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Page 21
"So that night I goes up to Mr. Roy Blank by the camp-fire, and looks at
him contemptuous and scornful. 'Snickenwitzel!' says I, like the word
made me sick; 'Snickenwitzel! Bah! Before I'd be named Snickenwitzel!'
"'What's the matter with you, Jeff?" says the kid, opening his eyes
wide.
"'Snickenwitzel!' I repeats, and I spat, the word out. 'I saw a man
to-day from your town, and he told me your name. I'm not surprised you
was ashamed to tell it. Snickenwitzel! Whew!'
"'Ah, here, now,' says the boy, indignant and wriggling all over,
'what's the matter with you? That ain't my name. It's Conyers. What's
the matter with you?'
"'And that's not the worst of it,' I went on quick, keeping him hot and
not giving him time to think. 'We thought you was from a nice,
well-to-do family. Here's Mr. Little Bear, a chief of the Cherokees,
entitled to wear nine otter tails on his Sunday blanket, and Professor
Binkly, who plays Shakespeare and the banjo, and me, that's got hundreds
of dollars in that black tin box in the wagon, and we've got to be
careful about the company we keep. That man tells me your folks live
'way down in little old Hencoop Alley, where there are no sidewalks, and
the goats eat off the table with you.'
"That kid was almost crying now. ''Taint so,' he splutters. 'He--he
don't know what he's talking about. We live on Poplar Av'noo. I don't
'sociate with goats. What's the matter with you?'
"'Poplar Avenue,' says I, sarcastic. 'Poplar Avenue! That's a street to
live on! It only runs two blocks and then falls off a bluff. You can
throw a keg of nails the whole length of it. Don't talk to me about
Poplar Avenue.'
"'It's--it's miles long,' says the kid. 'Our number's 862 and there's
lots of houses after that. What's the matter with--aw, you make me
tired, Jeff.'
"'Well, well, now,' says I. 'I guess that man made a mistake. Maybe it
was some other boy he was talking about. If I catch him I'll teach him
to go around slandering people.' And after supper I goes up town and
telegraphs to Mrs. Conyers, 862 Poplar Avenue, Quincy, Ill., that the
kid is safe and sassy with us, and will be held for further orders. In
two hours an answer comes to hold him tight, and she'll start for him by
next train.
"The next train was due at 6 p.m. the next day, and me and John Tom was
at the depot with the kid. You might scour the plains in vain for the
big Chief Wish-Heap-Dough. In his place is Mr. Little Bear in the human
habiliments of the Anglo-Saxon sect; and the leather of his shoes is
patented and the loop of his necktie is copyrighted. For these things
John Tom had grafted on him at college along with metaphysics and the
knockout guard for the low tackle. But for his complexion, which is some
yellowish, and the black mop of his straight hair, you might have
thought here was an ordinary man out of the city directory that
subscribes for magazines and pushes the lawn-mower in his shirt-sleeves
of evenings.
"Then the train rolled in, and a little woman in a gray dress, with sort
of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the Boy
Avenger sees her, and yells 'Mamma,' and she cries 'O!' and they meet in
a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves on
the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs.
Conyers comes up and thanks me an' John Tom without the usual
extremities you always look for in a woman. She says just enough, in a
way to convince, and there is no incidental music by the orchestra. I
made a few illiterate requisitions upon the art of conversation, at
which the lady smiles friendly, as if she had known me a week. And then
Mr. Little Bear adorns the atmosphere with the various idioms into which
education can fracture the wind of speech. I could see the kid's mother
didn't quite place John Tom; but it seemed she was apprised in his
dialects, and she played up to his lead in the science of making three
words do the work of one.
"That kid introduced us, with some footnotes and explanations that made
things plainer than a week of rhetoric. He danced around, and punched us
in the back, and tried to climb John Tom's leg. 'This is John Tom,
mamma,' says he. 'He's a Indian. He sells medicine in a red wagon. I
shot him, but he wasn't wild. The other one's Jeff. He's a fakir, too.
Come on and see the camp where we live, won't you, mamma?'
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