Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-09-10

but only kitchen accomplishments, all
this battles Shorty at first.
He just says "Yes'm'' and Nom
and takes time to size her up.
She's pretty, with long lashes and
dark eyes and black hair done up ac-
cordin' to the latest wrinkle, so Shorty
takes heart, and him bein' active as a
cat thataway, she's no sooner got him
On his head than he skins the cat and
comes up on his feet. SO to speak. and
after supper he's talkin' and actin like
a town boy to the best of his knowl
edge.
Ruth don't come ont on the porch
that night, 50 he's .ot the good locker
all to hisself. He told me when he
comes by my place the next day.
pete, I've had women stare me
down, but I'm blamed if ever l was
got away with before because one
wouldn't look at me-"
But I've noticed them women with
long eye winkers often. and it's lookin'
down that's their strongest card.
You may hold high, jack, but it's low
and the game they're playin' fer, and
they most generally git it.
Jessie got to sayin' that if she didn't
have a sweetheart back where she
comes from she'd just love Shorty to
death.
Sometimes she'd intimate that sht
wasn't livin' out land and didn't have
to stay the three years out like her
folks did.
took Shorty away from them other two
girls.
"That's Just the trouble" she says
with a sigh. "If | could only look al
it as you do here | wouldn't mind, but
back where / came from they call il
takin' the leavin's. | suppose" she
says, "it's due to you hayin' more boys
than girls here, and it's just the othei
way back there
She said she just wished Shorty
hadn't ever had no girl but her.
You can catch most any kind of a
fish If you use the right bait, and then
inklin's of a lover of Jessie's shore
done the work for Shorty.
wouldn't never have told him about
it If he had beer unpopular with the
women, but it was too good to keep
for iggers don't lie, and there was nc
way for him to git around the number
of girls he'd had before Jessie ever
came.
So he took to goin' to Headwater oil
Square Deal when he had to go to
town to lay suspicion about the Sweet
Springs girl, and he nearly starved his
self to death to keep from goin' to the
house because Jessie complained about
Kit Atchison.
And poor little Kit lost all her cute
pert ways and went around with hei
head not combed pretty near all day.
Then, ~womanlike, quick as she's
caught about the slickest fish in thu
tank, Jessie gifts plumb scornful OIL
him.
She don't keer to ride with him any
more, sayin's the sun is too hard OF
her skin, and Ruth, who is freckled as
a turkey egg already, takes to goin
out in her place.
Pretty soon she knows more about
this country than Jessie would pick III
in a hundred years and can read
Shorty's brands and is learnin' the COW
business like a rancher's daughter
She's a sweet, gentle girl n has
plenty of good horse sense, so Shorty
gifts so he wants to talk to her and
Just take it out in lookin' at Jessie.
These hester shacks, consistin' OF
two rooms and a lean-to kitchen, don't
give much room for dividin' up into
groups, so when Shorty comes to see
Jessie and they was setting in the
parlor of a evenin' Ruth couldn't stroll
off into the library or the DRAWN
room or her bedroom, as they do in
novels.
All them bein' one and the same
with said parlor, her only place TIC
stroll was into the room where the old
folks was in bed or the kitchen, which
was only big enough to cook and eat
in and partitions that you could throw
a jack rabbit through.
So on fine eyenin's she would git out
on the gallery in the moonlight, and
Shorty, bein' polite thataway, would
name it to Jessie that they go out and
keep Ruth company.
At first Jessie d go and stay until
Ruth would go to bed. Then she got
so she'd stay a little while, not talkin
any, and then make some excuse like
her head achin' and retire herself. But
finally one night when Shorty suggest
ed the gallery Jessie was just cut with
it all.
'If you come to see Ruth" she says
petulant, ''just leave me out of it. II
you come to see me. just leave her out
Of 1t. She's imposin' herself where
she's not wanted anyhow" she com
planned, 'and trying to work on every