The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-04-28
THE MASTER
MECHANIC
STOR

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''oh, no. No. That's your story.
Neishbor."
It amt no story teller
Just an able jawed liar suggested
Callahan through a benevolent blush
haze.
''DeIaroo's story wasn't any lie.
though" muttered Neighbor. But
fellow would think it was to hear it.
Now. he would. for fact, wouldn't
he?"
If you want him. quick and short, it
would be,-Whiskers, secret societies.
statistics and plug tobacco, the latter
mostly worked up. That was MAZE
Sampson.
Biuntly. a wind bag; go pounds of
atmosphere, up on benevolent frater-
mites, up on politics, up on the money
question. up on everything The seven
financial cOnspiracies engaged Maze
Simpsons attention pretty continually
and had for him a practical applica-
ton. There were never less than seven
conspiracies afoot in Medicine Bend to
make Maze Sampson pay up.
Pay2 Indeed, he did pay. He was
always paying. 1t was not question
of paying; not at all. It was a ques-
ton Of paying up, which is different
The chfldren-they- were bFickbat
tow headed. putty faced, wash eyed
youngsters of all sizes and conditions
About MAZE Simpsons children there
was but one distinguishing character
istic-they were all boys, nothing but
boys. and they spread all over town
Was there a baby run oVerY It was
MAZE Sampson s. Was there child
lost? MAZE SIMPSONS. Was there
violently large headed, coarse featured,
hangdog. gathering sort of chap any
VIII arOund-in the street, station,
roundhouse, yards, stock pens? It was
a brickbat, sure-one of Maze Samp-
sons brickbat boys.
The Simpsons we're at the end of the
street. and the end of the street was
up the mountain. Maze SIMPSONS lot
s'raired," as Neighbor put it-stoOd on
its hind legs His house had a startling
tumble over aspect as you approached
It. The back end of his lot ran up into
the sheer, but he marked the line
sharply by a kind of horizontal fence,
because the cliff just above belonged to
the corporation that owned everything
else on earth around Medicine Bend.
MAZE Sampson did not propose to let
any grasping corporation encroach on
his lines, so he built, and added to from
time to time, a cluster OF things on the
hind end of his lot-an eruption of
small buildings like pimples on a boys
nose. running down IN size from the
barn to the last drygoods box the boys
had heaved up the slope for a dog
house. To add to the variety some one
Of the structures was always getting
away in the wind, and if anything
smaller than a hotel was seen careen-
ing across lots in a Medicine Bend
breeze it was spotted without further
investigation as MAZE Simpsons. When
the gale abated Joe McBracken, who
conducted the local dray line. was pref
ty sure to be seen with henh ouse or
a wood shed, or something likewise,
loaded on his trucks headed for MAZE
SIMPSONS. once the whole lean-to of
the house blew off, but Joe McBracken
stood ready for any emergency. He
met the maverick addition at the foot
of the grade, loaded It on his house
moving truck, hitched on four bron-
chos craWled inside the structure and
getting the lines through the front win
dow. drove up Main street before the
wind had gone down Joe was photo
graphed in the act, and afterwaFd used
the exhibit in getting judgment against
Male Sampson for his bill.
Now. a man like Maze wouldn't be
likely to have very much Of a run nor
very much of an engine. He had the
264. an old pop bottle, with a stack like
q tepee turned upside down. For a run
he had always trains Nos. % and 80,
the local freights with an accommOda-
ton coach east of Anderson. There
were times of stress frequently on the
West End, times when everybody ran
first in first out, except MAZE Sampson.
He always ran Nos. % and 30 west to
Silver River and back. A pettifogging,
cheap, jerk water run with no rights to
speak Of, not even against respectable
handcars.
The only things MAZE Sampson did
not have to dodge were tramps blan-
ket Indians and telegraph poles; every
thing else side-tracked Nos. 29 and 80
and MAZE Sampson. Almost every body
on through trains must at some time
have seen MAZE Sampson putting on a
siding as Moore or Mullen shot by on
No. / or No. 2. Maze was so big and
his cab so little that when he got his
head through the window you couldn't
see very much Of the cab for shoulders
and whiskers and things. From the
car window he looked like a fourteen
year-old boy springing out OF ten
year-old Jacket. Three things only
made MAZE tolerable. First. the num-
Der OF benevolent orders he belonged
to; second, Delaroo; third. Martie.
Maze Sam pson was joiner and
sitter up. He would join anything on
the West End that had a ritual. q grip
and g password. and he would sit up
night after night with anybody that
had a broken leg or a fever, and, if
nothing better offered. Maze, rather
than 20 to bed, would tackle a man
with the stomach ache. This kind Of
took the cuss off, but he was that Pc
culiar he would sit up all night with a
sick man and next day make everybody
sick talking the money questlon-at
least everybody but Delaroo. II De-
LARGO was bored he never showed It,
AS long as Maze would talk DelaroO
would listen. That single word was. IN
fact the key to Delaroo. Delaroo was
a listener; for that reason nobody knew
much about him.
he wasn't a railroad man by birth,
but by adoption. Delaroo came from
the mountains; he was just a plain
mountain man. Some said his father
was trapper; If so. It explained ev-
erything-the quiet, the head bent in
ouiringly forward. the modest unob-
strusiveness of a man deaf OF a size
and shape nothing remarkable. Della
roo-but a great listener, for though
he looked like a deaf man he heard
like a dispatcher and saw marveiously
from out the ends OF his silent eyes.
Delaroo for all the world was a trap
per
round-house sweeper; then Neighbor,
40. = Ln-ae- llr.aa nut hin ~ ---l-ai1,a.