Danny's Own Story. Don Marquis
along to our place about sundown yesterday, and we nailed a shoe on one hoss. They was a couple of other hoofs needed fixing, and the tire on one of the hind wheels was beginning to rattle loose.”
I had noticed that loose tire when I was standing by the hind wheel the night before, and it come in handy now. So I goes on:
“Hank, he allowed he'd fix the hull thing fur six bottles of that Injun medicine. Elmira has been ailing lately, and he wanted it fur her. So they handed Hank out six bottles then and there.”
“Huh!” says Jake. “So the job is all paid fur, is it?”
“Yes,” says I, “and I was expecting to do it myself. But now I guess I'll go fishing instead. They ain't no other job in the shop.”
“I'll be dinged if you've got time to fish,” says Jake. “I'm expecting mebby to buy that rig off the town myself when the law lets loose of it. So if the fixing is paid fur, I want everything fixed.”
“Jake,” says I, kind of worried like, “I don't want to do it without that doctor says to go ahead.”
“They ain't his'n no longer,” says Jake.
“I dunno,” says I, “as you got any right to make me do it, Jake. It don't look to me like it's no harm to beat a couple of fellers like them out of their medicine. And I did want to go fishing this afternoon.”
But Jake was that careful and stingy he'd try to skin a hoss twicet if it died. He's bound to get that job done, now.
“Danny,” he says, “you gotto do that work. It ain't honest not to. What a young feller like you jest starting out into life wants to remember is to always be honest. Then,” says Jake, squinching up his eyes, “people trusts you and you get a good chancet to make money. Look at this here hotel and livery stable, Danny. Twenty years ago I didn't have no more'n you've got, Danny. But I always went by them mottoes—hard work and being honest. You gotto nail them shoes on, Danny, and fix that wheel.”
“Well, all right, Jake,” says I, “if you feel that way about it. Jest give me a chaw of tobacco and come around and help me hitch 'em up.”
Si Emery was there asleep on a pile of straw guarding that property. But Ralph Scott wasn't around. Si didn't wake up till we had hitched 'em up. He says he will ride around to the shop with me. But Jake says:
“It's all right, Si. I'll go over myself and fetch 'em back purty soon.” Which Si was wore out with being up so late the night before, and goes back to sleep agin right off.
Well, sir, they wasn't nothing went wrong. I drove slow through the village and past our shop. Hank come to the door of it as I went past. But I hit them hosses a lick, and they broke into a right smart trot. Elmira, she come onto the porch and I waved my hand at her. She put her hand up to her forehead to shut out the sun and jest stared. She didn't know I was waving her farewell. Hank, he yelled something at me, but I never hearn what. I licked them hosses into a gallop and went around the turn of the road. And that's the last I ever seen or hearn of Hank or Elmira or that there little town.
CHAPTER V
I slowed down when I got to the schoolhouse, and both them fellers piled in.
“I guess I better turn north fur about a mile and then turn west, Doctor Kirby,” I says, “so as to make a kind of a circle around that town.”
“Why, so, Rube?” he asts me.
“Well,” I says, “we left it going east, and they'll foller us east; so don't we want to be going west while they're follering east?”
Looey, he agreed with me. But he said it wouldn't be much use, fur we would likely be ketched up with and took back and hung or something, anyhow. Looey could get the lowest in his sperrits sometimes of any man I ever seen.
“Don't be afraid of that,” says the doctor. “They are not going to follow us. They know they didn't get this property by due process of law. They aren't going to take the case into a county court where it will all come out about the way they robbed a couple of travelling men with a fake trial.”
“I guess you know more about the law'n I do,” I says. “I kind o' thought mebby we stole them hosses.”
“Well,” he says, “we got 'em, anyhow. And if they try to arrest us without a warrant there'll be the deuce to pay. But they aren't going to make any more trouble. I know these country crooks. They've got no stomach for trouble outside their own township.”
Which made me feel considerable better, fur I never been of the opinion that going agin the law done any one no good.
They looks around in that wagon, and all their stuff was there—Jake Smith and the squire having kep' it all together careful to make things seem more legal, I suppose—and the doctor was plumb tickled, and Looey felt as cheerful as he ever felt about anything. So the doctor says they has everything they needs but some ready money, and he'll get that sure, fur he never seen the time he couldn't.
“But, Looey,” he says, “I'm done with country hotels from now on. They've got the last cent they ever will from me—at least in the summer time.”
“How you going to work it?” Looey asts him, like he hasn't no hopes it will work right.
“Camp out,” says the doctor. “I've been thinking it all over.” Then he turns to me. “Rube,” he says, “where are you going?”
“Well,” I says, “I ain't pinted nowhere in pertic'ler except away from that town we just left. Which my name ain't Rube, Doctor Kirby, but Danny.”
“Danny what?” asts he.
“Nothing,” says I, “jest Danny.”
“Well, then, Danny,” says he, “how would you like to be an Indian?”
“Medical?” asts I, “or real?”
“Like Looey,” says he.
I tells him being a medical Injun and mixed up with a show like his'n would suit me down to the ground, and asts him what is the main duties of one besides the blankets and the feathers.
“Well,” he says, “this camping-out scheme of mine will take a couple of Indians. Instead of paying hotel and feed bills we'll pitch our tent,” he says, “at the edge of town in each sweet Auburn of the plains. We'll save money and we'll be near the throbbing heart of nature. And an Indian camp in each place will be a good advertisement for the Sagraw. You can look after the horses and learn to do the cooking and that kind o' thing. And maybe after while,” he says, kind o' working himself up to where he thought it was going to be real nice, “maybe after while I will give you some insight into the hidden mysteries of selling Siwash Indian Sagraw.”
“Well,” says I, “I'd like to learn that.”
“Would you?” says he, kind o' laughing at himself and me too, and yet kind o' enthusiastic, “well, then, the first thing you have to do is learn how to sell corn salve. Any one that can sell corn salve can sell anything. There's a farmhouse right over there, and I'll give you your first lesson right now. Rummage around in that satchel there under the seat and get me a tin box and some corn salve labels.”
I found a lot of labels, and some boxes too. The labels was all different sizes, but barring that they all looked about the same to me. Whilst I was sizing them up he asts me agin was they any corn salve ones in there.
“What colour label is it, Doctor Kirby?” I asts him. Fur they was blue labels and white labels and pink labels.
He looks at me right queer. “Can't you read the labels?” he says, right sharp.