Ma Pettengill | Page 4

this lovely rubber stock that
will net him two hundred per cent, at the very lowest, on the capitalist's
word of honour, what does he do but sneak out and take the train for
home on his return ticket that he'd made the capitalist buy him.
"Ever talk to one of these rich capitalists that has rubber stock for sale
in South America or a self-starting banana orchard? You know how
good they are.
"You're certainly entitled to anything of your own that you've kept after
they get through with you. And would you think that this poor,

simple-minded old rancher would be any match for their wiles? But if
you knew he had been a match and had nicked 'em for at least three
hundred dollars, would you still think something malignant might be
put over on him by a mere scrub buckeroo named Sandy Sawtelle, that
never made a cent in his life except by the most degrading manual
labour? No, you wouldn't. No fair-minded judge of criminals would.
"But I admit I had a weak moment. Yes, sir; for a brief spell I was all
too human. Or I guess what it was. I was all blinded up with immoral
designs, this here snake-blooded Timmins having put things over on
me in stock deals from time to time till I'd got to lying awake nights
thinking how I could make a believer of him. I wanted him to know
there is a God, even if it hadn't ever seemed so to him.
"Of course I knew it would have to be some high-grade felony, he
being proof against common depredations. Well, then, along come this
Sunday paper, with two whole pages telling about how the meat of the
common whale will win the war, with a picture of a whale having
dotted lines showing how to butcher it, and recipes for whale patties,
and so forth. And next comes the circus to Red Gap, with old Pete, the
Indian, going down to it and getting crazy about elephants. And so that
was how it happened."
The lady now knitted in silence, appearing to believe that all had been
told.
I waited a decent interval, then said I was glad indeed to know how it
had all happened; that it was a great help to know how it had happened,
even if I must remain forever ignorant of what it was that had happened.
Of course I couldn't expect to be told that.
It merely brought more about mules. Five hundred dollars a span for
mules looked good until you remembered that you needed 'em worse
than the other party did. She had to keep her twenty span of old
reliables because, what with the sailors and section hands you got
nowadays to do your haying, you had to have tame mules. Give 'em
any other kind and they'd desert the ship the minute a team started to
run. It cost too much for wagon repairs.

Silence again.
I now said I had, it was true, heard much low neighbourhood scandal
about the Timmins man, but that I had learned not to believe all I heard
about people; there was too much prejudice in the world, and at least
two sides to every question.
This merely evoked the item that Timmins had bought him a thrift
stamp on the sole ground that it had such a pretty name; then came the
wish that she might have seen him dining in public at that rich hotel
where the capitalist paid the bills.
She thought people must have been startled by some of his actions.
"Yes, sir; that old outlaw will eat soup or any soft food with almost no
strategy at all."
As we seemed to be getting nowhere I meanly rolled the lady a
cigarette. She hates to stop knitting to roll one, but she will stop to light
it.
She stopped now, and as I held the match for her I said quite frankly
that it had become necessary for me to be told the whole thing from
start to finish. She said she had told me everything--and believed it--but
would go over it again if I didn't understand. Though not always
starting at command, the lady has really a full habit of speech.
I told you about whales, didn't I? Whales started it--whales for table use.
It come in the Sunday paper--with the picture of a handsome whale and
the picture of a French cook kissing his fingers over the way he has
cooked some of it; and the picture of a pleased young couple eating
whale in a swell restaurant; and the picture of a fair young bride in her
kitchenette cutting up three cents' worth of whale meat into a chafing
dish and saying how glad