. Sometimes I look at Hank
+and know dang well he wishes it was merely an unfounded rumor. Susie
+weighs two-twenty, and takes after her pa--and that’s takin’ quite a
+lot. “Zibe” Hightower is somethin’ for to take after. He ain’t very big,
+but if all the rest of the meanness in the world was give him, you’d
+never notice the difference in his actions.
+
+Zibe wears flowin’ mustaches, two guns and a scowl. He’s been in the San
+Pablo range since long before they built the hills and made the cuts for
+water to run off in, and he says he’ll be here long after it’s all flat
+land again. Nobody knows how old he is, but I’ve heard him tell how he
+showed the cliff dwellers how to build their huts.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Everythin’ was goin’ along all right, except for an occasional fight
+among ourselves or with the town of Oasis, that sink-pot of iniquity to
+the south of San Pablo, when along comes Eveline Annabel Wimple. Now, I
+don’t mean any disrespect to a pretty lady. They’re necessary, I reckon.
+Hank showed me her card, and it says, in real pretty gold
+letters--Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T.
+
+I got a good look at her, and I says, “Well, they ain’t so bad to see.”
+
+“What ain’t?” he asks.
+
+“Them D. T’s. I had an idea they was more serpentine, as yuh might say.”
+
+“That D. T. stuff means Dramatic Teacher.”
+
+“Pertainin’ to actin’?” asks Peewee.
+
+“With flourishes,” admits Hank. “She learns yuh stage actin’.”
+
+“I’ve allus hankered to be a contortionist,” says Peewee. “Yuh don’t
+suppose she teaches yuh how to bend, do yuh?”
+
+“Does that come under the headin’ of dramatic?”
+
+“It shore would, if Peewee ever bent,” says I. “He lays on his back now
+to pull on his boots. But what in hell is a dramatic teacher doin’ in
+San Pablo?”
+
+“It ain’t clear to me jist yet,” says Hank “Judgment Jones and her kinda
+holds several pow-wows, and it’s somethin’ to do with the church.
+Judgment has been tryin’ to raise money enough to buy himself some fresh
+pants, or a pulpit or a bell, or somethin’ needful for Christianity. He
+ain’t flourished yet, as yuh might say. He said he’d have some news for
+me in a short time.”
+
+“That woman is pretty,” says Peewee. “You better keep away from her,
+Hank.”
+
+“I’m a married man--and I’m satisfied.”
+
+“Satisfied that yo’re married?”
+
+“Thoroughly convinced,” said Hank sadly. “Oh, it’s all right with me,
+but when I see a damned old hi-ree-glyphic like Zibe Hightower shinin’
+around her, grinnin’ like a Hallowe’en cat, I git hot. I said to him,
+‘You ought to have more sense, you danged old shadder of a vanished
+age.’ And he says, ‘I’m single, ain’t I?’
+
+“I told him he was worse than single--that he was minus one, and he got
+hot. Said jist because I was happily married, I was tryin’ to keep him
+from marriage bliss. Marriage bliss! And Mrs. Judgment Jones is kinda on
+the warpath, too. She thinks Judgment is showin’ this here D. T. woman
+too much attention. She told Mrs. Zeke Hardy that she knowed Judgment
+was smitten, ’cause for the first time in years and years he washed the
+back of his neck. She said the only reason Judgment faces the devil is
+’cause he’s ashamed to turn around on account of his neck. Oh, I dunno.
+The whole town is kinda stirred up.”
+
+“Susie stirred up?” I asks.
+
+“Most always is. She’s learnin’ to shoot a six-gun. Hurt her arm the
+last time she throwed a flat-iron at me. Them things kinda keep a man
+active, I s’pose. Some married men kinda git in a rut, but if I ever do
+I’m a goner. Well, I took her for better or worse, and I shore got it.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+We left Hank to his reveries of a squirshed love, and has a few drinks
+at the No-Limit, after which we’re unfortunate in runnin’ into Zibe
+Hightower. He’s wearin’ a clean shirt and he shore smells of perfume.
+
+“Heel-yuh-tripe?” asks Peewee. “Zibe, yuh shore smell tainted. Mebbe
+it’s ’cause yo’re so old--kept too long, as yuh might say.”
+
+“I smell to suit m’self!” snaps Zibe.
+
+“Exclusive of everybody else. Why all the odor?”
+
+“Ain’t this a free country?”
+
+“With certain limits. You ain’t learnin’ dramatics, are yuh, Zibe?”
+
+“Why not? All the world’s a stage.”
+
+“And that makes us all stage drivers,” says I.
+
+“Yo’re funny,” says Zibe. “Yuh ought to study comedy. Pers’nally, I’ve
+got the physical assets to make a tragedian--voice, carriage--”
+
+“Squeak and a buckboard,” interrupts Peewee. “Tragedian!”
+
+“I have so. I could do Shakespeare.”
+
+“Shore--in a horse-trade. As far as that’s concerned, I ain’t never seen
+anybody yuh couldn’t do, Zibe. Yo’re in love.”
+
+“No such a damn thing!”
+
+“How old is she?”
+
+“I ain’t askin’ no lady her age. Anyway, age don’t make no difference;
+so--sa-a-a-ay, what lady are yuh talkin’ about?”
+
+“The one Judgment Jones is nutty about.”
+
+“That old Scriptural scorpion!”
+
+“He’s here to save yore soul. Said so last Sunday.”
+
+“Well, he don’t need to worry about my soul. I don’t.”
+
+“Yuh would, if yuh had any. Right now all yuh need is one of them little
+bird whistles to make yuh imitate a flower garden. Man, yuh shore smell
+like a bed of Sweet Williams.”
+
+“Some day, Peewee Parker, I’m goin’ to hang yore hide on a bobwire
+fence.”
+
+“Pick yore day, feller, and bring the lady along.”
+
+Not bein’ interested in dramatic teachin’ nor the troubles of married
+folks, me and Peewee goes back to the HP ranch. We’re dependable and as
+honest as the average run of cowpunchers. Of course, we don’t cut down
+no cherry trees, and then run our legs off to tell folks about it, but
+we git along. As long as the law keeps away from us, we’ll keep away
+from the law.
+
+That night at supper time, Peewee gits to tellin’ me about one time he
+acts in a play. I figure he’s lyin’, of course, but a good lie is
+interestin’. Accordin’ to Peewee, he’s a pretty good actor. He shot six
+men in this play--two at one shot. He’s one of them pyramid liars--keeps
+pilin’ one on top of the other. I stopped him before he got too good. I
+ain’t never done no actin’, but I never seen anythin’ a Sykes couldn’t
+do; that is, anythin’ that’s honest.
+
+“It took me a long time to git as good as I was,” says Peewee. “I’ll bet
+I was good enough to git a job in New York actin’ on a stage.”
+
+“You wasn’t a good actor--you was a good shot. All the good actors I
+ever seen killed ’em with knives.”
+
+“Well,” says Peewee, “I was a good actor. I wanted to kill ’em with
+knives, but the boss said, ‘You go ahead and shoot ’em, Peewee--knives
+is too messy.’”
+
+“You never played in Shakespeare, didja?” I asks.
+
+“Nope, only in Dry Lake. This was a home talent show. But I’m good. The
+stage shore got robbed when I turned my talents to punchin’ cows.”
+
+“Yeah, and for turnin’ yore talents yuh ought to be arrested for cruelty
+to dumb animals,” says I.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day Hank Potts showed up, unfolded from his bronc, and sat down
+with us on the porch of the adobe ranchhouse. Hank looks kinda shopworn,
+as yuh might say.
+
+“I came out to rest m’ nerves,” says he. “I’m a actor.”
+
+“What kind of a actor?” queried Peewee.
+
+“Good. I’m the leadin’ man--hee-roo--gits the fair damsel in the end.”
+
+“Who is the fair damsel--Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T?” I asks.
+
+“Don’t be comical, Horde,” says Hank kinda sad-like.
+
+“Speak--yo’re among friends,” says Peewee.
+
+“It’s thisaway,” sighs Hank. “We held a meetin’ last night. Miss Wimple
+aims to put on a show for the benefit of the church.”
+
+“And the meetin’ busted up in a fight,” says Peewee, bein’ somewhat of a
+prophet.
+
+“A discussion,” says Hank. “Miss Wimple has a play of her own, which she
+desires us to play. Bein’ as she is to furnish the play, train the
+actors, et cettery, and all that, she’s to receive seventy-five percent
+of the profits, the other twenty-five percent goin’ to Judgment Jones
+and his church.
+
+“That started a argument among us. Miss Wimple argues that her play is a
+dinger, and the only available play in this county, when my wife----”
+
+“She would,” agrees Peewee.
+
+“I never knowed Susie wrote a play,” confesses Hank. “I never knowed a
+thing about it, until she steps out and says we can have her play free.”
+
+“It would be worth at least that,” says Peewee.
+
+“She calls it--” Hank stops to sigh deeplike--“_The Curse of Drink_. And
+me runnin’ a first-class rum shop.”
+
+“Mebbe,” says Peewee, “she meant sody water or some soft drink.”
+
+Hank shakes his head. “I read it, Peewee.”
+
+“What’s it all about, anyway?”
+
+“Gawd forgive me for sayin’ anythin’ against my wife, but I don’t know
+what it’s all about. Miss Wimple read it. Judgin’ from the expression of
+her face, as she read it, it’s a comedy. Even if Susie don’t think so.
+I’m goin’ to be Howard Chesterfield, a jockey. I’m the jigger,” says
+Hank sad-like, jambin’ his derby down over one eye, “what wins the race,
+saves the mortgage and wins the girl.”
+
+“That’d be worth goin’ a long ways to see,” says I.
+
+“That’s what Miss Wimple said. But we’re short of actors. Susie suggests
+that we git you two fellers to play with us. But I said neither of yuh
+knowed the first thing about actin’, and Miss Wimple said that mebbe I
+was right, ’cause, as she read the play, it needed somebody with more
+brains than an ordinary cowpuncher has to play them parts.”
+
+“Lemme tell you somethin’!” says Peewee. “I’ve done more actin’ than you
+ever seen. I was a actor before you ever knowed there was anythin’ but a
+four-wheel stage on earth; and I never seen any part I can’t play.”
+
+“I ditto all that and sign my name,” says I. “When it comes to play
+actin’, a Sykes jist falls naturally into the part.”
+
+“This is a hard play to act,” says Hank.
+
+“That’s my meat,” declares Peewee. “I’ve shore bit off some hard ones.”
+
+“Didja ever see a horse on the stage?” asks Hank.
+
+“Well,” says Peewee, “I kinda have, but I never favored ’em.”
+
+“This’n has got to have a racehorse for me to ride. Susie said we ort to
+have a lot of horses to make up the race, but--I dunno.”
+
+“Yuh might use Tequila,” says I, and Hank kinda shudders. Tequila was a
+racehorse. I say “was,” meanin’ the present time. Hank bought him off a
+horse-trader for a hundred dollars. Fastest horse on earth for a hundred
+yards, and then crossed his front feet. Always crossed his front feet.
+Worked himself into a lather, looked like a racehorse, ran like a scared
+coyote for a hundred yards and then--well, Hank kept him.
+
+“Might use him,” admitted Hank. “Got a lotta sense.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hank wouldn’t commit himself further, and went back to San Pablo. We
+don’t hear nothin’ more about it for a couple days, when cometh
+“Dog-Rib” Davidson, of Oasis. Dog-Rib almost runs Zibe Hightower a
+dead-heat, when it comes to bein’ mean, and if all the hate in his
+carcass was laid end to end, yuh could use it for a trail marker from
+New York to Honolulu.
+
+“I’ve been laughin’ m’self hoarse for two days,” says Dog-Rib. “Them
+there San Pabloers are goin’ to put on a play-actin’ show, with Hank
+Boll-Weevil Potts as the big he buzzard of the flock. Calls it _The
+Curse of Drink_. Haw, haw, haw! Can yuh imagine it? I can’t. I’ve seen
+shows in my life, I have.”
+
+“You look like yuh had seen plenty, but never had none,” says Peewee.
+“You shore look to me like a man who never had a show from the start.”
+
+“I’ve allus got along,” says Dog-Rib.
+
+“I reckon all of Oasis will be at the show,” says I.
+
+“Oh, shore. Accordin’ to their epitaphs, every ticket will have a number
+on it, and the lucky ticket will win Hank Potts’s racehorse. The tickets
+are one dollar per each, and no questions asked. Alkali and Oasis has
+shore invested heavy in them tickets. But it’ll be a awful show.”
+
+“It’s about time they asked us in to learn our parts,” says Peewee,
+after Dog-Rib goes away. “We’ve got to have a little time.”
+
+But by that time the next day there hadn’t nobody showed up to tell us;
+so we saddled up and went to San Pablo. The bartender at Hank’s place
+tells us that the actors and actresses are all over at the San Pablo
+Hall, where the _Curse of Drink_ is to make its showin’, and then he
+gave us a couple of handbills which read:
+
+                          WORLD PREEMEER
+
+                       “THE CURSE OF DRINK”
+
+                                By
+                          SUSIE H. POTTS
+
+                  A PLAY IN SEVEN ACTS & SOME SEENS
+
+    THE CAST:
+
+        Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T.         Gwendolyn Witherspoon
+        Hennery Potts                      Howard Chesterfield Zibe
+        Hightower                                      Simon Legree
+        Limpy Lucas                                Lord Worthington
+        Mrs. Thursday Noon                         Lady Worthington
+        Zeke Hardy                                        Uncle Tom
+        Olaf Swenson                                          Jason
+        SUSIE HIGHTOWER POTTS as                         LITTLE EVA
+
+    Presented by Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T. under the auspices of the
+    San Pablo Church and Susie Hightower Potts.
+
+    Tickets are one dollar including a chance on winning the racehorse
+    used in this production.
+
+    Don’t miss this chance to see Howard Chesterfield win the big DERBY
+    RACE and see LITTLE EVA go to heaven. Either one will be worth the
+    price of admission.
+
+“When is this here show to transpire?” asked Peewee.
+
+“Tomorrow night,” says the bartender. “Eight o’clock sharp. She’s goin’
+to be a dinger, gents. I’ve seen some of it, but from now on, she’s
+private. I tell yuh, they had a hell of a time gettin’ Tequila up there.
+Took him up this mornin’. Built a platform plumb across one end of the
+hall, and they’ve been carpenterin’ and paintin’ up there for three
+days. If it ain’t worth seein’, I never seen anythin’. Every danged seat
+in the house is sold.”
+
+“We ain’t got none,” says Peewee.
+
+“Well, yuh won’t git none. They’re all gone. Alkali and Oasis shore
+bought ’em in quantities.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wasn’t that a nice thing to do--sell ’em all out thataway? I shore
+intended to speak to Hank Potts about it, but he never showed up; so me
+and Peewee got a gallon of hard liquor and went back to the ranch,
+brewin’ up a hate against San Pablo. We left word with the bartender to
+tell Hank Potts what we thought of him and his show.
+
+“Two of the best actors in the country--and they left us out,” mourns
+Peewee. “Tha’s great. And me, who made Bill Shakespeare turn over in his
+grave twice in one evenin’ in Dry Lake.”
+
+I’m kinda hazy about things after that. A gallon of Hank’s liquor would
+make a jackrabbit waylay a lobo wolf. Time don’t mean anythin’ to yuh,
+and I thought it was the night before, when I realize that Hank Potts is
+among us, and with him is a beautiful lady. I remember tryin’ to shake
+hands with her and got Hank’s nose in my hand.
+
+“I’m layin’ my cards on the table,” says Hank. “You fellers said yuh
+knew how to act, didn’t yuh? In two hours we’re due to lift the curtain,
+and we’re shy two actors. Zibe Hightower and Zeke Hardy got into a
+fight, and Olaf Swenson tried to help Zeke, until Susie bent a
+two-by-four over Olaf’s head. Zeke is plumb out of order, too. For the
+honor and glory of San Pablo, I ask you to help us out. Hozie, you’ll be
+Uncle Tom, and Peewee will be Jason.”
+
+“Please, gentlemen,” says the lady. “I am Miss Wimple.”
+
+“I’ll bezzer wife don’ know yo’re out here with thish woman,” says
+Peewee.
+
+“The curse of drink,” says the lady soft-like.
+
+“If you think I’m drunk now,” says Peewee, “you ought to shee me, when
+I’m right.”
+
+“Yo’re both too drunk to act,” says Hank.
+
+“Zasso? Who is? Me and Hozie? Say! Feller, I could play all the parts in
+yore show, includin’ the racehorsh, without any rehearshal--tha’s me. Go
+and git the horshes, Hozie, ’f yuh please.”
+
+Peewee bowed to me, hit his head on the corner of the table, and wanted
+to fight Hank for hittin’ him when he wasn’t lookin’. Anyway, we got to
+town an hour before the show is due to commence. I got me a couple more
+drinks, which I didn’t actually need, and then they took me up into the
+hall. The back of that stage is full of actors and actresses, and I
+remember Judgment Jones shakin’ hands with me and God blessin’ me for
+helpin’ ’em out.
+
+“The Sykes fambly never ignores a call for help,” I says. “Bring on yore
+crowd and lemme act.”
+
+I ain’t never played in a show before, but I thought I had. That’s what
+jiggle juice will do for yuh. I kinda relaxed for a few moments, and
+when I realized things again, I finds Hank Boll-Weevil Potts and Zibe
+Hightower workin’ over me with somethin’ that smells a heap like
+turpentine.
+
+“Keep yore eyes open, Hozie,” says Hank, “they might stick.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bein’ in a happy state of mind, I let ’em go ahead, not realizin’ that
+they was paintin’ me black as the ace of spades. It don’t hurt none,
+except kinda makin’ me stiff around the eyes. They left me in the chair
+and went about their business, and pretty soon I finds I ain’t got no
+shoes on, and my feet are so black they shine. And by that time my face
+is so stiff I can’t spit and I can’t blink my eyes. All I can do is
+stare at things.
+
+“In the first act, yuh ain’t got to say a word,” says Hank, “except at
+the end, where you and Zibe walk out, you say to Susie, ‘God bless yore
+kind heart, Miss Eva.’ Can yuh remember that, Hozie?”
+
+I kinda nods. Remember? Shore I can remember. If somebody would crack
+the paint around my mouth, I might say somethin’.
+
+I can hear Judgment Jones out in front of the curtain, explainin’
+things, and I hear him tell that me and Peewee has been added to the
+show. Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple finds me, and she says in a voice what
+is kinda choked, “Uncle Tom, yo’re goin’ to be a knockout.”
+
+Then along comes Zibe Hightower. He’s wearin’ an old plug hat, long,
+black coat, which Judgment Jones uses on Sunday, a pair of striped pants
+and boots. He’s got some big black eyebrows painted up above his scrawny
+ones and his mustache is as black as ink. In one hand he’s packin’ a
+blacksnake whip, and he’s seven-eighths drunk.
+
+There’s Susie Hightower Potts, wearin’ a knee-length white dress, and
+she’s wearin’ more paint than a warpath Apache. Susie weighs two-twenty
+on the hoof, and she ain’t over five feet tall. Cometh Hank Potts, ready
+for the fray, wearin’ one of his wife’s polka-dot waists, a pair of
+tight pants made out of a sheet, and a pair of boots, which he has
+painted with black enamel. On his head is a little speckled jockey cap,
+with a long beak.
+
+“Limpy” Lucas is almost in-cog-neeto in a boiled shirt, glasses and
+Hank’s old brown derby. Mrs. Thursday Noon is wearin’ a necklace of them
+cut-glass dinguses off a chandelier, a feather fan, and a dress so
+danged tight that she couldn’t set down without havin’ a accident.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then cometh a interruption in the shape of Dog-Rib Davidson, Roarin’
+Lyons and “Nebrasky” Smith. The two former are from Oasis, and the
+latter is from Alkali.
+
+“We’ve been appointed a committee,” states Dog-Rib. “We bought tickets
+in good faith, expectin’ to see a show, but we finds that you’ve done
+fired two of yore best actors--Zeke Hardy and Olaf Swenson--and we know
+why yuh ditched ’em. It’s ’cause Zeke used to live in Oasis, and Olaf
+used to hibernate in Alkali. We hereby demand our money back.”
+
+“No, yuh can’t do that,” says Hank. “We’re ready to start the show.”
+
+“Money or scalps,” says Roarin’.
+
+“Let us arbitrate,” suggests Judgment Jones. “We’ve got two better
+actors to take their places, and the show will be much better.”
+
+“That’s what you say,” grunts Dog-Rib. “Where’s the proof?”
+
+“How’s it better, I’d crave to know, that’s what I’d crave,” says
+Roarin’ Lyons.
+
+“Brother, you’ve got a cravin’,” agrees Nebrasky, “and so have I.”
+
+“Well,” says Hank sad-like, “the only way to prove it is to go ahead and
+play her out, boys.”
+
+“I’ll tell yuh what we’ll do,” says Dog-Rib. “I’m a fair man and I’ll
+allus do the right thing. Us, as a committee, will judge. We’ll watch
+yuh do this here play-actin’, and if we decided it ain’t as good as Zeke
+and Olaf could have played her, you give us back our money.”
+
+“My Gawd!” groans Hank. “In yore opinion! Well, I reckon it’ll be all
+right, Dog-Rib.”
+
+“We’ll be on the front row,” warns Dog-Rib, “and yuh better give us
+plenty show for our money. We’ll be especially watchin’ Peewee and
+Hozie.”
+
+And me without a voice in the matter. I’d quit right now, if I could
+talk enough to resign. The rest of the outfit gits around me, and they
+shore told me a lot I didn’t know about actin’.
+
+“You two jiggers ain’t the leadin’ parts in this here drammer of the
+Sunny South,” says Hank, “but right now yo’re prominent as hell. On you
+depends about five hundred dollars; so act. San Pablo is watchin’ yuh.”
+
+“I’ll do my bes’,” declares Peewee, “and if it comes to the worsht, I
+can lick about three of that committee. How about you, Hozie?”
+
+I don’t say nothin’. Peewee takes hold of my face and squeezes it a
+little. It left my nose out of line and my lips open, as though I was
+goin’ to whistle.
+
+“Hank, that paint hardened on Hozie,” says Peewee. “He can’t talk.”
+
+“All right. Mebbe it’ll be better. There goes the openin’ music.”
+
+It’s the three-piece orchestra--bull fiddle, accordion and drum, playin’
+“My Old Kentucky Home,” with variations.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that, the show started, and Hank led me and Peewee around to where
+we can see what’s goin’ on.
+
+“This first act is the drawin’-room of the Witherspoon mansion,”
+whispers Hank. “Watch Susie and Miss Wimple; they do this well.”
+
+I reckon I got some paint in my ears, ’cause I don’t hear so awful good,
+but I hears Susie sayin’, “--since my darlin’ pappy died----”
+
+And then Dog-Rib stands up and says, “Wait a minute, will yuh. Lemme git
+this straight. Is Zibe Hightower dead?”
+
+“That’s worth the price of admission,” says “Kansas” McGill, “if she
+gives the right answer.”
+
+Old Judgment Jones steps out and says, “This here is all actin’, and
+Zibe ain’t dead. Now, we don’t want no more interruptin’ from nobody.
+Amen.”
+
+“You shore act cheerful while givin’ bad news,” says Kansas, and the
+show starts in ag’in.
+
+I can’t git head nor tail to any of it. Mrs. Thursday Noon comes on, and
+the audience gives a big whoop. She shore sparkles, but forget what she
+came out there for, and proceeds to knock over a table and hit her chin
+on the edge of the sofy, where Miss Wimple is settin’. Her necklace got
+up around her ears and the dress busted between the shoulders, but they
+got her propped up on the sofy. The thing seems kinda deadlocked out
+there, so Hank Potts goes on. They gave Hank three cheers, but he don’t
+mind. He’s got somethin’ to say, and he’s sayin’ it.
+
+“When yore daddy died he called me to his bedside and he says to me,
+‘Howard Chesterfield, everythin’ I own has been swept away, except my
+two daughters and my racehorse, and I--I----’”
+
+Hank goes bug-eyed and forgets the rest.
+
+“The horse was too fast and one daughter was too heavy, eh?” suggests
+somebody from Oasis.
+
+“Go on, Howard; go on,” begs Miss Wimple, and Hank mumbles for a minute.
+
+“You are goin’ to ride Thunderbolt in the big race?” asks Miss Wimple.
+
+“That’s it,” grins Hank. “Thunderbolt will win, and you’ll all git back
+yore fortune.”
+
+“But we haven’t money enough left to enter the horse.”
+
+“I--I’ve saved my salary,” says Hank. “I’ll enter the horse.”
+
+“But we can’t afford to hire a jockey.”
+
+“I’ll ride him,” says Hank, hammerin’ himself on the chest. “I’ll wear
+the glue and bold of the Witherspoon stables. I--I mean the bold and
+glue.”
+
+“Oh, you hero!” explodes Susie. “I knew you’d be loyal.”
+
+Old Zibe has come around where we are, and now he hammers on a loose
+board with the butt of his whip. From the other side comes Peewee
+Parker, all dressed up in a funny lookin’ blue suit.
+
+“Someone at the door, Jason,” says Miss Wimple. Peewee goggles around,
+and Zibe motions him over to us. When he’s out of sight of the audience,
+Zibe grabs me by the wrist, and the next thing I know I’m out there in
+the middle of the stage, with Zibe bangin’ onto me. He takes off his
+hat, bows to the ladies and then takes a look at Hank.
+
+“So yo’re the jockey who is goin’ to ride Thunderbolt, eh?” says Zibe.
+“Well, go on back to the stable--I want to talk with highgrade folks.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hank hops his arms like he was sad all over, but goes out. Zeke grins at
+Susie and Miss Wimple.
+
+“I’m Simon Legree,” says he, “and I want to sell yuh a nigger.”
+
+Susie takes one look at me, jumps up and throws up both hands.
+
+“Uncle Tom!” she yells. “Uncle Tom! What have they done to you?”
+
+Jist then my mouth busts loose, and I says, “They got me drunk and
+painted me with black enamel, and I can lick any damn’ man ----”
+
+Zibe kicked me on the bare ankle and hisses in my ears, “Shut up, you
+danged fool!”
+
+“Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!” roars Dog-Rib. “That’s actin’!”
+
+“O-o-o-o-oh!” wails Susie. “They sold you, Uncle Tom.”
+
+“Somebody got gypped,” says Nebrasky Smith.
+
+“I got him in that boatload of niggers down at Nashville,” says Zibe. “I
+recognized him right away, and I knowed you’d like to buy him back.”
+
+“Oh, I’d love to buy him back,” says Susie, “but we ain’t got no money,
+Mister Legree.”
+
+“Lotta good work left in that nigger,” says Zibe. “How about tradin’ me
+yore racehorse for him?”
+
+Zibe kicks me in the ankle and whispers, “Beg her not to. Go ahead and
+beg.”
+
+“Ma’am,” says I, tryin’ to work my face into shape for talkin’, “don’t
+let this jigger make any trades with yuh. He’s a ----”
+
+_Whap!_ Old Zibe steps back and wraps that bullwhip around my legs.
+
+“Git back, nigger!” he roars. “Git back, or I’ll cut yore legs off!”
+
+I ask yuh if that wasn’t a dirty trick. I didn’t like Zibe, anyway; so I
+took a wild swing at his jaw, knocked him silly with one punch, took him
+to my bosom and pitched him headfirst into the committee on the first
+row.
+
+“The nigger wins by a knockout!” yells “Greasy” Easton, and somebody cut
+the curtain loose, with the _Curse of Drink_ outfit haulin’ me back by
+the slack of my overalls.
+
+Well, I got told all about myself, while old Zibe manages to get around
+to the back, where he got his gun and wanted to assassinate me, but they
+took his gun away. The committee comes up and says that the show begins
+to look like it was worth the money, but they’ve got to see it all
+first.
+
+While they’re tryin’ to fix the stage for the next act, Hank explains
+the show to me.
+
+“In that first act, the father of them two girls has just died, leavin’
+’em nothin’ but that racehorse. I was their father’s jockey, and this
+horse is to win a big race. That’s the climax. Legree owns a horse in
+that race, but he knows it can’t beat our horse; so he schemes to git
+our horse. Legree is the villain, yuh see. Yo’re an old nigger, which
+was owned by the old man, who went broke and had to sell yuh, along with
+other slaves. Legree buys yuh. He knows Susie is crazy about yuh, and he
+figures to trade you to her for this racehorse. She won’t trade the
+first time; so he beats yuh up--”
+
+“He tries to, yuh mean,” says I.
+
+“That was all in the play, Hozie. You ruined it. There won’t nobody know
+what it’s all about now. We’ve got to go ahead with the second act. This
+act----”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Comes a lot of racket, and I thought the audience was goin’ to assault
+the stage, but it was merely female against female. Judgment Jones comes
+back and kinda tearfully explains that Susie Hightower Potts and Eveline
+Annabel Wimple has had a battle, and Susie swears that Eveline and Hank
+ain’t goin’ to do no love scenes, except over her dead body.
+
+Hank said he’d talk with her, but he came back pretty soon, nursin’ a
+black eye. The audience is plumb impatient, and the committee comes back
+to see what’s keepin’ us.
+
+“We’ll give yuh five minutes more,” says Dog-Rib, “and if yuh ain’t
+actin’, we declares this here show null and void. We come here to see
+actin’, and we’ll see it to our fullest capacity or take our money
+back.”
+
+Then they single-files out again. Judgment Jones flops his arms and his
+face registers ashes-to-ashes, even unto the last ash. Hank rubs his
+black eye and ponders deeplike. Pretty soon he says, “There’s jist one
+thing to do and that is to jump this show to where them snake-hunters
+will see plenty action. We’ll put on the last act and them three
+scenes--the kidnappin’, the death of Little Eva and the finish of the
+race.”
+
+“But they won’t know what the show is all about, unless we act it all.”
+
+“Let ’em guess at it--that’s what I’ve been doin’. C’mon.”
+
+I’ve decided that I’ve had about enough and starts to walk across the
+stage to where I can get out, but all to once I starts walkin’ faster
+and faster, but don’t get nowhere. The floor is goin’ out behind me, and
+all to once I lands on my chin and rolled over against the wall.
+
+I fans a few stars out of my eyes and looked at Peewee, who humps down
+beside me.
+
+“I was wonderin’ if that thing worked,” says he, “and I see it does.”
+
+“What works?”
+
+“That treadmill jigger they made for the horse race. They explains it to
+me that we’re all in there, playin’ we’re watchin’ the race, and at the
+finish Hank rides Tequila onto that treadmill and the audience can see
+everythin’, except the horse’s feet. Then they drop the curtain.”
+
+Oscar Tubbs, “Burlap” Benson and “Fetlock” Feeney, the blacksmith, show
+up, and I wonder what they’re the committee for. They talk with Hank,
+and then climb up on a two-by-six, which extends across above the stage.
+I don’t sabe their idea, unless they want to git above all trouble. Hank
+comes to me and takes me up front again.
+
+They’ve got the same room fixed up a little different, and there is
+Limpy Lucas settin’ at a table, with a bottle of liquor.
+
+“You go in there,” says Hank. “All you’ve got to do is fool around. In a
+little while Zibe will come in with me as his prisoner. You won’t have a
+thing to do, until Susie asks yuh to rope both Limpy and Zibe. There’s
+ropes back there on the floor. This will be easy for you. Now, go ahead
+and we’ll lift the curtain.”
+
+Well, all fools ain’t dead yet; so I went ahead. The curtain went up and
+I said, “Limpy, I’m as dry as a lost match in Death Valley.”
+
+“Nigger,” says he, “don’t speak to me. I am Lord Worthington, a scion of
+British aristocracy.”
+
+“I dunno what a scion is, but the rest of it’s a lie. You was born down
+in Cochise County and yore father was a squawman. Gimme a drink.”
+
+“That’s the stuff!” yells Dog-Rib.
+
+“That’s real actin’.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jist then in comes Hank and old Zibe.
+
+Hank’s hands are tied behind him, there’s a handkerchief around his
+eyes, and Zibe is proddin’ him with a gun. He makes Hank set down in a
+chair, and then he turns to Limpy.
+
+“So yo’re here, eh? Playin’ the game my way, eh?”
+
+Limpy begins to wipe his eyes and beller.
+
+“I have been a proud man,” he states emphatic, “but likker brought me to
+this. I have bited the hand that fed me. I sold my soul for gin, Simon
+Legree. Yes, I will go in with you, even to the depths of hell.”
+
+“Ah, ha-a-a-a-a!” sneers Zibe. “Well, we win, Lord Worthington. Without
+Howard Chesterfield that horse never can win--and there sets Howard
+Chesterfield. We hold him until after the race. He will be disgraced in
+the eyes of his sweetheart, who will marry me. Ah, ha-a-a-a-a!”
+
+I swear I never did see Susie, until there she was on the stage, with a
+two-barrel shotgun in her hands, pointin’ it at Zibe.
+
+“Hands up, you foul beast,” says she, and Zibe puts up his hands.
+
+“You think his sweetheart will marry you, Simon Legree? Bah! If you was
+the last man in the world, I wouldn’t marry you. Uncle Tom, will you
+take ropes and bind these foul vultures?”
+
+Well, I shore tied ’em up tight. Susie took the ropes off Hank and he
+stood up straight and looked down at her.
+
+“Thank yuh, Little Eva,” says he. “I heard what yuh said to Legree, and
+I hate to disappoint yuh. I’m a fair man, and no falsehood ever passed
+my lips. I don’t love you--I love Gwendolyn.”
+
+Susie takes a deep breath, points her nose toward the ceilin’ and says,
+“Oh, woe is me, I am undone!”
+
+And then she let loose all holts and went down so hard that she busted
+two boards in that floor. Hank puts one hand over his eyes and kinda
+staggers around sayin’ “I’ve broken her heart, I’ve broken her heart!”
+
+“Yo’re right!” yells somebody in the audience. “I heard it break, Hank.”
+
+Hank flops his arms and turns to me.
+
+“Uncle Tom, I believe I have killed her. I’ll have to carry her home.”
+
+Hank tried three different holts and they all slipped.
+
+“Damn it, Susie, help yourself a little, can’tcha?” he whispers.
+
+“I’m supposed to be swooned,” she whispers. “Pick me up, you idiot.”
+
+“Git her by the legs, Hozie,” whispers Hank.
+
+“You touch my legs, and I’ll kick yuh loose from the surroundin’
+country,” hisses Susie.
+
+Hank straightens up and turns toward the audience.
+
+“Ah, I cannot touch her,” says he. “She looks so peaceful in death.”
+
+Susie took a kick at me and I got away fast. She turned over and got to
+her feet, as Hank lifts up both hands and says real loud, “I’ll leave
+her here for the angels, while I go to ride for love.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+But he didn’t. Susie socked him one on the back of the neck with a right
+swing and he went off the stage into the three-piece orchestra, with
+both legs in the air, while the committee stood up and whistled through
+their fingers, and somebody had sense enough to yank down the curtain.
+
+The committee brought Hank back with them. He was smiling sweetly, but
+as an actor he’s a total loss.
+
+“This here show,” says Dog-Rib, “is kinda jumpy, it seems to me. We’ve
+been tryin’ all along to find out what it’s all about. That there last
+act was plenty actful, as yuh might say, but we dunno what it was
+about.”
+
+I didn’t wait to listen to the argument. Peewee got that bottle they
+used in the last act, and we emptied it together. We’re leanin’ up
+against a black curtain at the back of the stage, and all to once
+somethin’ hit Peewee and knocked him plumb up past the treadmill, where
+he landed on his hands and knees.
+
+“Yuh better git away from there, Hozie,” says Limpy. “That racehorse is
+behind the curtain.”
+
+We stretched Peewee out on the floor in a corner, and the rest of us are
+asked to come out on the stage. They’re all inquirin’ for Miss Wimple.
+
+“She’s gone down to the hotel to git the money,” says Judgment. “She
+said, bein’ as the play turned out like it did, she wanted the money out
+of her hands; so I told her to bring it up here for a settlement. Her
+and Susie had a fight over them love scenes, and she was through up
+here.”
+
+“We don’t need her,” says Susie. “If she was actin’ for saw mills, she
+wouldn’t git a sliver in her finger. Is everythin’ all set?”
+
+Susie laid down on the floor and Zibe fastened a belt around her. She’s
+all dressed in white, with a couple things that might be mistaken for
+wings. We all squats down around her. They’ve got a heavy wire ownin’ up
+from that belt. Somebody pulled the curtain, and the three-piece
+orchestry begins playin’ “Nearer My God to Thee,” kinda soft.
+
+“Uncle Tom,” says Susie, her voice kinda cracked, “I’m goin’ to leave
+yuh. I’m goin’ to my place beyond the skies.”
+
+Mrs. Noon begins to blubber.
+
+“Don’t cry,” says Susie. “It’s better this way. Tell Howard that I
+forgive him for everythin’. Ah. I hear the angels callin’. Can’t you
+hear ’em, Uncle Tom?”
+
+“She’s dyin’,” wails Mrs. Noon.
+
+“Git yore feet braced, Burlap,” says Oscar Tubbs, up there, on that
+two-by-six.
+
+“Angel voices,” says Susie. “They’re callin’ me home.”
+
+“Pull, you damn’ fools!” yelps Oscar.
+
+And Little Eva starts on her long trip, as yuh might say. Up and up she
+goes, head and feet down, them spangled wings straight up. I’ve allus
+had my own idea of an angel, and Susie didn’t fit that idea.
+
+Then the angel stopped and kinda hung there, swingin’ around.
+
+“Keep her goin’!” hisses old Zibe from the side of the stage.
+
+“The angels are takin’ her away,” wails Mrs. Noon.
+
+_Cra-a-a-ack!_
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+That two-by-six snapped by too much weight, and down comes the handmade
+heaven. Susie lit on her head, and here comes Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson
+and Fetlock Feeney, follered by that busted two-by-six. Oscar lit on his
+feet, busted plumb through where Susie had already cracked the boards,
+and stopped with only his head in sight.
+
+It shook the whole stage and also the whole danged house. One of
+Burlap’s boots hit me in the head, but as my lights went dim, I heard
+somebody yellin’, “Three angels gone to hell a’ready, and the fourth one
+dropped for reasons knowed to all of us!”
+
+I woke up with Zibe and Zeke Hardy moppin’ me head with cold water, and
+I can hear Dog-Rib arguin’ at the top of his voice, “I don’t care a dang
+if Hank is still knocked out--we’ll have that there hoss race, or our
+money back. You’ve done advertised a race, and we crave a race.”
+
+“But there ain’t no jockey to ride that race,” pleads Judgment. “You can
+see for yourself that Hank Potts ain’t fit to ride nothin’.”
+
+“Suit yourself. I’ve done sent a couple men down to the hotel to set on
+that safe, where yuh keep the money. Oasis and Alkali towns crave that
+horse race; so it’s shore up to you.”
+
+They go stompin’ out, while the crowd out in front makes all kinds of
+noise. I sabes them people, and if we don’t give ’em what they want,
+they’ll take the hall apart.
+
+“Are you loyal to San Pablo, Hozie?” asks Zeke.
+
+“Look at me and answer yore own question.”
+
+“You’re a good rider. Hozie: ride for the honor of San Pablo. Never let
+Oasis say that we didn’t make good. Yo’re the man of the hour--the best
+rider in the San Pablo range. Think of poor old Judgment Jones and the
+starvin’ cannibals he aims to help with that money. Will yuh, Hozie?”
+
+I said I wouldn’t--and swooned. When I woke up. I’ve got on Hank’s
+jockey clothes, and they’re helpin’ me on Tequila, that big, cold-jawed,
+leg-crossin’ sorrel. The horse is blindfolded, and it takes three men to
+hold his head down. The boards are crackin’ under his feet, and the
+blamed brute is scared stiff.
+
+To the right of me is a thing like a big window, and in that window is
+Susie, Zeke, Zibe, Mrs. Noon, Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson and Fetlock
+Feeney, and they’re all yelpin’ their heads off, as though they’re
+lookin’ at a race, yellin’, “C’mon, Thunderbolt! Come on, Thunderbolt!”
+
+“Let go!” yelps somebody, and they turned Tequila loose.
+
+“Spur him straight ahead, Hozie!” snorts somebody else.
+
+Spur nothin’. The next thing I knowed I was back on his rump, and he was
+climbin’ through that window affair, and the next thing I knowed I was
+out on his head, with both legs wrapped around his neck, and we’re on
+the edge of the stage, facin’ the stampede. The air is full of
+sombreros, all sailin’ at us, men are yelpin’, “Whoa! Whoa!”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got one flash of the committee goin’ out the door on the heels of that
+stampedin’ mob, when somebody threw a chair, which landed on my head
+like a crown. It shore made me see a lot of stars, but I kept my
+presence of mind, as Tequila whirled around and went buck-jumpin’
+straight to the back of the stage, knockin’ down everythin’ in sight,
+with me still out over his ears--and then we hit that treadmill.
+
+Did we go? Man, that Tequila horse never ran so fast in his life. Why,
+he never had time to cross his legs. We wasn’t goin’ no place, but we
+was sure goin’ fast. Out from a pile of busted lumber I sees Peewee
+raise up, his eyes wide at what he sees.
+
+“Can’tcha stop this?” I yells at him. He picks up a busted two-by-four,
+staggers over and shoves it down in the treadmill. They told me
+afterward that it throwed Peewee plumb against the back of the buildin’,
+but it shore stopped the machine.
+
+I’m only about ten feet from the rear of the stage, which is covered
+with a black cloth, and this rear of the stage is the front of the room.
+
+_Wham-blam!_ We went off that treadmill like a skyrocket. I hears the
+crash of glass, the rippin’ of a cloth, and there I am out over the main
+street of San Pablo, two stories high, with nothin’ but air above, below
+and on all sides.
+
+I spread my arms like the wings of a turkey buzzard, turned over once
+and landed settin’ down on a buckboard seat, which smashed like a egg
+under the impact. It also knocked me a little colder than I was, but I
+knowed the team busted loose and was runnin’ away. But I didn’t care.
+What was one little runaway beside what I’d been through? The rush of
+night air was coolin’ to my fevered brow.
+
+And all of a sudden we went high-wide and handsome.
+_Rippety-bing-bang-boom!_ There’s a bell ringin’, somethin’ roarin’, and
+then I landed on the seat of my pants on the depot platform and almost
+skidded into the train, which was ready to move. The team and buckboard
+was just leavin’ the other end of the platform.
+
+I’m knocked kinda silly, but I heard a woman scream, as she ran past me
+and onto that train. The depot agent’s boots are stickin’ up from behind
+a trunk, where the runaway knocked him. I sets there and watches the
+train go out of sight. Beside me is a lady’s handbag, jist a little one
+with a white handkerchief stickin’ out of it. I put the thing in my
+pocket and got to my feet. I say “my feet” merely because they was
+hooked onto me. I didn’t have no feelin’ in ’em.
+
+Then I wandered back down the street, stoppin’ now and then to get my
+toes pointed right, and finally got to the No-Limit Saloon. For a while
+I ain’t recognized, even if I have got most of the enamel knocked off my
+face. There’s Judgment Jones, talkin’ with Dog-Rib, and they come over
+to look me over.
+
+“It’s all right, Hozie,” says Judgment. “Oasis and Alkali are satisfied
+we done our best. Dog-Rib says they expected more action, but I been
+tellin’ him it was jist a little rural play. Next time we’ll do
+better--I hope. But, take it all in all, we got our money’s worth--but
+no money.
+
+“No money,” says he sadly. “Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T., took it
+all and pulled out durin’ the play--we think. Anyway, she ain’t here,
+and the money was given to her in the hotel. The hotel keeper said she
+was in a big hurry, and she put the money in her handbag. Now, we’re
+goin’ to raffle the racehorse--if he’s still alive.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I found Peewee settin’ on the sidewalk, and we went home. He’s so bent
+out of shape that his saddle don’t fit him, but we got back to the HP
+ranch and found the horse liniment. After the first or second deluge, I
+said to him, “Peewee, that Wimple woman got away with the money.”
+
+“Did she? Good for her.”
+
+“You don’t believe in stealin’, do yuh, Peewee?”
+
+“Not stealin’--takin’.”
+
+“If somebody happened to find her handbag and kept the money, would that
+be stealin’?”
+
+“Finder’s keepers.”
+
+I tosses the handbag on the table, and Peewee goggles at it. He don’t
+ask no questions. That’s what I like about Peewee. After while he blinks
+one of his purple eyes, the other one bein’ shut tight, and says,
+“Thinkin’ it over, Hozie. I’m wonderin’.”
+
+He opens the bag and there’s a envelope, folded in the middle; and we
+can feel the money inside--paper money. On it is written: _Funds of The
+Curse of Drink_. It’s Judgment Jones’s writin’. Peewee shakes his head.
+
+“We can’t do it, Hozie. Old Judgment is the most honest man on earth. He
+needs that money for the heathen. I could never look him in the face
+again. He wouldn’t do wrong to anybody, and he needs that money. He
+trusted that woman, jist like he trusts everybody. Why, he’d even trust
+me and you.”
+
+“That’s right,” says I. “We’ll give it back.”
+
+But I wanted to see how much money they took in for that show; so I
+steamed the envelope open and dumped it out. I looked at Peewee and he
+looked at me. Money? Nothin’ but a lot of old newspaper, cut to the size
+of bills. We sets there and does a lot of thinkin’, and after while
+Peewee dumps the whole works into the stove.
+
+And as far as we know, the heathen are in jist the same shape they were
+before we put on this show. Peewee wanted to be a contortionist, and for
+once in his life he got tied in a knot. Peewee’s satisfied. Hank’s
+satisfied, but Susie ain’t; she wanted to go all the way to heaven. I’m
+satisfied--that a cowpuncher ought to keep off every kind of a stage,
+except one with four wheels.
+
+Susie says it’s too bad we were obliged to miss the moral of her play,
+but I said I didn’t.
+
+“What was the moral?” she asks.
+
+“Don’t kill yore jockey before the race starts,” says I.
+
+And I’m right, too.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 10, 1929 issue of
+Short Stories magazine.]
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75018 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75018 ***</div>
+
+<figure>
+  <img id='ifpc' src="images/illus-fpc.jpg" 
+  alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</figure>
+
+<h1>“THE CURSE OF DRINK”</h1>
+<div class='tac fs12'>By W. C. TUTTLE</div>
+<div class='tac'>Author of “The Keeper of Red Horse Pass,” “Three On and Everybody Down,”
+etc.</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class='ni fs09'>THE COWTOWN OF SAN PABLO AIMED TO GIVE A PLAY FOR THE BENEFIT OF PARSON
+JONES’ CANNIBALS. THOSE ABLE PUNCHERS, PEEWEE PARKER AND HOZIE SYKES,
+AIMED TO ACT IN IT. THEY DID&mdash;QUITE SOME. BUT WHEN THE LAST CURTAIN&mdash;AMONG
+OTHER THINGS&mdash;FELL, THE CHIEF WINNER FROM THE RIOT WAS EVELINE ANNABEL
+WIMPLE.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>“Man,” says “Judgment” Jones, “is of few days and full of woe.”</p>
+
+<p>Well, I reckon he’s right. I’m of a cheerful disposition, kinda goin’
+through life with a wide grin, tryin’ to see everythin’ in the right
+light and do well by my feller man; but when Old Man Woe sneaks up
+behind and swats yuh with his loaded quirt&mdash;what’ll yuh have?</p>
+
+<p>“Peewee” Parker says that as long as yuh stick to what the good Lord
+ordained for yuh to do, yo’re all right. He picked me and Peewee to be
+first-class cowpunchers, that’s a cinch, ’cause we ain’t never goin’ to
+be no good for anythin’ else, if for that.</p>
+
+<p>And then there’s “Boll-Weevil” Potts, first name Hank. He’s about six
+feet six inches lengthways, and with no width to speak of; bein’ built a
+heap like a single-shot rifle. Hank’s all right, but nature was in a
+playful mood when she laid out his specifications. And he runs to ears
+so fluently that he has to wear a six and seven-eighths hat on a seven
+and a quarter head to keep it from wearin’ the top off his ears. As a
+distinguishin’ mark, he wears a brown derby.</p>
+
+<p>I don’t hold that any man has a right to wear that kind of a war-bonnet
+in a cow country. It is jist a invitation to those desirin’ a legitimate
+target. But Hank owns the No-Limit Saloon, along with the HP cow outfit,
+and that kinda gives him the right to look kinda doggy, as yuh might say.</p>
+
+<p>Me and Peewee runs the HP outfit for Hank. Peewee Parker weighs two
+hundred and fifty on the hoof, and he ain’t so awful tall. I’m “Hozie”
+Sykes, one of the real old Sykes family. My folks was in this country
+when the Mayflower came over. I’ve heard paw tell about one of his
+great, great grandfathers, who was livin’ down in Arizona at that time.
+He heard about this boatload of folks comin’ over; so the old man
+hitched up his oxen and headed for California. He said the damn’ country
+was gittin’ overrun with foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>I’m merely tellin’ yuh this to prove my pedigree. Peewee don’t know much
+about his family further back than two generations, but that don’t hurt
+his chances to be a good puncher. Owners of cow outfits don’t question
+yuh much, when yuh apply for a saddle-slickin’ job.</p>
+
+<p>Hank Boll-Weevil Potts married Susie Hightower. Sometimes I look at Hank
+and know dang well he wishes it was merely an unfounded rumor. Susie
+weighs two-twenty, and takes after her pa&mdash;and that’s takin’ quite a lot.
+“Zibe” Hightower is somethin’ for to take after. He ain’t very big, but
+if all the rest of the meanness in the world was give him, you’d never
+notice the difference in his actions.</p>
+
+<p>Zibe wears flowin’ mustaches, two guns and a scowl. He’s been in the San
+Pablo range since long before they built the hills and made the cuts for
+water to run off in, and he says he’ll be here long after it’s all flat
+land again. Nobody knows how old he is, but I’ve heard him tell how he
+showed the cliff dwellers how to build their huts.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Everythin’ was goin’ along all right, except for an occasional fight
+among ourselves or with the town of Oasis, that sink-pot of iniquity to
+the south of San Pablo, when along comes Eveline Annabel Wimple. Now, I
+don’t mean any disrespect to a pretty lady. They’re necessary, I reckon.
+Hank showed me her card, and it says, in real pretty gold
+letters&mdash;Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T.</p>
+
+<p>I got a good look at her, and I says, “Well, they ain’t so bad to see.”</p>
+
+<p>“What ain’t?” he asks.</p>
+
+<p>“Them D. T’s. I had an idea they was more serpentine, as yuh might say.”</p>
+
+<p>“That D. T. stuff means Dramatic Teacher.”</p>
+
+<p>“Pertainin’ to actin’?” asks Peewee.</p>
+
+<p>“With flourishes,” admits Hank. “She learns yuh stage actin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve allus hankered to be a contortionist,” says Peewee. “Yuh don’t
+suppose she teaches yuh how to bend, do yuh?”</p>
+
+<p>“Does that come under the headin’ of dramatic?”</p>
+
+<p>“It shore would, if Peewee ever bent,” says I. “He lays on his back now
+to pull on his boots. But what in hell is a dramatic teacher doin’ in
+San Pablo?”</p>
+
+<p>“It ain’t clear to me jist yet,” says Hank “Judgment Jones and her kinda
+holds several pow-wows, and it’s somethin’ to do with the church.
+Judgment has been tryin’ to raise money enough to buy himself some fresh
+pants, or a pulpit or a bell, or somethin’ needful for Christianity. He
+ain’t flourished yet, as yuh might say. He said he’d have some news for
+me in a short time.”</p>
+
+<p>“That woman is pretty,” says Peewee. “You better keep away from her,
+Hank.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m a married man&mdash;and I’m satisfied.”</p>
+
+<p>“Satisfied that yo’re married?”</p>
+
+<p>“Thoroughly convinced,” said Hank sadly. “Oh, it’s all right with me,
+but when I see a damned old hi-ree-glyphic like Zibe Hightower shinin’
+around her, grinnin’ like a Hallowe’en cat, I git hot. I said to him,
+‘You ought to have more sense, you danged old shadder of a vanished
+age.’ And he says, ‘I’m single, ain’t I?’</p>
+
+<p>“I told him he was worse than single&mdash;that he was minus one, and he got
+hot. Said jist because I was happily married, I was tryin’ to keep him
+from marriage bliss. Marriage bliss! And Mrs. Judgment Jones is kinda on
+the warpath, too. She thinks Judgment is showin’ this here D. T. woman
+too much attention. She told Mrs. Zeke Hardy that she knowed Judgment
+was smitten, ’cause for the first time in years and years he washed the
+back of his neck. She said the only reason Judgment faces the devil is
+’cause he’s ashamed to turn around on account of his neck. Oh, I dunno.
+The whole town is kinda stirred up.”</p>
+
+<p>“Susie stirred up?” I asks.</p>
+
+<p>“Most always is. She’s learnin’ to shoot a six-gun. Hurt her arm the
+last time she throwed a flat-iron at me. Them things kinda keep a man
+active, I s’pose. Some married men kinda git in a rut, but if I ever do
+I’m a goner. Well, I took her for better or worse, and I shore got it.”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>We left Hank to his reveries of a squirshed love, and has a few drinks
+at the No-Limit, after which we’re unfortunate in runnin’ into Zibe
+Hightower. He’s wearin’ a clean shirt and he shore smells of perfume.</p>
+
+<p>“Heel-yuh-tripe?” asks Peewee. “Zibe, yuh shore smell tainted. Mebbe
+it’s ’cause yo’re so old&mdash;kept too long, as yuh might say.”</p>
+
+<p>“I smell to suit m’self!” snaps Zibe.</p>
+
+<p>“Exclusive of everybody else. Why all the odor?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ain’t this a free country?”</p>
+
+<p>“With certain limits. You ain’t learnin’ dramatics, are yuh, Zibe?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why not? All the world’s a stage.”</p>
+
+<p>“And that makes us all stage drivers,” says I.</p>
+
+<p>“Yo’re funny,” says Zibe. “Yuh ought to study comedy. Pers’nally, I’ve
+got the physical assets to make a tragedian&mdash;voice, carriage&mdash;”</p>
+
+<p>“Squeak and a buckboard,” interrupts Peewee. “Tragedian!”</p>
+
+<p>“I have so. I could do Shakespeare.”</p>
+
+<p>“Shore&mdash;in a horse-trade. As far as that’s concerned, I ain’t never seen
+anybody yuh couldn’t do, Zibe. Yo’re in love.”</p>
+
+<figure id='i001'>
+  <img src="images/illus-001.jpg" 
+  alt="" data-role="presentation"
+  style="width:100%">
+</figure>
+
+<p>“No such a damn thing!”</p>
+
+<p>“How old is she?”</p>
+
+<p>“I ain’t askin’ no lady her age. Anyway, age don’t make no
+difference; so&mdash;sa-a-a-ay, what lady are yuh talkin’ about?”</p>
+
+<p>“The one Judgment Jones is nutty about.”</p>
+
+<p>“That old Scriptural scorpion!”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s here to save yore soul. Said so last Sunday.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, he don’t need to worry about my soul. I don’t.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yuh would, if yuh had any. Right now all yuh need is one of them little
+bird whistles to make yuh imitate a flower garden. Man, yuh shore smell
+like a bed of Sweet Williams.”</p>
+
+<p>“Some day, Peewee Parker, I’m goin’ to hang yore hide on a bobwire
+fence.”</p>
+
+<p>“Pick yore day, feller, and bring the lady along.”</p>
+
+<p>Not bein’ interested in dramatic teachin’ nor the troubles of married
+folks, me and Peewee goes back to the HP ranch. We’re dependable and as
+honest as the average run of cowpunchers. Of course, we don’t cut down
+no cherry trees, and then run our legs off to tell folks about it, but
+we git along. As long as the law keeps away from us, we’ll keep away
+from the law.</p>
+
+<p>That night at supper time, Peewee gits to tellin’ me about one time he
+acts in a play. I figure he’s lyin’, of course, but a good lie is
+interestin’. Accordin’ to Peewee, he’s a pretty good actor. He shot six
+men in this play&mdash;two at one shot. He’s one of them pyramid liars&mdash;keeps
+pilin’ one on top of the other. I stopped him before he got too good. I
+ain’t never done no actin’, but I never seen anythin’ a Sykes couldn’t
+do; that is, anythin’ that’s honest.</p>
+
+<p>“It took me a long time to git as good as I was,” says Peewee. “I’ll bet
+I was good enough to git a job in New York actin’ on a stage.”</p>
+
+<p>“You wasn’t a good actor&mdash;you was a good shot. All the good actors I ever
+seen killed ’em with knives.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” says Peewee, “I was a good actor. I wanted to kill ’em with
+knives, but the boss said, ‘You go ahead and shoot ’em, Peewee&mdash;knives is
+too messy.’”</p>
+
+<p>“You never played in Shakespeare, didja?” I asks.</p>
+
+<p>“Nope, only in Dry Lake. This was a home talent show. But I’m good. The
+stage shore got robbed when I turned my talents to punchin’ cows.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yeah, and for turnin’ yore talents yuh ought to be arrested for
+cruelty to dumb animals,” says I.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The next day Hank Potts showed up, unfolded from his bronc, and sat down
+with us on the porch of the adobe ranchhouse. Hank looks kinda shopworn,
+as yuh might say.</p>
+
+<p>“I came out to rest m’ nerves,” says he. “I’m a actor.”</p>
+
+<p>“What kind of a actor?” queried Peewee.</p>
+
+<p>“Good. I’m the leadin’ man&mdash;hee-roo&mdash;gits the fair damsel in the end.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who is the fair damsel&mdash;Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T?” I asks.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be comical, Horde,” says Hank kinda sad-like.</p>
+
+<p>“Speak&mdash;yo’re among friends,” says Peewee.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s thisaway,” sighs Hank. “We held a meetin’ last night. Miss Wimple
+aims to put on a show for the benefit of the church.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the meetin’ busted up in a fight,” says Peewee, bein’ somewhat of a
+prophet.</p>
+
+<p>“A discussion,” says Hank. “Miss Wimple has a play of her own, which she
+desires us to play. Bein’ as she is to furnish the play, train the
+actors, et cettery, and all that, she’s to receive seventy-five percent
+of the profits, the other twenty-five percent goin’ to Judgment Jones
+and his church.</p>
+
+<p>“That started a argument among us. Miss Wimple argues that her play is a
+dinger, and the only available play in this county, when my wife&horbar;”</p>
+
+<p>“She would,” agrees Peewee.</p>
+
+<p>“I never knowed Susie wrote a play,” confesses Hank. “I never knowed a
+thing about it, until she steps out and says we can have her play free.”</p>
+
+<p>“It would be worth at least that,” says Peewee.</p>
+
+<p>“She calls it&mdash;” Hank stops to sigh deeplike&mdash;“<i>The Curse of Drink</i>.
+And me runnin’ a first-class rum shop.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mebbe,” says Peewee, “she meant sody water or some soft drink.”</p>
+
+<p>Hank shakes his head. “I read it, Peewee.”</p>
+
+<p>“What’s it all about, anyway?”</p>
+
+<p>“Gawd forgive me for sayin’ anythin’ against my wife, but I don’t know
+what it’s all about. Miss Wimple read it. Judgin’ from the expression of
+her face, as she read it, it’s a comedy. Even if Susie don’t think so.
+I’m goin’ to be Howard Chesterfield, a jockey. I’m the jigger,” says
+Hank sad-like, jambin’ his derby down over one eye, “what wins the race,
+saves the mortgage and wins the girl.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’d be worth goin’ a long ways to see,” says I.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s what Miss Wimple said. But we’re short of actors. Susie suggests
+that we git you two fellers to play with us. But I said neither of yuh
+knowed the first thing about actin’, and Miss Wimple said that mebbe I
+was right, ’cause, as she read the play, it needed somebody with more
+brains than an ordinary cowpuncher has to play them parts.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lemme tell you somethin’!” says Peewee. “I’ve done more actin’ than
+you ever seen. I was a actor before you ever knowed there was anythin’
+but a four-wheel stage on earth; and I never seen any part I can’t
+play.”</p>
+
+<p>“I ditto all that and sign my name,” says I. “When it comes to play
+actin’, a Sykes jist falls naturally into the part.”</p>
+
+<p>“This is a hard play to act,” says Hank.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s my meat,” declares Peewee. “I’ve shore bit off some hard ones.”</p>
+
+<p>“Didja ever see a horse on the stage?” asks Hank.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” says Peewee, “I kinda have, but I never favored ’em.”</p>
+
+<p>“This’n has got to have a racehorse for me to ride. Susie said we ort to
+have a lot of horses to make up the race, but&mdash;I dunno.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yuh might use Tequila,” says I, and Hank kinda shudders. Tequila was a
+racehorse. I say “was,” meanin’ the present time. Hank bought him off a
+horse-trader for a hundred dollars. Fastest horse on earth for a hundred
+yards, and then crossed his front feet. Always crossed his front feet.
+Worked himself into a lather, looked like a racehorse, ran like a scared
+coyote for a hundred yards and then&mdash;well, Hank kept him.</p>
+
+<p>“Might use him,” admitted Hank. “Got a lotta sense.”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Hank wouldn’t commit himself further, and went back to San Pablo. We
+don’t hear nothin’ more about it for a couple days, when cometh
+“Dog-Rib” Davidson, of Oasis. Dog-Rib almost runs Zibe Hightower a
+dead-heat, when it comes to bein’ mean, and if all the hate in his
+carcass was laid end to end, yuh could use it for a trail marker from
+New York to Honolulu.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve been laughin’ m’self hoarse for two days,” says Dog-Rib. “Them
+there San Pabloers are goin’ to put on a play-actin’ show, with Hank
+Boll-Weevil Potts as the big he buzzard of the flock. Calls it
+<i>The Curse of Drink</i>. Haw, haw, haw! Can yuh imagine it? I can’t.
+I’ve seen shows in my life, I have.”</p>
+
+<p>“You look like yuh had seen plenty, but never had none,” says Peewee.
+“You shore look to me like a man who never had a show from the start.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve allus got along,” says Dog-Rib.</p>
+
+<p>“I reckon all of Oasis will be at the show,” says I.</p>
+
+<figure id='i002'>
+  <img src="images/illus-002.jpg" 
+  alt="" data-role="presentation"
+  style="width:100%">
+</figure>
+
+<p>“Oh, shore. Accordin’ to their epitaphs, every ticket will have a number
+on it, and the lucky ticket will win Hank Potts’s racehorse. The tickets
+are one dollar per each, and no questions asked. Alkali and Oasis has
+shore invested heavy in them tickets. But it’ll be a awful show.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s about time they asked us in to learn our parts,” says Peewee,
+after Dog-Rib goes away. “We’ve got to have a little time.”</p>
+
+<p>But by that time the next day there hadn’t nobody showed up to tell us;
+so we saddled up and went to San Pablo. The bartender at Hank’s place
+tells us that the actors and actresses are all over at the San Pablo
+Hall, where the <i>Curse of Drink</i> is to make its showin’, and then he gave
+us a couple of handbills which read:</p>
+
+<div class='tac'>
+<div style='margin-top:0.8em;'>WORLD PREEMEER</div>
+<div style='font-size:1.1em;'>“THE CURSE OF DRINK”</div>
+<div>By</div>
+<div>SUSIE H. POTTS</div>
+<div>A PLAY IN SEVEN ACTS &amp; SOME SEENS</div>
+<div style='margin-top:0.5em;'>THE CAST:</div>
+</div>
+<div style='display:flex; justify-content:center; margin-bottom:0.8em;'>
+    <table>
+        <tr><td>Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T.</td><td>Gwendolyn Witherspoon</td></tr>
+        <tr><td>Hennery Potts</td><td>Howard Chesterfield Zibe</td></tr>
+        <tr><td>Hightower</td><td>Simon Legree</td></tr>
+        <tr><td>Limpy Lucas</td><td>Lord Worthington</td></tr>
+        <tr><td>Mrs. Thursday Noon</td><td>Lady Worthington</td></tr>
+        <tr><td>Zeke Hardy</td><td>Uncle Tom</td></tr>
+        <tr><td>Olaf Swenson</td><td>Jason</td></tr>
+        <tr><td>SUSIE HIGHTOWER POTTS as</td><td>LITTLE EVA</td></tr>
+    </table>
+</div>
+<blockquote>
+<div>Presented by Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T. under the auspices of the
+San Pablo Church and Susie Hightower Potts.</div>
+<div>Tickets are one dollar including a chance on winning the racehorse used
+in this production.</div>
+<div>Don’t miss this chance to see Howard Chesterfield win the big DERBY RACE
+and see LITTLE EVA go to heaven. Either one will be worth the price of
+admission.</div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>“When is this here show to transpire?” asked Peewee.</p>
+
+<p>“Tomorrow night,” says the bartender. “Eight o’clock sharp. She’s goin’
+to be a dinger, gents. I’ve seen some of it, but from now on, she’s
+private. I tell yuh, they had a hell of a time gettin’ Tequila up there.
+Took him up this mornin’. Built a platform plumb across one end of the
+hall, and they’ve been carpenterin’ and paintin’ up there for three
+days. If it ain’t worth seein’, I never seen anythin’. Every danged
+seat in the house is sold.”</p>
+
+<p>“We ain’t got none,” says Peewee.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, yuh won’t git none. They’re all gone. Alkali and Oasis shore
+bought ’em in quantities.”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Wasn’t that a nice thing to do&mdash;sell ’em all out thataway? I shore
+intended to speak to Hank Potts about it, but he never showed up; so me
+and Peewee got a gallon of hard liquor and went back to the ranch,
+brewin’ up a hate against San Pablo. We left word with the bartender to
+tell Hank Potts what we thought of him and his show.</p>
+
+<p>“Two of the best actors in the country&mdash;and they left us out,” mourns
+Peewee. “Tha’s great. And me, who made Bill Shakespeare turn over in his
+grave twice in one evenin’ in Dry Lake.”</p>
+
+<p>I’m kinda hazy about things after that. A gallon of Hank’s liquor would
+make a jackrabbit waylay a lobo wolf. Time don’t mean anythin’ to yuh,
+and I thought it was the night before, when I realize that Hank Potts is
+among us, and with him is a beautiful lady. I remember tryin’ to shake
+hands with her and got Hank’s nose in my hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m layin’ my cards on the table,” says Hank. “You fellers said yuh
+knew how to act, didn’t yuh? In two hours we’re due to lift the
+curtain, and we’re shy two actors. Zibe Hightower and Zeke Hardy got
+into a fight, and Olaf Swenson tried to help Zeke, until Susie bent a
+two-by-four over Olaf’s head. Zeke is plumb out of order, too. For the
+honor and glory of San Pablo, I ask you to help us out. Hozie, you’ll be
+Uncle Tom, and Peewee will be Jason.”</p>
+
+<p>“Please, gentlemen,” says the lady. “I am Miss Wimple.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll bezzer wife don’ know yo’re out here with thish woman,” says
+Peewee.</p>
+
+<p>“The curse of drink,” says the lady soft-like.</p>
+
+<p>“If you think I’m drunk now,” says Peewee, “you ought to shee me,
+when I’m right.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yo’re both too drunk to act,” says Hank.</p>
+
+<p>“Zasso? Who is? Me and Hozie? Say! Feller, I could play all the parts in
+yore show, includin’ the racehorsh, without any rehearshal&mdash;tha’s me. Go
+and git the horshes, Hozie, ’f yuh please.”</p>
+
+<p>Peewee bowed to me, hit his head on the corner of the table, and wanted
+to fight Hank for hittin’ him when he wasn’t lookin’. Anyway, we got to
+town an hour before the show is due to commence. I got me a couple more
+drinks, which I didn’t actually need, and then they took me up into the
+hall. The back of that stage is full of actors and actresses, and I
+remember Judgment Jones shakin’ hands with me and God blessin’ me for
+helpin’ ’em out.</p>
+
+<p>“The Sykes fambly never ignores a call for help,” I says. “Bring on yore
+crowd and lemme act.”</p>
+
+<p>I ain’t never played in a show before, but I thought I had. That’s what
+jiggle juice will do for yuh. I kinda relaxed for a few moments, and
+when I realized things again, I finds Hank Boll-Weevil Potts and Zibe
+Hightower workin’ over me with somethin’ that smells a heap like
+turpentine.</p>
+
+<p>“Keep yore eyes open, Hozie,” says Hank, “they might stick.”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Bein’ in a happy state of mind, I let ’em go ahead, not realizin’ that
+they was paintin’ me black as the ace of spades. It don’t hurt none,
+except kinda makin’ me stiff around the eyes. They left me in the chair
+and went about their business, and pretty soon I finds I ain’t got no
+shoes on, and my feet are so black they shine. And by that time my face
+is so stiff I can’t spit and I can’t blink my eyes. All I can do is
+stare at things.</p>
+
+<p>“In the first act, yuh ain’t got to say a word,” says Hank, “except at
+the end, where you and Zibe walk out, you say to Susie, ‘God bless yore
+kind heart, Miss Eva.’ Can yuh remember that, Hozie?”</p>
+
+<p>I kinda nods. Remember? Shore I can remember. If somebody would crack
+the paint around my mouth, I might say somethin’.</p>
+
+<p>I can hear Judgment Jones out in front of the curtain, explainin’
+things, and I hear him tell that me and Peewee has been added to the
+show. Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple finds me, and she says in a voice what
+is kinda choked, “Uncle Tom, yo’re goin’ to be a knockout.”</p>
+
+<p>Then along comes Zibe Hightower. He’s wearin’ an old plug hat, long,
+black coat, which Judgment Jones uses on Sunday, a pair of striped pants
+and boots. He’s got some big black eyebrows painted up above his scrawny
+ones and his mustache is as black as ink. In one hand he’s packin’ a
+blacksnake whip, and he’s seven-eighths drunk.</p>
+
+<p>There’s Susie Hightower Potts, wearin’ a knee-length white dress, and
+she’s wearin’ more paint than a warpath Apache. Susie weighs two-twenty
+on the hoof, and she ain’t over five feet tall. Cometh Hank Potts, ready
+for the fray, wearin’ one of his wife’s polka-dot waists, a pair of
+tight pants made out of a sheet, and a pair of boots, which he has
+painted with black enamel. On his head is a little speckled jockey cap,
+with a long beak.</p>
+
+<p>“Limpy” Lucas is almost in-cog-neeto in a boiled shirt, glasses and
+Hank’s old brown derby. Mrs. Thursday Noon is wearin’ a necklace of them
+cut-glass dinguses off a chandelier, a feather fan, and a dress so
+danged tight that she couldn’t set down without havin’ a accident.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Then cometh a interruption in the shape of Dog-Rib Davidson, Roarin’
+Lyons and “Nebrasky” Smith. The two former are from Oasis, and the
+latter is from Alkali.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ve been appointed a committee,” states Dog-Rib. “We bought tickets
+in good faith, expectin’ to see a show, but we finds that you’ve done
+fired two of yore best actors&mdash;Zeke Hardy and Olaf Swenson&mdash;and we know
+why yuh ditched ’em. It’s ’cause Zeke used to live in Oasis, and Olaf
+used to hibernate in Alkali. We hereby demand our money back.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, yuh can’t do that,” says Hank. “We’re ready to start the show.”</p>
+
+<p>“Money or scalps,” says Roarin’.</p>
+
+<p>“Let us arbitrate,” suggests Judgment Jones. “We’ve got two better
+actors to take their places, and the show will be much better.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s what you say,” grunts Dog-Rib. “Where’s the proof?”</p>
+
+<p>“How’s it better, I’d crave to know, that’s what I’d crave,” says
+Roarin’ Lyons.</p>
+
+<p>“Brother, you’ve got a cravin’,” agrees Nebrasky, “and so have I.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” says Hank sad-like, “the only way to prove it is to go ahead and
+play her out, boys.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell yuh what we’ll do,” says Dog-Rib. “I’m a fair man and I’ll
+allus do the right thing. Us, as a committee, will judge. We’ll watch
+yuh do this here play-actin’, and if we decided it ain’t as good as Zeke
+and Olaf could have played her, you give us back our money.”</p>
+
+<p>“My Gawd!” groans Hank. “In yore opinion! Well, I reckon it’ll be all
+right, Dog-Rib.”</p>
+
+<figure id='i003'>
+  <img src="images/illus-003.jpg" 
+  alt="" data-role="presentation"
+  style="width:100%">
+</figure>
+
+<p>“We’ll be on the front row,” warns Dog-Rib, “and yuh better give us
+plenty show for our money. We’ll be especially watchin’ Peewee and
+Hozie.”</p>
+
+<p>And me without a voice in the matter. I’d quit right now, if I could
+talk enough to resign. The rest of the outfit gits around me, and they
+shore told me a lot I didn’t know about actin’.</p>
+
+<p>“You two jiggers ain’t the leadin’ parts in this here drammer of the
+Sunny South,” says Hank, “but right now yo’re prominent as hell. On you
+depends about five hundred dollars; so act. San Pablo is watchin’ yuh.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll do my bes’,” declares Peewee, “and if it comes to the worsht, I
+can lick about three of that committee. How about you, Hozie?”</p>
+
+<p>I don’t say nothin’. Peewee takes hold of my face and squeezes it a
+little. It left my nose out of line and my lips open, as though I was
+goin’ to whistle.</p>
+
+<p>“Hank, that paint hardened on Hozie,” says Peewee. “He can’t talk.”</p>
+
+<p>“All right. Mebbe it’ll be better. There goes the openin’ music.”</p>
+
+<p>It’s the three-piece orchestra&mdash;bull fiddle, accordion and drum, playin’
+“My Old Kentucky Home,” with variations.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>After that, the show started, and Hank led me and Peewee around to
+where we can see what’s goin’ on.</p>
+
+<p>“This first act is the drawin’-room of the Witherspoon mansion,”
+whispers Hank. “Watch Susie and Miss Wimple; they do this well.”</p>
+
+<p>I reckon I got some paint in my ears, ’cause I don’t hear so awful good,
+but I hears Susie sayin’, “&mdash;since my darlin’ pappy died&horbar;”</p>
+
+<p>And then Dog-Rib stands up and says, “Wait a minute, will yuh. Lemme git
+this straight. Is Zibe Hightower dead?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s worth the price of admission,” says “Kansas” McGill, “if she
+gives the right answer.”</p>
+
+<p>Old Judgment Jones steps out and says, “This here is all actin’, and
+Zibe ain’t dead. Now, we don’t want no more interruptin’ from nobody.
+Amen.”</p>
+
+<p>“You shore act cheerful while givin’ bad news,” says Kansas, and the
+show starts in ag’in.</p>
+
+<p>I can’t git head nor tail to any of it. Mrs. Thursday Noon comes on, and
+the audience gives a big whoop. She shore sparkles, but forget what she
+came out there for, and proceeds to knock over a table and hit her chin
+on the edge of the sofy, where Miss Wimple is settin’. Her necklace got
+up around her ears and the dress busted between the shoulders, but they
+got her propped up on the sofy. The thing seems kinda deadlocked out
+there, so Hank Potts goes on. They gave Hank three cheers, but he don’t
+mind. He’s got somethin’ to say, and he’s sayin’ it.</p>
+
+<p>“When yore daddy died he called me to his bedside and he says to me,
+‘Howard Chesterfield, everythin’ I own has been swept away, except my
+two daughters and my racehorse, and I&mdash;I&horbar;’”</p>
+
+<p>Hank goes bug-eyed and forgets the rest.</p>
+
+<p>“The horse was too fast and one daughter was too heavy, eh?” suggests
+somebody from Oasis.</p>
+
+<p>“Go on, Howard; go on,” begs Miss Wimple, and Hank mumbles for a minute.</p>
+
+<p>“You are goin’ to ride Thunderbolt in the big race?” asks Miss Wimple.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s it,” grins Hank. “Thunderbolt will win, and you’ll all git back
+yore fortune.”</p>
+
+<p>“But we haven’t money enough left to enter the horse.”</p>
+
+<p>“I&mdash;I’ve saved my salary,” says Hank. “I’ll enter the horse.”</p>
+
+<p>“But we can’t afford to hire a jockey.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll ride him,” says Hank, hammerin’ himself on the chest. “I’ll wear
+the glue and bold of the Witherspoon stables. I&mdash;I mean the bold and
+glue.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you hero!” explodes Susie. “I knew you’d be loyal.”</p>
+
+<p>Old Zibe has come around where we are, and now he hammers on a loose
+board with the butt of his whip. From the other side comes Peewee
+Parker, all dressed up in a funny lookin’ blue suit.</p>
+
+<p>“Someone at the door, Jason,” says Miss Wimple. Peewee goggles around,
+and Zibe motions him over to us. When he’s out of sight of the audience,
+Zibe grabs me by the wrist, and the next thing I know I’m out there in
+the middle of the stage, with Zibe bangin’ onto me. He takes off his
+hat, bows to the ladies and then takes a look at Hank.</p>
+
+<p>“So yo’re the jockey who is goin’ to ride Thunderbolt, eh?” says Zibe.
+“Well, go on back to the stable&mdash;I want to talk with highgrade folks.”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Hank hops his arms like he was sad all over, but goes out. Zeke grins at
+Susie and Miss Wimple.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m Simon Legree,” says he, “and I want to sell yuh a nigger.”</p>
+
+<p>Susie takes one look at me, jumps up and throws up both hands.</p>
+
+<p>“Uncle Tom!” she yells. “Uncle Tom! What have they done to you?”</p>
+
+<p>Jist then my mouth busts loose, and I says, “They got me drunk and
+painted me with black enamel, and I can lick any damn’ man &horbar;”</p>
+
+<p>Zibe kicked me on the bare ankle and hisses in my ears, “Shut up, you
+danged fool!”</p>
+
+<p>“Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!” roars Dog-Rib. “That’s actin’!”</p>
+
+<p>“O-o-o-o-oh!” wails Susie. “They sold you, Uncle Tom.”</p>
+
+<p>“Somebody got gypped,” says Nebrasky Smith.</p>
+
+<p>“I got him in that boatload of niggers down at Nashville,” says Zibe. “I
+recognized him right away, and I knowed you’d like to buy him back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I’d love to buy him back,” says Susie, “but we ain’t got no money,
+Mister Legree.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lotta good work left in that nigger,” says Zibe. “How about tradin’ me
+yore racehorse for him?”</p>
+
+<p>Zibe kicks me in the ankle and whispers, “Beg her not to. Go ahead and
+beg.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ma’am,” says I, tryin’ to work my face into shape for talkin’, “don’t
+let this jigger make any trades with yuh. He’s a &horbar;”</p>
+
+<p><em>Whap!</em> Old Zibe steps back and wraps that bullwhip around my legs.</p>
+
+<p>“Git back, nigger!” he roars. “Git back, or I’ll cut yore legs off!”</p>
+
+<p>I ask yuh if that wasn’t a dirty trick. I didn’t like Zibe, anyway; so I
+took a wild swing at his jaw, knocked him silly with one punch, took him
+to my bosom and pitched him headfirst into the committee on the first
+row.</p>
+
+<p>“The nigger wins by a knockout!” yells “Greasy” Easton, and somebody cut
+the curtain loose, with the <i>Curse of Drink</i> outfit haulin’ me back by the
+slack of my overalls.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I got told all about myself, while old Zibe manages to get around
+to the back, where he got his gun and wanted to assassinate me, but they
+took his gun away. The committee comes up and says that the show begins
+to look like it was worth the money, but they’ve got to see it all
+first.</p>
+
+<p>While they’re tryin’ to fix the stage for the next act, Hank explains
+the show to me.</p>
+
+<p>“In that first act, the father of them two girls has just died, leavin’
+’em nothin’ but that racehorse. I was their father’s jockey, and this
+horse is to win a big race. That’s the climax. Legree owns a horse in
+that race, but he knows it can’t beat our horse; so he schemes to git
+our horse. Legree is the villain, yuh see. Yo’re an old nigger, which
+was owned by the old man, who went broke and had to sell yuh, along with
+other slaves. Legree buys yuh. He knows Susie is crazy about yuh, and he
+figures to trade you to her for this racehorse. She won’t trade the
+first time; so he beats yuh up&mdash;”</p>
+
+<p>“He tries to, yuh mean,” says I.</p>
+
+<p>“That was all in the play, Hozie. You ruined it. There won’t nobody know
+what it’s all about now. We’ve got to go ahead with the second act. This
+act&horbar;”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Comes a lot of racket, and I thought the audience was goin’ to assault
+the stage, but it was merely female against female. Judgment Jones comes
+back and kinda tearfully explains that Susie Hightower Potts and Eveline
+Annabel Wimple has had a battle, and Susie swears that Eveline and Hank
+ain’t goin’ to do no love scenes, except over her dead body.</p>
+
+<figure id='i004'>
+  <img src="images/illus-004.jpg" 
+  alt="" data-role="presentation"
+  style="width:100%">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Hank said he’d talk with her, but he came back pretty soon, nursin’ a
+black eye. The audience is plumb impatient, and the committee comes back
+to see what’s keepin’ us.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll give yuh five minutes more,” says Dog-Rib, “and if yuh ain’t
+actin’, we declares this here show null and void. We come here to see
+actin’, and we’ll see it to our fullest capacity or take our money
+back.”</p>
+
+<p>Then they single-files out again. Judgment Jones flops his arms and his
+face registers ashes-to-ashes, even unto the last ash. Hank rubs his
+black eye and ponders deeplike. Pretty soon he says, “There’s jist one
+thing to do and that is to jump this show to where them snake-hunters
+will see plenty action. We’ll put on the last act and them three
+scenes&mdash;the kidnappin’, the death of Little Eva and the finish of the
+race.”</p>
+
+<p>“But they won’t know what the show is all about, unless we act it all.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let ’em guess at it&mdash;that’s what I’ve been doin’. C’mon.”</p>
+
+<p>I’ve decided that I’ve had about enough and starts to walk across the
+stage to where I can get out, but all to once I starts walkin’ faster
+and faster, but don’t get nowhere. The floor is goin’ out behind me, and
+all to once I lands on my chin and rolled over against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>I fans a few stars out of my eyes and looked at Peewee, who humps down
+beside me.</p>
+
+<p>“I was wonderin’ if that thing worked,” says he, “and I see it does.”</p>
+
+<p>“What works?”</p>
+
+<p>“That treadmill jigger they made for the horse race. They explains it to
+me that we’re all in there, playin’ we’re watchin’ the race, and at the
+finish Hank rides Tequila onto that treadmill and the audience can see
+everythin’, except the horse’s feet. Then they drop the curtain.”</p>
+
+<p>Oscar Tubbs, “Burlap” Benson and “Fetlock” Feeney, the blacksmith, show
+up, and I wonder what they’re the committee for. They talk with Hank,
+and then climb up on a two-by-six, which extends across above the stage.
+I don’t sabe their idea, unless they want to git above all trouble. Hank
+comes to me and takes me up front again.</p>
+
+<p>They’ve got the same room fixed up a little different, and there is
+Limpy Lucas settin’ at a table, with a bottle of liquor.</p>
+
+<p>“You go in there,” says Hank. “All you’ve got to do is fool around. In a
+little while Zibe will come in with me as his prisoner. You won’t have a
+thing to do, until Susie asks yuh to rope both Limpy and Zibe. There’s
+ropes back there on the floor. This will be easy for you. Now, go ahead
+and we’ll lift the curtain.”</p>
+
+<p>Well, all fools ain’t dead yet; so I went ahead. The curtain went up and
+I said, “Limpy, I’m as dry as a lost match in Death Valley.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nigger,” says he, “don’t speak to me. I am Lord Worthington, a scion of
+British aristocracy.”</p>
+
+<p>“I dunno what a scion is, but the rest of it’s a lie. You was born down
+in Cochise County and yore father was a squawman. Gimme a drink.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s the stuff!” yells Dog-Rib.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s real actin’.”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Jist then in comes Hank and old Zibe.</p>
+
+<p>Hank’s hands are tied behind him, there’s a handkerchief around his
+eyes, and Zibe is proddin’ him with a gun. He makes Hank set down in a
+chair, and then he turns to Limpy.</p>
+
+<p>“So yo’re here, eh? Playin’ the game my way, eh?”</p>
+
+<p>Limpy begins to wipe his eyes and beller.</p>
+
+<p>“I have been a proud man,” he states emphatic, “but likker brought me to
+this. I have bited the hand that fed me. I sold my soul for gin, Simon
+Legree. Yes, I will go in with you, even to the depths of hell.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, ha-a-a-a-a!” sneers Zibe. “Well, we win, Lord Worthington. Without
+Howard Chesterfield that horse never can win&mdash;and there sets Howard
+Chesterfield. We hold him until after the race. He will be disgraced in
+the eyes of his sweetheart, who will marry me. Ah, ha-a-a-a-a!”</p>
+
+<p>I swear I never did see Susie, until there she was on the stage, with a
+two-barrel shotgun in her hands, pointin’ it at Zibe.</p>
+
+<p>“Hands up, you foul beast,” says she, and Zibe puts up his hands.</p>
+
+<p>“You think his sweetheart will marry you, Simon Legree? Bah! If you was
+the last man in the world, I wouldn’t marry you. Uncle Tom, will you
+take ropes and bind these foul vultures?”</p>
+
+<p>Well, I shore tied ’em up tight. Susie took the ropes off Hank and he
+stood up straight and looked down at her.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank yuh, Little Eva,” says he. “I heard what yuh said to Legree, and
+I hate to disappoint yuh. I’m a fair man, and no falsehood ever passed
+my lips. I don’t love you&mdash;I love Gwendolyn.”</p>
+
+<p>Susie takes a deep breath, points her nose toward the ceilin’ and says,
+“Oh, woe is me, I am undone!”</p>
+
+<p>And then she let loose all holts and went down so hard that she busted
+two boards in that floor. Hank puts one hand over his eyes and kinda
+staggers around sayin’ “I’ve broken her heart, I’ve broken her heart!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yo’re right!” yells somebody in the audience. “I heard it break, Hank.”</p>
+
+<p>Hank flops his arms and turns to me.</p>
+
+<p>“Uncle Tom, I believe I have killed her. I’ll have to carry her home.”</p>
+
+<p>Hank tried three different holts and they all slipped.</p>
+
+<p>“Damn it, Susie, help yourself a little, can’tcha?” he whispers.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m supposed to be swooned,” she whispers. “Pick me up, you idiot.”</p>
+
+<p>“Git her by the legs, Hozie,” whispers Hank.</p>
+
+<p>“You touch my legs, and I’ll kick yuh loose from the surroundin’
+country,” hisses Susie.</p>
+
+<p>Hank straightens up and turns toward the audience.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, I cannot touch her,” says he. “She looks so peaceful in death.”</p>
+
+<p>Susie took a kick at me and I got away fast. She turned over and got to
+her feet, as Hank lifts up both hands and says real loud, “I’ll leave
+her here for the angels, while I go to ride for love.”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>But he didn’t. Susie socked him one on the back of the neck with a right
+swing and he went off the stage into the three-piece orchestra, with
+both legs in the air, while the committee stood up and whistled through
+their fingers, and somebody had sense enough to yank down the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>The committee brought Hank back with them. He was smiling sweetly, but
+as an actor he’s a total loss.</p>
+
+<p>“This here show,” says Dog-Rib, “is kinda jumpy, it seems to me. We’ve
+been tryin’ all along to find out what it’s all about. That there last
+act was plenty actful, as yuh might say, but we dunno what it was
+about.”</p>
+
+<p>I didn’t wait to listen to the argument. Peewee got that bottle they
+used in the last act, and we emptied it together. We’re leanin’ up
+against a black curtain at the back of the stage, and all to once
+somethin’ hit Peewee and knocked him plumb up past the treadmill, where
+he landed on his hands and knees.</p>
+
+<p>“Yuh better git away from there, Hozie,” says Limpy. “That racehorse is
+behind the curtain.”</p>
+
+<p>We stretched Peewee out on the floor in a corner, and the rest of us are
+asked to come out on the stage. They’re all inquirin’ for Miss Wimple.</p>
+
+<p>“She’s gone down to the hotel to git the money,” says Judgment. “She
+said, bein’ as the play turned out like it did, she wanted the money out
+of her hands; so I told her to bring it up here for a settlement. Her
+and Susie had a fight over them love scenes, and she was through up
+here.”</p>
+
+<p>“We don’t need her,” says Susie. “If she was actin’ for saw mills, she
+wouldn’t git a sliver in her finger. Is everythin’ all set?”</p>
+
+<p>Susie laid down on the floor and Zibe fastened a belt around her. She’s
+all dressed in white, with a couple things that might be mistaken for
+wings. We all squats down around her. They’ve got a heavy wire ownin’ up
+from that belt. Somebody pulled the curtain, and the three-piece
+orchestry begins playin’ “Nearer My God to Thee,” kinda soft.</p>
+
+<figure id='i005'>
+  <img src="images/illus-005.jpg" 
+  alt="" data-role="presentation"
+  style="width:100%">
+</figure>
+
+<p>“Uncle Tom,” says Susie, her voice kinda cracked, “I’m goin’ to leave
+yuh. I’m goin’ to my place beyond the skies.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Noon begins to blubber.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t cry,” says Susie. “It’s better this way. Tell Howard that I
+forgive him for everythin’. Ah. I hear the angels callin’. Can’t you
+hear ’em, Uncle Tom?”</p>
+
+<p>“She’s dyin’,” wails Mrs. Noon.</p>
+
+<p>“Git yore feet braced, Burlap,” says Oscar Tubbs, up there, on that
+two-by-six.</p>
+
+<p>“Angel voices,” says Susie. “They’re callin’ me home.”</p>
+
+<p>“Pull, you damn’ fools!” yelps Oscar.</p>
+
+<p>And Little Eva starts on her long trip, as yuh might say. Up and up she
+goes, head and feet down, them spangled wings straight up. I’ve allus
+had my own idea of an angel, and Susie didn’t fit that idea.</p>
+
+<p>Then the angel stopped and kinda hung there, swingin’ around.</p>
+
+<p>“Keep her goin’!” hisses old Zibe from the side of the stage.</p>
+
+<p>“The angels are takin’ her away,” wails Mrs. Noon.</p>
+
+<p><em>Cra-a-a-ack!</em></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>That two-by-six snapped by too much weight, and down comes the handmade
+heaven. Susie lit on her head, and here comes Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson
+and Fetlock Feeney, follered by that busted two-by-six. Oscar lit on his
+feet, busted plumb through where Susie had already cracked the boards,
+and stopped with only his head in sight.</p>
+
+<p>It shook the whole stage and also the whole danged house. One of
+Burlap’s boots hit me in the head, but as my lights went dim, I heard
+somebody yellin’, “Three angels gone to hell a’ready, and the fourth one
+dropped for reasons knowed to all of us!”</p>
+
+<p>I woke up with Zibe and Zeke Hardy moppin’ me head with cold water, and
+I can hear Dog-Rib arguin’ at the top of his voice, “I don’t care a dang
+if Hank is still knocked out&mdash;we’ll have that there hoss race, or our
+money back. You’ve done advertised a race, and we crave a race.”</p>
+
+<p>“But there ain’t no jockey to ride that race,” pleads Judgment. “You can
+see for yourself that Hank Potts ain’t fit to ride nothin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“Suit yourself. I’ve done sent a couple men down to the hotel to set on
+that safe, where yuh keep the money. Oasis and Alkali towns crave that
+horse race; so it’s shore up to you.”</p>
+
+<p>They go stompin’ out, while the crowd out in front makes all kinds of
+noise. I sabes them people, and if we don’t give ’em what they want,
+they’ll take the hall apart.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you loyal to San Pablo, Hozie?” asks Zeke.</p>
+
+<p>“Look at me and answer yore own question.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re a good rider. Hozie: ride for the honor of San Pablo. Never let
+Oasis say that we didn’t make good. Yo’re the man of the hour&mdash;the best
+rider in the San Pablo range. Think of poor old Judgment Jones and the
+starvin’ cannibals he aims to help with that money. Will yuh, Hozie?”</p>
+
+<p>I said I wouldn’t&mdash;and swooned. When I woke up. I’ve got on Hank’s jockey
+clothes, and they’re helpin’ me on Tequila, that big, cold-jawed,
+leg-crossin’ sorrel. The horse is blindfolded, and it takes three men to
+hold his head down. The boards are crackin’ under his feet, and the
+blamed brute is scared stiff.</p>
+
+<p>To the right of me is a thing like a big window, and in that window is
+Susie, Zeke, Zibe, Mrs. Noon, Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson and Fetlock
+Feeney, and they’re all yelpin’ their heads off, as though they’re
+lookin’ at a race, yellin’, “C’mon, Thunderbolt! Come on, Thunderbolt!”</p>
+
+<p>“Let go!” yelps somebody, and they turned Tequila loose.</p>
+
+<p>“Spur him straight ahead, Hozie!” snorts somebody else.</p>
+
+<p>Spur nothin’. The next thing I knowed I was back on his rump, and he was
+climbin’ through that window affair, and the next thing I knowed I was
+out on his head, with both legs wrapped around his neck, and we’re on
+the edge of the stage, facin’ the stampede. The air is full of
+sombreros, all sailin’ at us, men are yelpin’, “Whoa! Whoa!”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I got one flash of the committee goin’ out the door on the heels of that
+stampedin’ mob, when somebody threw a chair, which landed on my head
+like a crown. It shore made me see a lot of stars, but I kept my
+presence of mind, as Tequila whirled around and went buck-jumpin’
+straight to the back of the stage, knockin’ down everythin’ in sight,
+with me still out over his ears&mdash;and then we hit that treadmill.</p>
+
+<p>Did we go? Man, that Tequila horse never ran so fast in his life. Why,
+he never had time to cross his legs. We wasn’t goin’ no place, but we
+was sure goin’ fast. Out from a pile of busted lumber I sees Peewee
+raise up, his eyes wide at what he sees.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’tcha stop this?” I yells at him. He picks up a busted two-by-four,
+staggers over and shoves it down in the treadmill. They told me
+afterward that it throwed Peewee plumb against the back of the buildin’,
+but it shore stopped the machine.</p>
+
+<p>I’m only about ten feet from the rear of the stage, which is covered
+with a black cloth, and this rear of the stage is the front of the room.</p>
+
+<p><em>Wham-blam!</em> We went off that treadmill like a skyrocket. I hears
+the crash of glass, the rippin’ of a cloth, and there I am out over the main
+street of San Pablo, two stories high, with nothin’ but air above, below
+and on all sides.</p>
+
+<p>I spread my arms like the wings of a turkey buzzard, turned over once
+and landed settin’ down on a buckboard seat, which smashed like a egg
+under the impact. It also knocked me a little colder than I was, but I
+knowed the team busted loose and was runnin’ away. But I didn’t care.
+What was one little runaway beside what I’d been through? The rush of
+night air was coolin’ to my fevered brow.</p>
+
+<p>And all of a sudden we went high-wide and handsome.
+<em>Rippety-bing-bang-boom!</em> There’s a bell ringin’, somethin’ roarin’, and
+then I landed on the seat of my pants on the depot platform and almost
+skidded into the train, which was ready to move. The team and buckboard
+was just leavin’ the other end of the platform.</p>
+
+<p>I’m knocked kinda silly, but I heard a woman scream, as she ran past me
+and onto that train. The depot agent’s boots are stickin’ up from behind
+a trunk, where the runaway knocked him. I sets there and watches the
+train go out of sight. Beside me is a lady’s handbag, jist a little one
+with a white handkerchief stickin’ out of it. I put the thing in my
+pocket and got to my feet. I say “my feet” merely because they was
+hooked onto me. I didn’t have no feelin’ in ’em.</p>
+
+<p>Then I wandered back down the street, stoppin’ now and then to get my
+toes pointed right, and finally got to the No-Limit Saloon. For a while
+I ain’t recognized, even if I have got most of the enamel knocked off my
+face. There’s Judgment Jones, talkin’ with Dog-Rib, and they come over
+to look me over.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s all right, Hozie,” says Judgment. “Oasis and Alkali are satisfied
+we done our best. Dog-Rib says they expected more action, but I been
+tellin’ him it was jist a little rural play. Next time we’ll do better&mdash;I
+hope. But, take it all in all, we got our money’s worth&mdash;but no money.</p>
+
+<p>“No money,” says he sadly. “Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T., took it
+all and pulled out durin’ the play&mdash;we think. Anyway, she ain’t here, and
+the money was given to her in the hotel. The hotel keeper said she was
+in a big hurry, and she put the money in her handbag. Now, we’re goin’
+to raffle the racehorse&mdash;if he’s still alive.”</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<figure id='i006'>
+  <img src="images/illus-006.jpg" 
+  alt="" data-role="presentation"
+  style="width:100%">
+</figure>
+
+<p>I found Peewee settin’ on the sidewalk, and we went home. He’s so bent
+out of shape that his saddle don’t fit him, but we got back to the HP
+ranch and found the horse liniment. After the first or second deluge, I
+said to him, “Peewee, that Wimple woman got away with the money.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did she? Good for her.”</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t believe in stealin’, do yuh, Peewee?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not stealin’&mdash;takin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“If somebody happened to find her handbag and kept the money, would that
+be stealin’?”</p>
+
+<p>“Finder’s keepers.”</p>
+
+<p>I tosses the handbag on the table, and Peewee goggles at it. He don’t
+ask no questions. That’s what I like about Peewee. After while he blinks
+one of his purple eyes, the other one bein’ shut tight, and says,
+“Thinkin’ it over, Hozie. I’m wonderin’.”</p>
+
+<p>He opens the bag and there’s a envelope, folded in the middle; and we
+can feel the money inside&mdash;paper money. On it is written: <i>Funds of The
+Curse of Drink</i>. It’s Judgment Jones’s writin’. Peewee shakes his head.</p>
+
+<p>“We can’t do it, Hozie. Old Judgment is the most honest man on earth. He
+needs that money for the heathen. I could never look him in the face
+again. He wouldn’t do wrong to anybody, and he needs that money. He
+trusted that woman, jist like he trusts everybody. Why, he’d even trust
+me and you.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s right,” says I. “We’ll give it back.”</p>
+
+<p>But I wanted to see how much money they took in for that show; so I
+steamed the envelope open and dumped it out. I looked at Peewee and he
+looked at me. Money? Nothin’ but a lot of old newspaper, cut to the size
+of bills. We sets there and does a lot of thinkin’, and after while
+Peewee dumps the whole works into the stove.</p>
+
+<p>And as far as we know, the heathen are in jist the same shape they were
+before we put on this show. Peewee wanted to be a contortionist, and for
+once in his life he got tied in a knot. Peewee’s satisfied. Hank’s
+satisfied, but Susie ain’t; she wanted to go all the way to heaven. I’m
+satisfied&mdash;that a cowpuncher ought to keep off every kind of a stage,
+except one with four wheels.</p>
+
+<p>Susie says it’s too bad we were obliged to miss the moral of her play,
+but I said I didn’t.</p>
+
+<p>“What was the moral?” she asks.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t kill yore jockey before the race starts,” says I.</p>
+
+<p>And I’m right, too.</p>
+
+<div class="tn">
+  <p>
+    Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 10, 1929 issue of
+    <i>Short Stories</i> magazine.
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75018 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-14 00:08:36 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-14 00:08:36 -0800
commit	39770564868b0a56f9f82cba994934fd3793472c (patch)
tree	d7724d8772c10ff5b8a4a10916f00e1327b73381