The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1916-07-26

and how much money ne maoe, ana
how handsome he looked, and what q
smart wife and children he had and
how much he liked good cigar. And
then his thoughts went back to the
time when he was a little boy and
tried to catch. other fishes on Coro-
naca creek, and how he ran bare
footed in the fields and hunted birds
nests, and ate blackberries and
plums, and how he climbed trees and
pulled down muscadine vines, and
ran rabbits and hunted squirrels, and
then he thought of his old sweet
hearts and what had become Of them.
And as he thought about these
things, he seemed TO be proud OF
himself, that he had grown to be
such a big man, and boasted in hrs
mind about selling shoes for the big
gest shoe house in the world, he said
It was, think. But his mind was
mostly on his wife, who, he said, was
the smartest woman in town, and
who bossed him, he admitted under
his breath, but he thought maybe he
needed bossing, and he said to him
self that he guessed it was a good
thing that he was married and had
children or he might be on the road
all the time, and sell all the shoes
and nobody else would sell any, and
the little children of the other sales
men, and their mammas would be
hungry for bread, and have no shoes
for the winter" And he lighted an
other cigar, fixed his bait and COM
menced to fish again. -. -.
"He must nave been bad man."
said Johnnie Fish, "but there was a
Bladder one than he down lower on
the creek, because / saw him. He
had a big hook; he said to himself
that he never fished for minnoWs,
that he was q whale himself and that
he was looking for big game. He
said he didn't have to work, that he
had a fellow named Foster working
for him, and that he had Seth and
Hatch and some other men in New
York running his business up there,
and that all the farmers had to sell
him their cotton, and that when they
cussed him he swelled up the bigger
and lust smiled and put the price
down little; and then he thought
how big a man he is in the little
town where he lives, and how the
other men in the town named Dale
and Gordon and Jenner and Allie and
others looked up to him, and how
one named Little Gus thought he
knew all about cotton; he thought
that, maybe, he didn't know it Nal,
but he said to himself it didn't make
any difference as long as he could
make the other boys think so; and
when he thought Of another big man
which buys cotton named Bah and
how he drops q bale on him now and
again and how Bob cusses, he smiled
and looked happy, and then ne
thought Of the time when he wanted
cotton badly and how mean Bob was.
to run it up on him and make him
pay too much and his smile gradually
faded; but it came back again when
he and Bob got in the market to-
gether and when they made killing.
Senatorial courtesy was working
there. And he thought, too Of his
good wife and of all she had done for
him and he knew that he was pro-
duct of her help and her goodness
and not Of his own; and then ne
went back to cotton, and he watched
it planted, and saw it grow, and he
saw the pickers in the fields, and the
wagons hauling it home, and he
heard the hum of the gins, and he
saw the wagons on the square and
he looked up and said, "It is market
ing time," and he called but to AL