White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1926-06-11
CONTINUED from Last Week)

1--WE was half way home before
she said anything more. She spoke
sudden, too, and jumped. You see,
l was all keyed up.
After I'd said couple or maybe
three things to my Jerry mule and
handed him a long wipe of the whip,
she reaches over and taps me on the
shoulder.
"'Hey you!' she says. Lay off
the rough stuff and treat the poor
jackrabbit decent she says.
Excuse me- | says, I been skin
min mules for thirty year and l
reckon | know their laguagen l says.
You can't treat no mule like per-
feet lady!
"Well, bet if you was down
there in the hot sand, sweatin' along
in greasy harness. she says, and that
pore tired mule was up here drivin,'
why, l bet you he'd be an angel Of
mercy compared to what you aren
she says.
"'Maybe that there Jerry mule is
a friend of yours?' says, speakin
arcastic-though rememberin' that
I'm gentleman talkin' to lady.
How should l know If he happens
to be a relation of yours?' l says.
"She didn't flare up this time.
wish she had For when people talk
low at me and their faces are white
and their eyes black, why. l get on
easy.
"'You wait, Oscar!' she says, and
her voice sounds terrible venomous
and deadly. You wait! I've leased
the Stovelid Hotel for a year. she
says, and I've got bunch that Pm
goin to show few old desert cent?
pedes where to head In she imparts.
You're crude she says. And you
need the gentle feminine touch of
woman who knows how to swing a
pick handle to take some of the
roughness out of your souls, she
says"
And then the hotel dinner gong
rang.
| shall never forget the first meal at
the hotel after the arrival of Birdie
Calamus. And the thing that stands
out clearest inmy recollection of that
momentous occasion is the white lin
en- tablecloth. That tablecloth was the
white banner Of femininity; the visi-
BILE symbol of the new crusade which
Birdie Calamus was carrying into the
heart of the desert Old Shad Popley
regarded it with bullying eyes BY and
by he touched it with scared fingers.
Boys" he whispered fearfully,
what l want to know is: where am
going to pile my potato peelin's?"
"Eeat EN-, you darned old whip
poorwill-eat 'em!" growled Pachechc
Dan. "Ain't you had no raisin'?"
Suddenly the door kicked open and
Birdie came in for our orders. First
however, she paused just inside the
door and looked tus. That was all
She did not speak; just looked at us;
but that look fayed the skin from our
pride and showed us our crudeness-
the crudeness of male creatures who
had temporarily forgotten the instinct
which causes the male to preen be-
fore the female Of the species. l was
conscious of my greasy shirt, reeking
of sweat and CRIME and the evil smell
| of stale powder smoke. In that
| whetched instant l felt myself akin
to poor old Poker Terribone, sitting
| alone and disconsolate in Alb Linder's
saloon, afraid to come over to dinner
was licked.
Nor did we linger at the table
Swiftly we finished the meal and
skunk out, walking on clumsy tip-toes
1t was as though we had been partici
pating in some strange, new rite.
Back in the soloon we satfor long
| tlme, Trying TO ADJUST ourselves to this
! new world into which we had beer
transported by girl and white ia
| blecloth. Poker Terribone came ir
| from the stable, where he had gone tc
bed down his mules.
why don't you go across and gel
your super, Poke?" asked Daddy Bur
ris with feeble attempt at his old
| time popularity.
Poke dassen't!' said Uncle Tommy
Saddler with sickly grin. Poke, he
| amt got the nerve to go to dinner!
| He's afraid of Birdie!"
"Birdie!" walled old Poker Terri
| bone goaded into speech by his mis-
cry She amt no Birdie-she's hen
hawk"
AS the days went on we discovered
that Birdie Calamus really meant to
carry out her ominous prophecy, made