Joe Gargery

“ Joe now observed in a manner that was at once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great politeness, “as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a single man.”
“Well!” said Miss Havisham. “And you have reared the boy, with the intention of taking him for your apprentice; is that so, Mr. Gargery?”
“You know, Pip,” replied Joe, “as you and me were ever friends, and it were looked for’ard to betwixt us, as being calc’lated to lead to larks. ”

“ Joe Garland is half Kanaka. Your blood is thin. His is warm. Life is one thing to you, another thing to him. He laughs and sings and dances through life, genial, unselfish, childlike, everybody's friend. You go through life like a perambulating prayer-wheel, a friend of nobody but the righteous, and the righteous are those who agree with you as to what is right. And after all, who shall say? You live like an anchorite. Joe Garland lives like a good fellow. Who has extracted the most from life? We are paid to live, you know. ”

“ Often, within himself, Garry's wrath seethed hot, but he was no longer as ready as he had once been with verbal, cynical criticism. Only to Fat Joe did he dare pour out his soul with that vivid incisiveness which always held Joe spellbound.
"He's eating his heart out over her," he'd explode, "over a girl who is proving every day that she isn't worth a minute's heart-ache of a man like him. I used to think she had brains, if any of them did; I used to think that Barbara Allison was something besides a fluffy little fool! ”

“ Up the steep slope came Jim Taggart, and behind him Young Gallup; and after Gallup, Gallup's man, Cliff Shipton. And every man of them carried a rifle, held in readiness. Joe began to swear in Spanish, his voice shaken, quavering with the fear upon him.
Deveril put out his hand until it lay upon Lynette's arm; his fingers gave her a quick, warning squeeze. Taggart and the others were coming on swiftly; it was almost too much to hope that they could pass and not see the two figures outstretched in the willows. Still, there was the chance, slim chance as it was.... ”

“ If we find that we have no show, and that the prizes must go to Wayring and his friends, or to Prime and his followers, we'll stand by Wayring every time. We'll teach that drug-store crowd that the next time they make up a slate they had better put our names on it if they expect us to help them."
It never occurred to Tom and his cousins that possibly Joe Wayring, and all the other boys who believed that friendly trials of strength and skill, like those that were to come off during the canoe meet, should be fairly conducted, would not thank them for their interference. ”

“ We’ll git him if he ain’t took wings. All I ast of him is to stay somewheres on top of the ground, and he’s mine.”
“Why did the negro run away?” said Joe to young Gaither.
“Oh, he can’t get along with the overseer. And I don’t blame him much. I told pap this morning that if I had to choose between Mink and Bill Davidson I’d take Mink every time. But the trouble with pap is he’s getting old, and thinks he can’t get along without an overseer, and overseers are mighty hard to get now. I tell you right now that when I get grown I’m not going to let any overseer bang my niggers around.” ”

“ Tom and his cousins expected that the first thing Joe Wayring did would be to acquaint his two friends with the fact that a plot had been formed to keep the best man from winning at the next canoe meet, and to throw the different races to those who could not by any possibility win them fairly ”

“ Mr. Sharp instantly rose, went up to the window, and carefully examined the paper; then shook his head, and returned to his seat.
"It, is desirable that every fragment of old papers which the box contained should, if possible, be recovered," observed Mr. Garway. "I would have the strictest search made for them at once."
Off started Joe and David, almost before the sentence was finished; they were only too glad to make their escape from the room, and their ambitious hopes were awakened by the gentlemen evidently setting great value upon what had seemed worthless to them. ”

“ Having disposed of their late dinner and cleaned up the camp, the boys were at liberty to lie around under the trees and rest. This, for a wonder, Joe Wayring was quite willing to do; but Roy and Arthur suddenly took it into their heads that they would like to explore the spring-hole and see how big it was and what it looked like.
"Well, go on," said Joe, "and I will stay here and keep up the fire and rest. Two are enough to ride in that canoe. Take your rods and catch some trout for breakfast. You ought to have fine sport, for they are jumping up in every direction." ”

“ Mexicali Joe! Suddenly, though all day he had been a man as dark-browed as [Pg 302] a thunder-storm, Standing burst out into that golden laughter of his. Not a single share in his name; all immediate expenses to be paid by him, and they were to be heavy; and yet he counted himself the man to draw a full ninety-nine per cent of the dividends of sheer triumph! For it was to be a cold shut-out to Taggart and Gallup and Shipton and all Big Pine! And, most of all, for Babe Deveril and that girl! For early had come back the report from Al Blake: "Neither of them here; no claims staked!" ”

“ Think I'm fool enough to kill you ... now? Know what the third degree is, Joe?" Taggart's voice was terrible with its insinuation. "Me, when I give the third degree to any man, he spills his guts before I'm done with him! You'll cough up everything you know and be damn glad afterward to crawl off in the woods and die! That's me, Joe."
Gallup, who must have found amusement in watching Mexicali Joe's expression, laughed. After him Cliff [Pg 123] Shipton laughed like an echo. Joe began cursing nervously.
"Ready?" whispered Lynette. Taggart's threats horrified her and set her trembling. ”

“ At the séance which produced the apparition of my sister Emily, Mr. Eglinton's control "Joey" made himself very familiar. "Joey" is a remarkably small man—perhaps two-thirds lighter in weight than the medium—and looks more like a little jockey than anything else, though he says he was a clown whilst in this world, and claims to be the spirit of the immortal Joe Grimaldi. He has always appeared to us clothed in a tight-fitting white dress like a woven jersey suit, which makes him look still smaller than he is. ”

“ It was thus that, with the primitive directness of his reverential love for the girl, he counted no sacrifice too great in her behalf. Joe Garson was not a good man, at the world esteems goodness. On the contrary, he was distinctly an evil one, a menace to the society on which he preyed constantly. But his good qualities, if few, were of the strongest fiber, rooted in the deeps of him. He loathed treachery. His one guiltiness in this respect had been, curiously enough, toward Mary herself, in the scheme of the burglary, which she had forbidden. ”

“ If you put up a game on us now, you cut your own throat. In the first place I'll make it my business that if we get shut out, you get shut out along with us. And in the second place when I'm through with you no other man in the world will have any use for you. Got that?"
She knew what he had done to Mexicali Joe; she could guess what other unthinkable things he would have done. And she knew that if now she tricked Jim Taggart and he found her out ... before Bruce Standing came ... she could only pray to die. ”

“ We can send a team to beat them at target shooting, and we can enter our sail-boats for prizes in the regatta; but I, for one, don't care to. I've had quite enough of that crowd, and think we can see all the fun we want among ourselves."
"I think so, too," said Tom. "I don't care for their old canoe club, but I should really like to see the Toxophilites go to pieces. I'd see Joe Wayring happy before he should come into this club with my vote." ”

“ Steve always held it to his friend's credit that he did not laugh. Indeed, Garry's soberness at that moment was almost woebegone.
"I see, Joe," he answered. "Not a bad idea. May I ask what your story—your novel is to deal with?"
"Deal with? What do you mean?"
"Why, they always deal with some problem, Joe," Garry squared around. "They always attack the rottenness of the rich, or sob over the rottenness of the poor. They always expound the crime of divorce, or attack the error of matrimony. ”

“ Joe was gone. Bruce Standing's work was done. He looked grim and implacable, a man of iron heated in the red-hot furnace of rage. He yearned for Taggart to make a move; or for Gallup. Shipton, as a lesser cur, he ignored.
They saw how white, as white as a clean sheet of paper, his face was; they did not fully understand why, since a man's face, when he is in a terrible rage, may whiten, as an effect of the searing emotion; they did not know how he had driven his wounded body all day long nor how sore his wound was. ”

“ His merriment was forced, and he was as angry as he ever got to be.
"Are you willing that Prime and his crowd should lay out a programme for the races without saying a word to us about it?" demanded Ralph, who forgot that that was just the way in which he and his two companions had treated Prime.
"And did you really ask Wayring to propose our names at the club's next meeting?" chimed in Loren.
"No, to both your questions," replied Tom, emphatically. "They must be a bright set of boys if they think we are going to let them rule us. ”

“ Garry and Val sat alone by the sitting-room fire, constrained and far apart.
"They look blooming," he said. "This place suits them better than New York apparently."
(Ah! in his joy at seeing the children blooming he had not noticed her haggard face! Symptoms that in others would have aroused his professional interest in her went unnoticed, or so it seemed. She remembered that she had once heard a doctor's wife quote rather bitterly:
"Shoemakers' children have broken boots; doctors' wives never get treatment.")
"Then you will not mind our going on living here, Joe--for awhile?" ”

“ In spite of the hand upon his elbow Garrett Devereau stopped short in his tracks.
"Barbara!" he stammered. "Barbara Allison? Joe, was that the girl he meant to-night, when he said he was going to 'marry one of those women himself?'"
Joe peered at him, trying to make out the expression upon his face.
"Why not?" he wanted to know. "Why not? Ain't he good enough for her?"
There came a pause—then Garry's stunned rejoinder.
"Good enough!" he repeated senselessly. "Good enough?" He laughed half wildly, as though he had suddenly hit upon a very funny thought indeed. ”

“ The squatter’s family, believing that Jake had been mortally wounded, gathered about him with expressions of sympathy, and Joe Wayring took advantage of the confusion to climb into the skiff and put on his clothes. If there was going to be a fight he wanted to take a hand in it.
“Whoop!” shrieked the old woman, rolling up her sleeves and shaking a pair of huge, tan-colored fists at the object of her wrath. “If I was a man I’d swim off to that there boat an’ maul the last one of you. Matt, why don’t 278you do it? Seems like you was afeard of them fellers.” ”

“ Joe Wayring was on the right, nearest the shore, and Arthur Hastings on the extreme left, near the middle of the lake.
“It’s a bad outlook for us,” whispered Loren, after he had run his eye up and down the line. “Joe and Arthur are so far away that you can’t touch them.”
“Never mind,” replied Tom, in the same cautious whisper. “They will have to come closer together when we get to the stake-boat, and then, perhaps, we can do something. Keep your weather eye peeled for Noble. He’ll spoil your chances if he can. He’s bound to win or kick up a row.” ”

“ Joe reeled across the threshold; Taggart, not knowing what weapon Joe might have lying on his bunk, sprang nimbly after him. And Gallup and Shipton, to see everything, drew on close behind him. They passed the willows about the spring and, stooping, went in at Joe's door.
Lynette and Deveril lay very still, hesitating to move hand or foot. For both Gallup and Shipton stood on Joe's threshold, and that threshold was a few steps only from their hiding-place. The snapping of a twig, the crackling of a handful of dead leaves must certainly bring swift, searching eyes upon them. ”

“ I tell you, we got the money to devil-him-up, we all rich like hell!..."
"Get going, Joe," growled Taggart. "Where? Down Light Ladies' Cañon, and not more'n three or four miles from Big Pine?"
Joe cackled his derision at Taggart's guess.
"Me, I fool ever'body!" he said gleefully. "Me, I'm damn smart man, Señor Taggart! Nowhere near Light Ladies'. The other way. We go all day to-morrow, way back up in the mountains. One long, hard day, walkin'. Maybe day an' a half. You know where Buck Valley? All right; you know, on other side, Big Bear Creek? ”

“ His unqualified agreement brought sudden alarm to Joe's eyes.
"I suppose you're right," he drawled. "It does get on any man's nerves. Right this minute I'm as tired of it as I ever dare let myself get. I've sloughed around in the mud enough for one session."
Garry frowned, perplexed. His fast numbing brain refused to reconstruct clearly, and yet dimly he knew that this sentiment was not the one which he had heard a few hours before from Steve's lips. ”