Emerson Hough

“ I'm tellin' you, Sir Algernon, that Miss Evie girl's goin' to make some feller a mighty fine wife.
"Die? Why, no, Ebenezer ain't ever goin' to die. He's rational, an' he plays the only safe system;—he eats anything an' everything when he kin git it, an' he drinks the same, recognizin' the guidin' hand o' the boss that don't allow him to do that last only onct in a while. That's why you can't kill coons ner cow-punchers—they don't never die. Did you ever see a dead coon that hadn't been shot full o' holes er run over by a train? ”

“ Reginald Jones-Valentine, from Colorado,' says he, 'an' she's one o' them permanent ladies that goes in fer sufferage an' temperance, an' everything else that men don't like. I didn't ask her to come along, but she just got in the buckboard with me an' Evie, an' she talked a arm offen me all the way up from Billings—said she heard I had the most depraved lot o' punchers up here in the Birch Creek country—an' I reckon that's right, too,' says ol' man Wright to me. ”

“ An' what is they to drink in the tall woods but water? Look at us right now, an' you git the answer to that. Only reason animiles don't drink coffee er something else is that they can't git it. Now, I can prove that."
"I hadn't thought of it in that way, Curly," I admitted.
"That's the trouble with a heap o' people," said Curly, sitting back in the shade and sticking his knife in the sand to clean the blade. "Folks don't stop to think things out right close. Now, me—I'm plumb thoughtful. I have in my mind right now the case of Ebenezer. ”

“ Sandy, he was plumb gone on Miss Evie, an' he knowed it wasn't no use spite of all the nice stories he'd read in the magazines 'bout cow-punchers marryin' the boss' daughter. We was all standin' laughin' at Sandy when all at onct we heard from the inside o' the shack somebody a-sayin' in a large, deep voice, sort o' giggling, too: 'George, now you stop! You tickle!'
"Well, when we heard them words we all wanted to run away. Now, wasn't that a strange thing fer to happen in a law-abidin' cow camp like ours? ”

“ I can't even guess how this gentleman come 'way out here, but 'long as he ain't charged with stealin' no horses we got to respeck his privacy. Let him alone; it's my blankets.'
"Well, we all let him alone, an' we moved round kind o' quiet like, so's not to disturb him. ”

“ Now, a coon cain't take hold o' a tin cup with his hand, although he kin do 'most anything else. We just left Ebenezer alone to figger it out for hisself. He still kep' up to be a perfeck gentleman. He reaches over easy an' gentle like, an' fishes out two pieces o' pineapple, an' then looks round fer his washin' pan. Billy he goes an' gits the pan, puts it on the table, an' Ebenezer he washes off one piece o' pineapple. ”

“ Well, Sir Algernon, from that time on, long as Ebenezer was with us, so fur from bein' uplifted, he didn't keep his eyes nowhere 'cept on the dishpan. It was hung on a nail against the wall, an' he'd climb up on the bench an' raise one aidge o' it, an' peek under it, an' smell at the rim of it, an' then turn around an' look at us, an' go an' stand up on his hind legs in front o' Miss Evie, an' just beg her to load up the pan again fer him. Human? Why, o' course he was human! ”

“ No more you couldn't Ebenezer, neither. He's still a member o' old man Wright's family, in good an' regular standin'. Miss Evie watches him to see that he don't git in wrong with the booze, same as any lady ought to watch a man. Onct in a while Ebenezer, ef they don't watch him, he strolls off down the street an' into the Lone Star, an' he climbs up on the bar an' orders hisself a drink like any other puncher—I told you the only reason animiles drinks water is they're mostly where they can't git nothin' else. ”

“ Put all them things together in one pan, an' stir before usin', an' what livin' man could go against it? I'd ruther look a plain case o' beefsteak an' onions in the face. Yet folks survives even that kind o' eatin'. It's all a matter o' habit, er imagination; an' the real facts is that almost anything is all right to eat ef you want it, an' can git it, an' can swaller it. ”

“ I reckon the only reason Ebenezer didn't talk was that he was afraid we'd put him to work night herdin', like he heard Billy Wilson threaten. Every other way he was just like a human.
"Well, sir, spring come along, an' the grass got green, an' 'long around spring round-up time we begun to expeck old man Wright'd come up an' pay us a visit. One day when we come in we see a buckboard standin' in the yard an' a parasol against the side o' the door, so we knowed old man Wright an' his daughter, Miss Evie, had come up together, like they sometimes done. When Sandy seen this he wanted to run away. ”

“ Well, we all looked up, an' when we seen a large, dark objeck up on top o' the post, lookin' down, ca'm, with his p'inted face, an' a nice, long blackan'-white tail hangin' down the post, we all of us felt like makin' our last will an' testerment, because they didn't no such thing belong on the cow range, let alone on top of our corral. Sandy an' Billy, they hadn't never saw a coon, an' they was too bad scairt to shoot. Ebenezer—fer it was none less than him—he set up there, ca!m, an' looked down at us thoughtful. I reckon our surprise was mucherl, fer maybe he had never saw anything like us. ”

“ Curly, you ain't worth it, but I'll have to raise your wages five, account c. o. d.—coon on delivery.'
"Well, o' course, the old man was boss, an' we boys couldn't say much. An' he did take Ebenezer home with him, too. Fer two months they wasn't anybody said a word at that cow camp, an' they come pretty near bein' a killin' every time anybody locked crossways at any one else. We missed old Ebenezer just that much; life didn't seem the same no more.
"O' course, old man Wright didn't start home that day, an' we had more reason fer to see that Ebenezer was shore human. ”