Booth Tarkington

“ He forgave automobiles, on that last day, and in the afternoon he hired a splendid, red new open car, with a curly-haired chauffeur to drive it. Then driving to a large hardware store he spent eighteen dollars, out of his final fifty, upon the best lawn-mower the store could offer him. He had it placed in the car and drove away, smoking a long cigar in a long holder. Such was his remarkable whim; and it marks him as an extraordinary man. ”

“ You own a livvy-stable one time, Mist’ Tuttle?”
“I didn’t exackly own one,” said the truthful Tuttle, “but that’s the business I grew up in. I’m a horse man, and I like to sleep around a horse. I drove a hack for the old B. P. Thomas Livery and Feed Company more than twenty years, off and on;—off and on, I did. I was a horse man all my life and I was in the horse business. I could go anywhere in the United States and I didn’t haf to carry no money with me when I travelled; I could go into any town on the map and make all the money I’d care to handle. I’d never go to a boarding-house. ”

“ Once more he set the mower in motion.
Mrs. Pinney heard the sound of it in her room upstairs, looked from the window, and with earnest pleasure beheld the workman at his toil. Her heart rejoiced her to have been the cause of a reformation, and presently she went down to the kitchen to gloat gently over a defeated antagonist in argument.
“Yes’m,” Tilly admitted meekly. “He fooled me.”
“You see I was right, Tilly. We always ought to have faith that the best part of our natures will conquer.” ”

“ Nice fer a man to carry around on him, ain’t it?” He laughed briefly, in bitterness; and continued: “No, sir; the first time I ever laid eyes on one, I hollered, ‘Git a horse!’ but if you was to holler that at one of ’em to-day, the feller’d prob’ly answer, ‘Where’m I goin’ to git one?’ I ain’t seen a horse I’d be willin’ to call a horse, not fer I don’t know how long!”
“No, suh,” Bojus assented. “I guess so. Man go look fer good hoss he fine mighty fewness of ’em. I guess automobile put hoss out o’ business—an’ hoss man, too, Mist’ Tuttle.” ”

“ I don’ need no lawn-mo’ in a pool-room.”
“Well, you ain’t goin’ to stay in no pool-room forever; you got to git out and earn your livin’ some time,” Tuttle urged him. “Every man that’s got the gumption of a man, he’s got to do that!” And upon Bojus’s lifeless admission of the truth of this statement, the bargaining began. It ended with Bojus’s becoming the proprietor of the lawn-mower and Tuttle’s leaving the pool-room after taking possession of everything in the world that Bojus owned except a hat, a coat, a pair of trousers, a shirt, two old shoes and four safety-pins. ”

“ Most everybody I knowed up in Dee-troit, they most always called me George fer a nickname like. You know anybody in Dee-troit?”
“No.”
“Married?” Tuttle inquired.
“No.”
“Never be’n?” he said.
“No.”
“Well, now, that’s too bad,” he said sympathetically. “It ain’t the right way to live. I’m a widower myself, and I ain’t never be’n the same man since I lost my first wife. She was an Irish lady from Chicago.” He sighed; finished the slice of lemon pie Tilly had given him, and drank what was left of his large cup of coffee, holding the protruding spoon between two fingers to keep it out of his eye. ”

“ Tuttle’s murmur, which was so little more than a husky breathing that only an acute ear close by could have caught it: “Oh, Gosh!” Then he turned partly over, shifting his body so as to lie upon his left side among the shavings that made his limousine such a comfortable bedroom.
After thousands of years of wrangling, economists still murder one another to emphasize varying ideas of what constitutes the ownership of anything ”

“ What’s the use of a hired room and all the useless fixin’s in it they stick you fer? No man that’s got the gumption of a man wants to waste his money like that when they’s a whole nice livery-stable to sleep in. ”

“ But when the door closed behind him, Tilly laughed aloud—and was at once reproved by her mistress. “We always ought to have faith that the better side of people will conquer, Tilly. I really think he’ll come.” ”

“ His pearl-gray hat sat amiably upon his head; the sleeves of his fawn-coloured overcoat ran pleasantly down to pearl gloves; his Van Dyke beard, a little grizzled, conveyed an impression of distinction not contradicted by a bagginess of the eyelids; for it is strangely true that dissipation sometimes even adds distinction to certain types of faces. ”

“ If he kin do it as well as not, what make him all time decide fer not? Res’ of us willin’!”
“That’s jest the trouble,” Tuttle complained, with an air of reproof. “You’re willin’ but you don’t use your brains.”
“Brains?” said Bojus, and laughed. “Brains ain’ goin’ make Bojus no money. What I need is a good lawn-mo’. If I could take an’ buy me a nice good lawn-mo’, I could make all the money I’m a-goin’ a need the live-long summuh.”
“Lawn-mower?” his friend inquired. “You ain’t got no house and lot, have you? What you want of a lawn-mower?” ”

“ I can git along nice with a horse,’ I says. ‘A horse knows what you say to him, but I ain’t goin’ to try and talk to no engine!’”
He paused, frowning, and applied the flame of a match to the half-inch of cigarette that still remained to him. “Them things ought to be throwed in the ocean,” he said. “That’s what I’d do with ’em!”
“You doe’ like no automobile?” Bojus inquired. “You take you’ enjoyment some way else, I guess, Mist’ Tuttle.”
“There’s jest one simple question I want to ast you,” Mr. Tuttle said. “S’pose a man’s been drinkin’ a little ”

“ I doe’ know where evabody git all the money. Money ain’t come knockin’ on Bojus’ do’ beggin’ ‘Lemme in, honey!’ No, suh; the way money act with me, it act like it think I ain’ goin’ use it right. Money act like I ain’t its lovin’ frien’!”
He laughed, and Mr. Tuttle smiled condescendingly. “Money don’t amount to so much, Bojus,” he said. “Anybody can make money!” ”

“ My cousin Mamie’ celluh plum full o’ Whi’ Mule. Man say he goin’ buy it off her but ain’ show up with no money. Early ’s mawn’ I say, ‘Mamie, gi’ me little nice smell o’ you’ nice whisky?’ No, suh! Take an’ fretten me with a brade-knife! Mad ’cause man ain’ paid ’er, I reckon.”
“Le’ss go on up there and ast her again,” Tuttle suggested. “She might be feelin’ in a nicer temper by this time. ”

“ They’s hunderds and hunderds and hunderds o’ thousands o’ men, women and chuldern in this city; you know that as well as I do, Bojus. Well, with all the hunderds o’ thousands o’ men, women and chuldern in this city, I ast you, how many livery-stables has this city got in it?”
“Livvy-stables, Mist’ Tuttle? Lemme see. I ain’t made the observation of no livvy-stable fer long time.” ”

“ First four five years, when them things come in, why, us men in the livery-stable business, we jest laughed at ’em. Then, by and by, one or two stables begun keepin’ a few of ’em to hire. Perty soon after that they all wanted ’em, and a man had to learn to run one of ’em or he was liable to lose his livin’. They kep’ gittin’ worse and worse—and then, my goodness! didn’t even the undertakers go and git ’em? ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I give up! I give up!’ I says. ‘Men in this business that’s young enough and ornery enough,’ I says, ‘why, they can go ahead and learn to run them things. ”

“ No, sir!” he said to some applicant within him. “I know what’s good fer you and what ain’t. If you take any more you’re liable to go make a hog of yourself again. Why, jest look how you felt when you woke up this morning! I’m the man that knows and I’m perty smart, too, if you ever happen to notice! You take and let well enough alone.”
He gave a last glance at Bojus, a glance that lingered with some interest upon the peculiar diamond ring; but he decided not to carry it away with him, because Bojus might be overwhelmingly suspicious later. ”

“ But she moved back from him, her nostrils dilating slightly and her expression unfavourable. “I’d be glad to give you all you want to eat,” she said coldly, “but I think you’d better sign the pledge first.”
“Ma’am?” said Tuttle in plaintive astonishment.
“I think you’ve been drinking.”
“No, lady! No!”
“I’m sure you have. I don’t believe in doing anything for people that drink; it doesn’t do them any good.”
“Lady——” Tuttle began, and he was about to continue his protest to her, when her husband interfered.
“Run along!” he said, and tossed the applicant for nourishment a dime. ”

“ Bojus explained. “If I had a lawn-mo’ I could make th’ee, fo’, fi’ dolluhs a day. See that spring sun settin’ up there a-gittin’ ready to shine so hot? She’s goin’ to bring up the grass knee-high, honey, ’less somebody take a lawn-mo’ an’ cut it down. I kin take a lawn-mo’ an’ walk ’long all vese resident’al streets; git a dozen jobs a day if I kin do ’em. I truly would like to git me a nice good lawn-mo’, but I ain’ got no money. I got a diamon’ ring, though. I give a diamon’ ring fer a good lawn-mo’.”
“Diamon’ ring?” Mr. Tuttle inquired with some interest. ”

“ More than a million dollars.”
“Whur all that million dolluhs come from?”
“It comes from the poor,” said Mr. Tuttle solemnly. “That’s the way all them rich men git their money, gougin’ the poor.”
“Well, suh,” Bojus inquired reasonably, “what about me? I like git rich, too. Whur’s some poor I kin go gouge? I’m willin’ to do the gougin’ if I kin git the money.”
“Money ain’t everything,” his friend reminded him. “Some day the people o’ this country’s goin’ to raise and take all that money away from them rich robbers. ”

“ Tuttle said hoarsely, and he set a shaking hand on the other’s knee, “how much you willin’ to bid on my plapmun ring?”
“Don’t go so fast!” Breitman said, but his eyes were becoming more and more luminous. He had the hope of a great bargain; yet feared that Tuttle might have a fairly accurate idea of the value of the diamond. “Hold your hosses a little, George! You don’t need so awful much to go and get yourself fixed up like I’m tellin’ you, and you’ll have a lot o’ money left to go around and see high life with. ”

“ They went up the street, walking rather slowly, as Mr. Tuttle, though eager, found his indisposition increased with any rapidity of movement; then they turned down an alley, followed it to another alley, and at the intersection of that with another, entered a smoke-coloured cottage of small pretensions, though it still displayed in a front window the card of a Red Cross subscriber to the “drive” of 1918.
“Mamie!” Bojus called, when they had closed the door behind them. “Mamie!” ”

“ Tuttle gasped. “How much?”
Breitman looked at him shrewdly. “Well, I’m takin’ chances: the market on stones is awful down these days, George. Your cousin must have fooled you bad when she talked about four or five thousand dollars! That’s ridiculous!” ”