B. M. Bower

“ Old Shooting-star never done a blame thing but stand around in the way with his jaw hanging slack. Ellis and me sloshed water on her generous, and she come to enough to open her eyes and look around; but when she seen them walls, with that great, ungodly picture uh George Washington, she give another squawk, and come near going off again. Then she commenced to cry—and I want to tell yuh right now, that she had me going when she done that. She wasn’t no beauty, but she wasn’t as big a freak as we’d looked for her to be ”

“ Honest, I come blame near telling him to ditch it, and say nothing. But when yuh come to think uh the way they come down on yuh with both feet if yuh go monkeying with the mails, even the good of the Old Man wouldn’t hardly be worth playing the game out. So I told Ellis he better give up the letter, and not butt into no romance—if romance it was to be. Ellis took the letter in and handed it over to Shooting-star, and Shooting-star kinda breathed long and easy, and turned it over and over in his hands, like it assayed pure gold. ”

“ Author of “The Hall of Mirth,” “The Curious Mr. Canfield,” Etc.
Women are all right—if yuh keep far enough away from them. It’s when yuh take down your rope and commence to widen your loop for one that trouble generally begins; or else when yuh get one, she runs on the rope and keeps yuh guessing other ways.
The time I was working for old Shooting-star Wilson, I sure got an object-lesson that I won’t forget in a week or two. We was living happy and content, and meaning harm to nobody that winter. ”

“ Ellis and I was playing pitch that night, and old Shooting-star had the bunch uh magazines, going through them methodical and serious. Shooting-star swallows everything he sees in print, like them writer sharps didn’t know enough to lie. ”

“ I nudged Ellis, and we went out into the kitchen and shut the door.
“So help me, Ellis!” I says, “if she does him up, or plays crooked, or ain't straight goods, you watch me be righteous vengeance. He's going to take the whole blame business serious.”
Ellis didn't hardly agree. He said we could keep cases, and if the game didn't look all straight, why, we could buy in and coax Shooting-star out. He said we had slathers of influence, if we was a mind to use it right. So we kinda laid low and kept our eyes peeled.
That night Shooting-star commenced to knock the cooking—without cause, too. ”

“ Marriage broadens the life as nothing else can do; it rounds out character, makes for generosity and true sympathy. The man who is blessed with a true, loving helpmate need never fear the barren years of a lonely old age. ”

“ Ellis and me wanted to warm up the old bunk-house, and take her down there, but old Shooting-star wouldn’t stand for it. He said this was his home, and consequently her home, and here’s where she belonged, and had got to stay, so long as she lived with him. Shooting-star’s easy, if yuh don’t get him roused up; but once he bows his neck, he can’t be neither coaxed nor drove. ”

“ It was the winter after Shooting-star had got his wad—ten thousand dollars—from the old country, and had blowed it all in on a house to give a Washington’s Birthday ball in. He sure done himself proud; and spent every blame cent on the house and dance. So the next day he told Ellis and me to roll our beds and move into the mansion—which same domicile we called the Hall of Mirth, for various reasons that would uh stood in court, all right. ”

“ Shooting-star looks at us over his glasses. “Boys,” he says, “blamed if I don’t believe that’s about so! An old bach like me sure does live a kinda barren existence; and there ain’t enough joy in the life I’m leading to talk about. I believe the men that’s broke to work double has got all the best uh the deal. Anyway,” he says, pointed, “they can git something to eat besides sour-dough bread and fried bacon and stewed apricots. They git cake once in awhile; cake that’s fit to eat.”
Ellis kinda brustled up at that. ”

“ Shooting-star laughed savage. “Yes, and yuh can't take her a darned bit too quick to suit me,” he grunts. “Anybody that can't see the beauty and comfort of this domicile, there's sure something wrong with, that person's head, and they can't pull their freight too soon,” he says, and walks, dignified, out into the kitchen. So Ellis and me drove her back to Bent Willow ”

“ He said it was a disgrace the way we’d let that beautiful place go to rack and ruin. And when he come back, he said (he was going to Butte to meet Lonesome Ann, and they was to be hooked up there) , he wanted the house good and warm, and we was to have the table all set in the dining-room, and all the folding-doors wide open, so Mrs. ”