Henry Wallace Phillips

“ It ain't for me to poke no fun at Pete's looks. There's a place where a humarious turn of mind orter stop. Pete's looks was too serious for any man to get comic about. It appeared as if his features had been blowed on to his face by a gale of wind; his whiskers had a horrified expression, like they'd made their escape if they hadn't been fastened on, and he was double-jointed in every point of the compass. When he stood up straight he give you more the impression of sittin' down then a man sick a-bed could. I dunno how it come, but everything old Pete looked like, seemed precisely the reverse. ”

“ There got off'n the train a little stout man, with a clean baby skin and clean baby eyes. He looked as if he'd got born into this wicked world with a bald spot, gray side-whiskers and a pair of gold-rimmed specks. He made me feel sad—not that he weren't cheerful enough, but his rig was that of a parson, and a parson naturally reminded me of matrimony, and there was only one thing worse than loafing around Jim Creek, and that was matrimony. 'Yes,' I says to myself, lookin' at that nice, clean old gentleman, 'he little knows the trouble he's made in this world. ”

“ I mean you're the great human paradox—less human and more paradox then I've seen advertised at a circus—and whilest you're perpetual dodging one horn or t'other of a dilemma, any friend of yours is getting bunked square between the two. ”

“ Trouble! I'm bald as a cake of ice; my nerves is ruined. If the wind makes a noise in the grass like the swish of skirts, I'm a mile up the track before I get my wits back, sweatin' coldly and profusely, like a water-cooler.
"'I ain't got anything to tie to but all them women by the name of Scraggs, and them ties I cut by travelin' fast between daylights. Wisht I could introduce you to Mrs. Scraggs as she inhabits the territory of Utah—you'd understand a power of things that may seem a little misty to you at present. ”

“ When he goes to Washington with it, the President he says, "Now, I'd pay you this in a minute, Billy," he says, "but think of them Congressmen!" and the President he shakes his head and Billy comes home again. And from that time on, before his very eyes, he has to see his widder and eighteen helpless children die of starvation through not havin' enough to eat, right in front of his face—ain't that fierce?' says he. ”

“ There was a genuine Sand-hill cloudburst of hair-brushes and combs, porous plasters, tooth-powder, tooth-brushes, pomade, soap, Jew's-harps, playin'-cards and the old Boy knows what all. It struck me then what a waste of time it was for a citizen to get loaded and tear the linin' out of a saloon; the place where you can really get the worth of your time and money is a drug store. Hadds and me made one desp'rate plunge for her through the terrific fire she kept up. I don't suppose that lady could hit a barn with a rock, unless she was inside of it, under ordinary conditions ”

“ You see, we thought if we told the young woman that here was a decent honest man—hurrying over the rest of the description—just evaporating for love of her, that she might be persuaded to come out and marry him. We weren't going to let our pardner slip away without an effort anyhow. We couldn't do no less than try. Then come the problem of who was the proper party to act as messenger. The rest of us, without bothering him by taking him into our confidence, decided that Scraggs was the proper man, because, if he didn't know Women and her Ways, the subject belonged to the lost arts. ”

“ I know women better than any man I ever met that I felt knew less. I've seen wimmen so foolish I wouldn't believe anything more foolish could exist, if it hadn't a-been I'd seen still more foolish wimmen with these same eyes. But a woman who'd marry Pete was beyond my expectations. It took a lady with a turble brain-power and a deliberate intention to arrive at that state of mind; so when Pete says to me, 'That's just what I be goin' to do, Zeke,' he had me swallowing my breath. ”

“ If houses has ghosts I should say that the ghosts of some forty houses that had committed the crime of not bein' properly built had collected themselves there—why, even the snow around the cussed things looked second-hand. ”

“ I'm as homely as a hedge fence, and my record is dotted with marriages worse than a 'Pache outbreak with corpses and burning homes. I ain't any kind of proposition to tie up to a nice girl like you, and I swear by my honor that nothing was further from my thoughts than matrimony—not meanin' any slur on you, for if I'd found you before, I might have been a happy man—Well, here I stand: if you'll marry me, say the word!' By thunder, we gave him a cheer that shook the roof. ”

“ Scraggs, "who said, 'Deliver me from my friends.' Now, I ain't goin' so far as to say I indorse that statement, nor I ain't standin' still so strong as to say I don't. But I know this: An enemy will do something for you every time, whilest most friends won't, and, moreover, I ain't ever had any enemy who furnished me with as much light entertainment as my friend Pete. ”

“ The two hose companies got out in good shape, but a most unforchinit dispute over who was to claim first water on the fire led 'em to use axes and spanner wrenches and sections of hose on each other whilst our drug store burned green and purple and pink, neglected. Inside of ten minutes eight firemen was ready for the hospital; a good citizen took the Major and Majoress in for the night, and all that was left of our promisin' business enterprise was a small heap of wood ashes and a very bad smell. ”

“ It didn't seem reasonable any female person could act that way till I see the Majoress. She had dignity enough for two maiden ladies at a niece's weddin' and a nigger head-waiter. The way she laid holt of Hadds' collar was impressive a great deal more than I'm able to tell you. Poor Hadds was faded. He looked like a pup caught with a chicken in his mouth. They made a grand march to the general goods counter, the Majoress still resemblin' a foreign queen. Arrived there, she took up a hairbrush, and with a motion the grandest I ever see in a human bein' she brought it down atop of Hadds' head. ”

“ Man is born to trouble as a powder-mill is to fly upward. Male and female He made 'em, after their kind; and it's only reasonable that they've been after their kind ever since. And more'n that, that gentleman would have checked my wild career—he'd have held me down to one. So why should I wish to walk on his collar?'
"Whilest I was Hamlettin' to myself like that the old boy talked to the station agent. Billy leaned on the truck and pointed to me. 'There's your man right now,' says he; 'Mr. E. G. Washington Scraggs, the most famous guide and hunter in Arizona. ”

“ MR. SCRAGGS INTRODUCED BY RED SAUNDERS BY PROXY I had met Mr. Scraggs, shaken him by the hand, and, in the shallow sense of the word, knew him. But a man is more than clothes and a bald head. It is also something of a trick to find out more about him—particularly in the cow country. One needs an interpreter. ”

“ There's something about Christmas that warms the heart and makes the noblest and best of our sentiments to come to the surface for a breath of fresh air. Yes, sir, there is, and they passed it around in Peg-leg's place that afternoon so hot, sweet, and plentiful that I hadn't been there more'n two hours before my feelin's had rose to such a pitch that I went out and bought each' and every Mrs. Scraggs a pair of number ten rubber boots, a pound of raisins, and an accordion. The boots was useful; the raisins, of course, stood for Christmas cheer ”

“ A man's idee of romance is to do what he wants to, or to be comfortable; a woman's idee of romance is to feel that she's obliged to do what she really wants to do, under such circumstances as will allow her to call it a great sackerfice, or to be made uncomfortable, which is her real notion of comfort. You have only to look at a woman's housekeepin' to reelize the restfulness she finds in keepin' things disturbed all the time. I have looked upon the housekeepin' of enough Mrs. Scraggses to be able to speak with the v'ice of experience, if not the v'ice of wisdom. ”

“ There's only one thing on earth that E. G. W. Scraggs is willin' to admit has him trimmed to a peak, and you see that same before you now. 'Twas ever thus since childhood's hour, when my maiden Aunt Susan took the raisin' of me. Take any form thou wilt but this, and my firm nerve ain't goin' to tremble; but stacked again this form, my nerve is floppin' like a hotel wash in a hurricane.'
"So I slung Hadds over my shoulder and we went behind the prescription counter. ”

“ Hence an enemy, that is an enemy, when you be in good health and able for to look after the enemy part from your side, is a great source of innercent amusement. A man gets so durn practical, he don't take no interest in all the pleasant rocks and bushes strewed over the country by the beneficent hand of Providence. He shacks along on his little old cayuse, with his mind occupied on how many things he can't do next, and he gits plumb disgusted. ”

“ Charlie High-ball burnt punk that smelled strong but fine, and swung his arms, Jim and the rest of the boys sayin' 'amen' every time there come a stop, and all the proceedin's goin' on grand, till the preacher got to the last of it, and then Pete broke in:
"'I copper that statement,' says he. 'I wouldn't run against you for the world, old man, but here I got to. We ain't "man" and wife, for I ain't never been a man since I growed up: Maggy, she's the man and wife both. ”

“ Here, young man, you tick-tack 'em that I want toys—children's toys—to use up one hundred plunks—I want 'em on Number Three—and if they don't arrive I will. I will arrive in their little old toy-shop and play with them till they holler for ma. Tell 'em I never felt more impatient in my life than I am this minute, and that I'm getting more so per each and every clock tick. Mention the name of Zeke Scraggs, so they won't think it's Mr. Anonymous behavin' frivolous. ”

“ Once I went down street to see how that sign looked a little ways off, and up rides a puncher.
"'Hadds & Scraggs!' says he: 'I wonder what kind of merchandise them is? Well, I must take a Hadds and a Scraggs home to show the boys.'
"He knocked every bit of poetry out of that sign. Howsomever, poetry ain't the chief business of a drug store, and when you come to the practical side we done mighty well. We got in a line of patent medicines with pretty red and blue labels that took the popular taste. As there was a minin' boom over the hill, our line of gold pans and gunpowder went well. ”

“ They were the grandest feet that ever wore a man; long and high and wide, and all that feet should be. Chawley said that Alexander had ground plan enough for a company of nigger soldiers. And hung to Aleck's running gear, they reminded you of the swinging jigger in a clock. They almost make me forget his hands. When Aleck laid a flipper on a cayuse's back, you'd think the critter was blanketed. ”

“ Life becomes full of chances. The man, he's interested in his life because the other feller wants to take it away from him. A good enemy in a lonesome country means more to that man than her best friend's widower means to a maiden aunt. You bet.
"Red and me differs there, I know, but his idees gets sifted through that crop of red alfalfa he wears, whilest I present a clean proposition to any idee that comes boundin' o'er the lee, or to wind'ard, or any direction she chooses to bound. Yessir; when I begin to feel that life ain't worth livin' give me an enemy or a friend like Pete Douglass. ”

“ In most countries a man's standin' is regulated by the number of wives he ain't got; in Utah it's just the reverse—and a fair test, too, when you come to think of it. I wanted to be the head of the hull Mormon kingdom, so I married right and left. Every time I added to the available supply of Mrs. Scraggs, I went up a step in the government. I ain't all the persimmons for personal beauty, so I had to take what was willin' to take me, and they turned out to be mostly black-eyed women with peculiar dispositions. ”

“ Howsomever, it wound up amiable; I staked Simmy to a new pair of pants, and kept him in spendin' money till ridin' again appeared among the possibilities. I never could get used to people pullin' guns on me.
"So, then, there was a drug store goin' in no time. Both me and Hadds was happy as could be, and workin' like a pair of mules. When we had things fixed, and a sign 'Hadds & Scraggs' in gold letters four foot high, I felt I really was a prominent citizen. But dear friends and brothers, always there's somebody handy with a fly to stick in your ointment. ”

“ Scraggs's friendship, for the benefit of humanity and philosophy. Saunders and I lay under a bit of Bad Lands, soaking in the spring sun, and enjoying the first cigarette since breakfast. In regard to things in general, he said:
"Now, there was the time I worked for the Ellis ranch. A ranch is like a man: it has something that belongs to it, that don't belong to no other ranch, same as I have just the same number of eyes and noses and so forth that you drew on your ticket, yet you ain't me no more'n I'm you. ”