The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1920-07-16

I'd picked up with Hard-Faced Mike
out in the North Dakota harvest field,
had seen him off and on all winter
while we was both loafin' around Chi
cago warehouses, and in the spring
we'd shipped out together for rail
road construction job in Montana.
II, was in Miles City that Hard
Faced Mike runs onto some ac-
quaintance of his in pool hall, and
right away he wants me to beat it
lack to Iowa with him. He'd argued
me into gettin off at a little junction
before pullin' into certain tank town
and we was hittin' the dusty road be-
tween the Iowa cornfields when / got
out of him why he was SO anxious to
make" the town, and yet so ALFRED
sneaky about it.
II amt been back here for II
years." he explains, pullin' the rim
of his black hat down over his eyes
as an automobile tipped past us. But
don't feel like takin' any chances of
being recognized"
.sWhat was it?" I asks. Whats
the constable in the town ahead here
apt to pick you up for?"
He didn't answer for minute
Just shifted his hot black coat to his
other arm and kept poundin' along
in the dust with those clumsy shoes
of his.
"She was hired girl that worked
in the neighborhood," he grumbless
finally "She wrote me letter about
her troubles while l was down a.
Chickamaugua with the militia COM.
pany for the Spanish-American war.
fooled her. l didn't come back with
the rest of the boys that fall. After
gettin' that letter I didn't intend to
ever come back, but Hank Bayles tells
me out there in Miles City about the
old man havin' dropped off. The old
man had a place here, and I'm goin'
to cash in on it and go back and buy
a share in Hanks pool hail."
Well, it was all out in breath.
How he'd been Twin the past II years
was written all over him. He had the
hobo way of carryin' his coat; there
was the DO dent in his limp-brimmed
black hat, the DO twist in his mouth
when he talked, and the suspicious 10
squint to his eyes.
"This has got to be great coun-
try through here" l remarks, glancin'
over the June-high cornfields. 81 hope
the old man left you quite place.
So you was one of the soldier boys,
eh?"
ut was just an acre or two and
the house." he mumbles, "but Hank
seemed to think it would bring me
penty enough to buy an interest in
with him. There's an old guy who s
Twin in the neighborhood who'll be
glad to close the deal with me provid'
he gets his rake-off big enough and
he's the kind, too, who'll keep mum
about me bein' around here"
81 see" says, you're anxious to
see this old guy who's strong for first
mortgages, and you're just as anxious
about not SEEM this hired girl"
Gust playin' safe," Hard-Faced
Mike assures. "She really didn't have
nothin on me. Hardly anybody had
ever seen us together; we'd always
taken the back streets. See that court
house tower and the water works
standpipe stickin' out above the
naples there? That's the burg. Well
cut through these here WOODS. It's
just as close, and I amt stuck OH
passin' any more of those d-n auto
mobiles"
You see, there wasn't much of a
homecomin' thrill in Hard-Faced
Mikes system. Henry Klagge, the
alderman who owned the barrel house
in Chicago where we'd hung out most
of the winter, had given my partner
his name, and it was good one Here
he was within mile of his old home
town and he merely looked tired,
dusty and disguised.
You could see plain enough that
the cool, green cornfields, shimmerin'
in the sun, that we'd walked through
had been just cornfields without the
cool green and the simmer He
wasn't hearin' the finches singin' in
the sumac bushes on the roadside,
and the woods we was gettin' to was
awakenin' no more memories than a
rabbit. The expression on his dusty
and sweaty and sun-peeled face as
we climbed through the barbed wire
fence to get into the woods showed
how the callouses had layered about