The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-11-15


vafd sBndosn. ~ eive him = dollar
day ~ the mules hire. en- throw IN
tho critters feed.
"Now. dollar n iay don't look like
much ~ the foundation " fortune.
ana 4 nlnt much but heap depends
On who has 'he dollar day An when
II come 90 putin money % good
use. 1911 Waterman sure did show tai.
ent
You might ha' thought Z he'd ha'
started In 90 buy fine cioes or red
liquor. or pomps an vanitiea sich as n
good many men will when they begin
60 handle money alter beln' without II,
but Bill didn't. lie knowed the value
o. good money.
There was penny ante game goin'
on down on the levee. them days
can't say where the rousters got the
pennies, nor where they learned what
they was. for there want no pennies
used along the river them days.
1.-THE smallest there was n nickel an
nobody had much use for nickles. We
had quarters an picayunes. an the
dime was n short bit, like they called
It out West, an there want nothin'
smaller reckoned worth countin'. But
somehow the rousters learned about
pennies, an was usln' 'em to play
baby game o. draw poker.
well. Waterman he set into that
game with his first dollar, an they do
say I'm that time he hain't never
knowed what twas to 60 broke. He
were a steady, Industrious man that
never neglected a game O. poker, no
matter what the temptation was, II he
cd get any body to play with him.
I've heard tell t he's been knowed
| to play FIR As hours at a stretch, an
he were that conscientious t he would
MT quit the game to get a mite to eat.
II he cd get a Niger to go over to the
/ hotel while he was playin' and buy him
sandwich, he'd eat 1t, but IL he could
mt, he'd wait till the game broke up
an eat then.
There want an almighty lot o.
money in that there crowd o. rousters,
all told, but such as it was Water
man had 1t. If e'er one on 'em had
a dollar, 'peared like he smelled 1t,
an he'd never rest till he got the Teller
playin' an got that dollar.
Jus naturally, 'twan't long before
that sort O. thing got talked about,
an We seen that Waterman had the
makin's of a citizen into him, so
laid for him one day an got talkin
with him. Feared like a man t cd
do what he'd did might be worth dom
somepin' with.
HE were monstrous close mouthed
about hisself, like man had oughter
be talkin' to strangers, but he had
| tho hast about Iroy
ever heerd FIN a man as hadn't had
no more advantages no. he had. Pear
ed he hadn't never had no reel intsruc-
ton. so there was p'ints about the
game. such as the deal an handlin'
the discard dextrous, that he hadn't
no notion of. But he had studied out
a sort O. theory to work by that pear
ed to work all right.
HE were man of good straight re-
ligious idees, too, shown he'd had
trainin' when he was young, an had
good principles. He says to me:
'Greennut, there's a good many
plays poker 'thouten any reel notion O.
what the game is REILLY for. Pears
to me- he says, like the good Lord
had p'vided poker as a easy means o.
divertin' surplus cash I'm the pockets
o. the shif'less to them O. the thrifty.
There I've BEEN, he says, a playin'
poker with them po' benighted roust-
ers Err nigh on to three weeks, payin'
strict attention to business an I'm fix
ed comf'ble now. There amt one O.
them, though, that's got money enough
to buy drinks till the next boat comes
along
Just naturally. that vas interestin',
an so 8 to draw him along I says:
How did you manage it?'
'He sort o thought a little, an he
says:
First off, reckon it's cause play
on business principles. One o. the
things I noticed about poker was that
most every body quit loser, an I says
to myself that the best way to get
around that was not to quit. If you
don't quit you can't quit loser.
| Then l seen there was n heap de-
pendin' on how a man plays his hand.
I amt one O. them hgh-hyin' players
as is always tryin' FIR a straight flush
or four of kind.
My notion is, like the good book
says: "A pair in the hand is worth two
in the deck So when l get a pair
don't gently try to do no better with it.
] just set back an play 'em FIR all I'm
worth.
"a pat hand IS most gently good for
a pot even If there amt no more'n a
pair into it, but If you go to drawin'
three cards you give yourself away,
like
well. II was easy to see t a man
like that was worth cultivatin.. He
| nod NfI III