The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-10-21

} could point to, with or without pride
. for the position?'
Why says he, in his kind of South
ern system of prOcrastinated accents
'haint you heard tell? There ain
any man, black or white, in the Blue
Ridge that can tote off a shoat as easy
as L can without bein' heard, seen, OF
cotched. 1 can lift a shoat,' he goes on
out of pen, from under a piazza, a
the trough, in the woods, day Or night
anywhere or anyhow, and | guarantee
nobody won't hear a squeal. It's al
in the way You grab hold of 'em and
carry 'em afterwards. Some day goes
on this gentle despoiler of pig-pens. =
hope to become reckernzed as the
champion shoat-stealer of the world
! It's proper to be ambitious, says
I; and hog-stealing will do very well
for Mount Nebo; but in the outside
world, Mr. Tatum, it would be con
sidered as crude a piece of business as
a bear raid on Bay State Gas. How
ever, it will do as a guarantee of good
faith. Wen go into partnership. I've
got a thousand dollars cash capital;
and with that hOmeward- pIods at
mosphere of yours we ought to be able
to win out a few shares of Soon Parted,
preferred, in the money market
! so I attaches RUFF, and we go away
/ from Mount Nebo down into the low
lands. And all the way I coach him
! for his part in the CRAFTS 1 had in mind
1 had idled away two months on the
Florida coast, and was feelin all to
the Ponce de Leon, besides having so
! many new schemes up my sleeve that
i I had to wear kiInonos to hold 'em.
II intended to assume a funnel shape
and NOW a path nine miles wide
| through the farming belt of the Middle
West; SO we headed in that direction.
But when we got as far as Lexington
we found Binkley Brothers circus
there, and the bluegrass peasantry
romping into town and pounding the
Belgian blocks with their hand-pegged
sabots as artless and arbitrary as an
extra session of Datto Bryan duma.
1 never pass a circus without pulling
the valve.cord and coming down for
little Key West money; so I engaged
a couple of rooms and board for Rufe
and me at a house near the circus
grounds run by a widow lady named
PeeVy. Then / took Rufe to a clothing
store and gents -outfitted him. He
showed up strong, as l knew he would,
after he was rugged up in the ready
made rutabaga regalia. Me and old
Misfitzky stuffed him into a bright
blue suit with a Nile green visible
plaid effect, and riveted on a fancy
vest of a light Tuskegee Normal tan
color, red necktie, and the yellowest
pair of shoes in town. They were the
first clothes Rufe had ever worn ex-
crin ho, lou I'D
ternut top-dressing OF his native kraal. |
and he looked as se1f-conscious
as an Igorrote with a new nose-ring. |
THAT night I went down to the cir !,
Gus tents and opened a small shell
game. Rufe was to be the capper.
gave him a roll of phony currency to bet |
with and kept a bunch of it in a special !
pocket to pay his winnings out Of .
No; didn't mistrust him; but l simply I
can't manipulate the ball to lose when !
see real money bet. My fingers go on
a strike every time I try it.
Il set up my little table and began
to show them how easy it was to guess
which shell the little pea was under.
The unlettered kinds gathered in a |
thick semicircle and began to nudge
elbows and banter one another to bet. /
Then was when Rufe ought to have !
up and called the turn on
the little joker for a few tens and f1ves /.
to get them started. But, no Rufe. I'd !
seen him two or three times walking
about and looking at the side-show
pictures with his mouth full of peanut
candy; but he never came nigh
THE crowd piked little; but trying
to work the shells without a capper is
like fishing without bait. / closed the
game with only forty-two dollars of
the unearned increment, while I had
been counting on yanking the yeomen
for two hundred at least. Invent home
at eleven and went to bed. I supposed
that the circus had proved too alluring
for Rufe, and that he had succumbed to
it, concert and all; but meant to give
him a lecture on general business prin-
ciples in the morning.
Just after Morpheus had got both
my shoulders to the shuck mattress
[ hears a housefuI of unbecoming and
ribald noises like a youngster screech-
ing with green-apple collie. 1 opens my
door and calls out in the hall for the
widow lady, and when she sticks her
head out. I says: Mrs. Peevy, ma am,
would you mind choking off that kid
Of yours so that honest people can get
heir rest?
g Sir says she, it's no child Of
nine. It's the pig squealing that your
friend Mr.. Tatum brought home to his
room a couple of hours ago. And if
you are uncle or second cousin or
brother to it, I'd appreciate your stop
ping its mouth, sir, yourself, if you !
please