Alfred Henry Lewis

“ We are the jury, and in favour of hanging him, ain't we, Billy?”
Billy nodded emphatically.
“But, George,” expostulated Anna Marie, “it is so cruel! so brutal!”
“Brutal!” scoffed George. “Don't they hang folks for murder every day? You wear bloomers and talk of being a new woman and having the rights of a man! I have heard you with that Sanford girl! And now you come out here and try to talk off a yellow dog who is guilty of murder, and admits it by his silence! You would act nice if it was a real man and a real murder case! Come on, Billy; let's string him up.” ”

“ For a month Wolfville saw naught of Riley Bent. He was supposed to be two-score miles away on the range with his cattle. Wagon Mound Sal, with a trace of grimness about the mouth, conducted her laundry, and, in the absence of competition, waxed opulent. She looked confidently for the return of Riley Bent; as what woman, knowing her spells and powers, would have not. ”

“ And Slippery Elm Benton trembled like a child.
“Heed her not, dearest,” murmured Agnes Huntington. “Surrender yourself, as I do, to the solemn currents of our love. And, darling, promise me again, you will do what is needful for the Phosphate Bill. It would brighten the last days of dear old Uncle Silver Tip.”
“Where is your aged relative?” asked Slippery Elm Benton, moodily.
“We'd better not call him, dearest,” she said. “Uncle is lushing to-night, and he is unpleasant when he has been tanking up. What you do for the Phosphate Bill, you do for me.” ”

“ His occasional appearance in its single street in a voluntary of nice feats of horsemanship, coupled with an exhibition of pistol shooting, in which old tomato cans and passé beer bottles perform as targets, has hitherto excited no more baleful sentiment in the Wolfville bosom than disgust.
“Shootin' up the town a whole lot!” is the name for this engaging pastime, as given by Cheyenne Bill, and up to date the exercise has passed unchallenged.
But to-day it is different. Camps like individuals have moods, now light, now dark; and so it is with Wolfville. ”

“ Before Jess, the pretty girl, arrived, the cowboys were friends and the tenor of their calm relations was rippleless as a mirror. Jess was not there a day, before each drew himself insensibly from the others, while a vague hostility shone dimly in his eyes. It was the instinct of the fighting male animal aroused by the presence of Jess, the pretty girl. Jess, however, proceeded on her dainty way, sweetly ignorant of the sentiments she awakened.
Men are mere animals. Women are, too, for that matter. But the latter are different animals from men. ”

“ Smith's prostrate cripple reached up as its foe approached, seized it with its beak, and struggled to its one good foot. In the buckle that followed, the one gaff by some sleight of the cripple slashed the Esslein chicken over the eyes and blinded it. The muscles closed down and covered the eyes. Otherwise the Esslein cock was unhurt.
Then began a long, fierce, yet feeble fight. One chicken couldn't stand and the other couldn't see. The Smith chicken would lie on its side and watch its rival with eyes blazing hate, while the Esslein chicken, blind as a bat, would grope for him. ”

“ It turns out as Killifer predicted. He read the lady aright. There is nothing in Wolfville to which she yields approval. It would be as impossible as it would be terrific, to repeat in print the conduct of this remarkable woman. She utterly abashes Enright; while such hare-hearts as Jack Moore, Cherokee Hall, Dave Tutt, Texas Thompson, Short Creek Dave and Dan Boggs, fly from her like quicksilver. Even Doc Peets acknowledges himself defeated and put to naught. ”

“ Aunt Ann, as usual, was at the head of the decorating committee. The Church was full of long strings of evergreen, which Aunt Ann's satellites were festooning about the walls, and to that end there was much climbing of step-ladders, much standing on tip-toe, much pounding of thumbs with caitiff tack-hammers, vilely wielded by girlish hands. Occasionally some fair step-ladder maid gave the public a glimpse of a well-filled woollen stocking as she went up and down, or stood on her toes on the top step. At this, the young men present always blushed, while the maidens tittered. ”

“ Just prior to the call I heard Martin whisper huskily over his shoulder to a rough customer who sat just back of and above him, at Spot's corner of the pit:
“Stand by wit' that glim now!” Martin muttered without turning his head.
At the call “Time!” McDermot released Pincher across in his corner. Pincher's eyes were riveted on Spot, just over the way, and there's no doubt of Pincher's full purpose to close with him at once. There was no more of hesitation in his stout heart than in Spot's, who stood mouth open and fire-eyed, waiting. ”

“ I never saw Willie look so well,” she said. “He's very much improved. You must have taken a woild of pains wit' Willie.”
The Undertaker was silent.
Struck by this, Arabella Weld turned her full lustrous lamps on the Undertaker and saw it all. It was for her, the loving heart beside her had toiled over Deceased like an artist over a picture.
Swift is Love, and the Undertaker, quivering with his great passion, twigged in an instant that Arabella was onto him. A vast joy swept his heart like a torrent. ”

“ There was a foot of snow on the ground. The fence corners showed great drifts, while each rail of the fence had a ruffle of its own of cold, white snow. As far as one could see in the moonlight, the fields to each side were like milk. In the background stood the grey woods laced against the sky. Here and there a lamp shone in a neighbour's window like an eye of fire.
Stowe Township was out that night. The steady beat of the bells could be heard ahead and behind. ”

“ Our bears, too, are creatures of vast physical power. Often, as I rode the mountain for cattle, have I come across a dead and fallen pine tree, which would have defeated the best efforts of a horse to move, completely torn from its bed in the earth and leaves, and either overturned or thrown one side by the mighty arms of a bear. He was in search of a dinner cf grubs—those white, helpless worms which make their dull homes under rotten logs—and Sir Bear made no more ado of lifting and laying aside a pine tree in his grub-hunt than would you or I of a billet of firewood. ”

“ Men are even seen to drink alone in a sullen, morbid way.
Clearly something is wrong with Wolfville. The popular discontent is so sufficiently pronounced as to merit the notice of leading citizens. Therefore it is no marvel that when Old Man Enright, who, by right of years—and with a brain as clear and as bright as a day in June—is the head man of the hamlet, meets Doc Peets at the bar of the Red Light, the discussion falls on affairs of public concern. ”

“ Not thirty seconds will elapse before as many cattle will be by the side of the threatened calf, lusting for battle. They make such a phalanx of sharp, threatening horns, coupled with their rolling, wrath-red eyes and ferocious breathings, that, I warrant you, they have so shocked the nerves of past bears and panthers, it has become instinct with these latter to give the whole horned, truculent brood a wide berth. ”

“ Women were not frequent in Wolfville, and on her coming, “The Cactus” had many admirers. Every man in camp loved her the moment she stepped from the Tucson stage; that is, every man save Cherokee Hall. That scientist, given wholly to faro as a philosophy, had no time—in a day before he met Faro Nell—for so dulcet an affair as love. ”

“ Where did you collar him, Bill?”
“I sees him paddin' along on Broadway,” replied the bluff man, “and I tumbles to the sucker like a hod of brick. I knowed he was a sneak the first look I gives; and the second I says to meself, 'he's wanted for a watch!' Then I nails him.”
“Do you know who he is?” asked the chief.
“My name,” said Binks, who was recovering from the awful daze that had seized him, “my name is B——”
“Shet up!” roared the bluff man. “Don't give us any guff! It'll be the worse for you!” ”

“ A girl friend who had stood appalled at the vigour of Anna Marie asked her as to the bloomers.
“They are good things,” observed Anna Marie. “There's a comfort in bloomers which lurks not in the tangled wilderness of the ordinary skirt. Their fault is that in donning bloomers one does not put them on over one's head. It is a great defect. As it is, one never feels more than half-dressed.” Anna Marie declared that the great want of the day was bloomers, through which one thrust one's arms and head in the process of harnessing.
Anna Marie had a brother George. ”

“ The world was bright to the glance of T. Jefferson Bender; the future full of promise. In his musings he saw himself striding towards surgical fame and riches over a pathway strewn with the amputational harvest of his skill. He filled the hereafter with himself routing disease; cutting down deadly maladies as a farmer might the mullein-stalk; driving before him bacteria and bacilli in herds, droves, schools and shoals. T. Jefferson Bender was a happy man, and his forehead was already, in his imaginings, kissed by the rays of a dawning professional prosperity. ”

“ It is always a spectacle to inspire, to witness a great soul rise to an occasion. Doc Peets never so proves the power of his nature as now, when the tremendous shadow of “Kif's wife” has fallen across Wolfville like a blight. Peets, following Enright's forebodings, holds a long and secret conference with the unhappy Killifer. That night Peets rides to Tucson. The next day Old Monte, with his six horses a-foam, comes crashing into Wolfville two hours ahead of schedule. Before even a mail bag is thrown off, Old Monte unpouches a telegram received at the Tucson office for Mistress Killifer. ”

“ The Block schoolhouse was crowded. Lide and Ed made their way toward the back benches. Jim Lee spoke to his daughter and growled gruffly at Ed.
The latter half growled back. Aunt Ann was all smiles and approval of Ed. At this, Ed thought her the best woman on earth except his own mother, and mentally put her next that excellent old lady in his heart.
It was a Mr. Parker who taught at the Block school-house. At 8 o'clock he rapped on the teacher's desk with a ruler, and everybody who was standing up hunted for a seat. ”

“ Let a calf raise but one yell of distress in those mountains—and I assure you he can make their walls and valleys ring with his youthful music when so disposed—and, out of canyons and off mesas, over logs and crashing through the oak bushes, will come plunging all the cattle within hearing. ”

“ So much is this true, and so little do their neighbours apprehend violence at their clumsy hands, that they who live in regions which abound in bears evince not the least alarm about the safety of their children. The babies, some as young as five or six years, roam the same mountains with the bears; and, while the latter will swoop upon a pig and run dangers with wide-open eyes in doing it, never did I hear of one who disturbed a ringlet on a child's head. They had daily opportunities enough, for many are the households to live in the wide, pine-sown Rockies. ”

“ His heart was bitter; he would be revenged on his rival.
“You've got it in for the mug!” replied Terry Devine, to whom Dennis Mulcahey had spoken. Devine was the pitcher of the opposition, and like many of his class, a low, murdering scoundrel. “But, say! Denny, if you wants to do the sucker, why don't youse give him a poke in d' face? See!”
“Such suggestions are veriest guff,” retorted Dennis Mulcahey. “Do as I bid you, caitiff, an' presume not to give d' hunch to such as I! A wild pitch is what I want whenever Marty O'Malley steps to the plate. I'll do the rest.” ”

“ CHAPTER VI When Hamilton Finnerty came to his senses he was one hundred miles on his way to New York. For an hour he was off his trolley. It was six days before he landed, and during that period he did naught but chew the rag.
Hamilton Finnerty chased straight for Harlem and sought refuge in the Ville Finnerty. He must think; he must reorganise his play! He would compile a fake calculated to make a hit as an excuse with Isabelle Imogene McSween, and cable it. All might yet be well. ”

“ Singletree Jennings's worst fears were realised. It was nine o'clock now, and he and Delia had come down to the social. Andrew Jackson had been restrained of his liberty for the previous four hours and held captive in a drygoods' box. He was now in a state of frenzy. When the curtain went up on Abraham and Isaac, Andrew Jackson burst his bonds at the rear of the stage and bore down on the Hebrew father and son like the breath of destiny. Andrew Jackson came, dragging his bush with him. ”

“ Bulls won't bite nobody.”
Thereupon I picked up Spot “to heft him.” Spot smiled widely, wagged his stumpy tail, tried to lick my face, and felt like a bundle of live steel.
“Spot's goin' to fight McDermott's Pincher,” said Martin. “And,” addressing this to Spot, “you want to watch out, old boy! Pincher is as hard as a hod of brick. And you want to look out for your Trilbys; Pincher'll fight for your feet and legs. He's d' limit, Spot, Pincher is! and you must tend to business when you're in d' pit wit' Pincher, or he'll do you. ”

“ Me old pal is still a bit shaky as to his hooks,” remarked Chucky, as he surveyed his tremulous companion, “an' a sip of d' booze wouldn't do him no harm. It ain't age; Mollie's only come sixty spaces; it's that Hum-min' Boid about which I tells youse, that's knocked his noive.”
Drinks were ordered; whiskey strong and straight for Matches. No; I've no apology for buying these folk drink. “Drink,” observed Johnson to the worthy Boswell, “drink, for one thing, makes a man pleased with himself, which is no small matter.” ”

“ A woman who is to be a helpmeet to her husband, such as I am to Binks, will be self-reliant and decide things for herself. In the little cares of life which fall to her share, let her go forward in her own strength. ”

“ They were grave, but passive like Indians. It is not good form to interfere with other people's affairs in Arizona.
Jess, the pretty girl, began singing again. The strains fell softly on the ears of the cowboys. Each, as he listened, whether onlooker or principal, felt a licking, pleased anticipation of the blood to be soon set flowing.
Nothing was said of distance. Cook and Watkins separated to twenty paces and turned to face each other. Each wore his six-shooter, the loose pistol belt letting it rest low on his hip. ”

“ Why, man! he was all over you like a panther.”
The news of the fight ran like wildfire. Everybody knew of it before an hour passed. It was a source of general satisfaction that Ed Church had whipped Fan Brown, the Hinckley bully, yet no one failed to stamp the whole proceeding as disgraceful; that is, among the older men at least.
Lide, however, when she heard of the valour of her lover felt a great tenderness for him, and was never kinder than when they drove Grey Eagle back from the Block schoolhouse spelling-bee that crisp winter night. ”