c'latteral till they make up the rest of the two hundred and fifty dollars. And the hosses and wagon was now in the livery stable next to Smith's Palace Hotel, which Jake run that too.
Well, I thinks to myself, it IS a dern shame, and I felt sorry fur them two fellers. Fur our town was jest as good as stealing that property. And I felt kind o' shamed of belonging to such a town, too. And I thinks to myself, I'd like to help 'em out of that scrape. And then I seen how I could do it, and not get took up fur it, neither. So, without thinking, all of a sudden I jumps up and says:
"Say, Doctor Kirby, I got a scheme!"
They jumps up too, and they looks at me startled. Then the doctor kind o' laughs and says:
"Why, it's the young blacksmith!"
Looey, he says, looking at me hard and suspicious:
"What kind of a scheme are you talking about?"
"Why," says I, "to get that outfit of yourn."
"You've been listening to us," says Looey. Looey was one of them quiet-looking fellers that never laughed much nor talked much. Looey, he never made fun of nobody, which the doctor was always doing, and I wouldn't of cared to make fun of Looey much, either.
"Yes," I says, "I been laying here fur quite a spell, and quite natcheral I listened to you, as any one else would of done. And mebby I can get that team and wagon of yourn without it costing you a cent."
Well, they didn't know what to say. They asts me how, but I says to leave it all to me. "Walk right along down this here crick," I says, "till you get to where it comes out'n the woods and runs acrost the road in under an iron bridge. That's about a half a mile east. Jest after the road crosses the bridge it forks. Take the right fork and walk another half a mile and you'll see a little yaller-painted schoolhouse setting lonesome on a sand hill. They ain't no school in it now. You wait there fur me," I says, "fur a couple of hours. After that if I ain't there you'll know I can't make it. But I think I'll make it."
Prev.
Back
Top