Bunch Grass | Page 9

he looks like we know, who he is we don't know, and we don't
wish to know. So long."
We rode back to our colts.

III
PAP SPOONER
Pap Spooner was about sixty-five years old, and the greatest miser in
San Lorenzo County. He lived on less than a dollar a day, and allowed
the rest of his income to accumulate at the rate of one per cent, a month,
compound interest.
When Ajax and I first made his acquaintance he was digging post-holes.
The day, a day in September, was uncommonly hot. I said, indiscreetly:
"Mr. Spooner, why do you dig post-holes?"
With a queer glint in his small, dull grey eyes he replied, curtly: "Why
are you boys a-shootin' quail--hey? 'Cause ye like to, I reckon. Fer the
same reason I like ter dig post-holes. It's jest recreation-- to me."
When we were out of earshot Ajax laughed.
"Recreation!" said my brother. "Nothing will ever recreate him. Of all
the pinchers----"
"Shush-h-h!" said I. "It's too hot."

Our neighbours told many stories of Pap Spooner. Even that bland old
fraud, John Jacob Dumble, admitted sorrowfully that he was no match
for Pap in a horse, cattle, or pig deal; and George Leadham, the
blacksmith, swore that Pap would steal milk from a blind kitten. The
humorists of the village were of opinion that Heaven had helped Pap
because he had helped himself so freely out of other folks' piles.
In appearance Andrew Spooner was small, thin, and wiry, with the
beak of a turkey-buzzard, the complexion of an Indian, and a set of
large, white, very ill-fitting false teeth, which clicked like castanets
whenever the old man was excited.
Now, in California, "Pap" is a nom de caresse for father. But, so far as
we knew, Pap had no children; accordingly we jumped to the
conclusion that Andrew Spooner got his nickname from a community
who had rechristened the tallest man in our village "Shorty" and the
ugliest "Beaut." The humorists knew that Pap might have been the
father of the foothills, the George Washington of Paradise, but he
wasn't.
Later we learned that Pap had buried a wife and child. And the child, it
seems, had called him "Pap." We made the inevitable deduction that
such paternal instincts as may have bloomed long ago in the miser's
heart were laid in a small grave in the San Lorenzo Cemetery. Our little
school-marm, Alethea-Belle Buchanan, said (without any reason): "I
reckon Mr. Spooner must have thought the world of his little one."
Whereupon Ajax replied gruffly that as much could be said, doubtless,
of a--vulture.
The word "vulture" happened to be pat, apart from the shape of Andrew
Spooner's nose, because we were in the middle of the terrible spring
which succeeded the dry year. Even now one does not care to talk
about that time of drought. During the previous twelve months the
relentless sun had destroyed nearly every living thing, vegetable and
animal, in our county. Then, in the late fall and early winter, we had
sufficient rain to start the feed on our ranges and hope in our hearts. But
throughout February and March not a drop of water fell! Hills and
plains lay beneath bright blue skies, into which we gazed day after day,

week after week, looking for the cloud that never came. The thin blades
of wheat and barley were already frizzling; the tender leaves of the
orchards and vineyards turned a sickly yellow; the few cattle and horses
which had survived began to fall down and die by the empty creeks and
springs. And two dry years in succession meant black ruin for all of us.
For all of us in the foothills except Pap Spooner. By some mysterious
instinct he had divined and made preparations for a long drought. Being
rich, with land in other counties, he was able to move his stock to green
pastures. We knew that he was storing up the money sucked by the sun
out of us. He was foreclosing mortgages, buying half-starved horses
and steers for a song, selling hay and straw at fabulous prices. And we
were reeling upon the ragged edge of bankruptcy! He, the beast of prey,
the vulture, was gorging on our carrion.
Men--gaunt, hollow-eyed men--looked at him as if he were an obscene
bird, looked at him with ever-increasing hate, with their fingers itching
for the trigger of a gun. Pap had his weakness. He liked to babble of his
own cuteness; he liked to sit upon a sugar barrel in the village store and
talk of savoury viands, so to speak, and sparkling wines in the presence
of fellow-citizens who lacked bread and water, particularly water.
One day, in late March, he came into the store as the sun