Ma Pettengill | Page 7

morals to a steer,
which ain't got sense enough to know friend from foe.
Safety still shakes his head. He says "safe and sane" has been his motto
throughout a long and busy life and this here proposition don't sound
like neither one to him. The boys tell him he's missing a good thing by
not throwing in with us. They say I'm giving 'em each a big block of
stock, paid up and non-assessable, and they don't want him to come
round later when they're rolling in wealth and ask why they didn't give
him a chance too.
"I can just hear you talk," said Sandy. "You'll be saying: 'I knew that
whole fool bunch when not one ever had a dollar he could call his own
the day after he was paid off, and now look at 'em--throwing their
hundreds of thousands right and left; houses with pianos in every room;
new boots every week; silver-mounted saddles at a thousand each;
choice wines, liquors, and cigars; private taxicabs; and Alexander J.
Sawtelle, the wealthy banker, being elected to Congress by an
overwhelming majority!' That's the way you'll be talking," said Sandy,
"with regret eating into your vitals like some horrible acid that is fatal
to man and beast."

Safety says he thinks they're all plumb crazy, and a fool and his money
is soon parted--this being a saying he must have learned at the age of
three and has never forgotten a word of--and he comes up to the house
to see me. Mebbe he wanted to find out if I had really lost my mind, but
he said nothing about whales. Just set round and talked the usual hard
luck. Been in the stock business thirty years and never had a good year
yet. Nothing left of his cattle but the running gear; and his land so poor
you couldn't even raise a row on it unless you went there mad; and why
he keeps on struggling in the bitter clutch of misfortune he don't know.
But I always know why he keeps on struggling. Money! Nothing but
money. So when he got through mourning over his ruined fortunes, and
feebly said something about taking some mules off my hands at a fair
price, I shut him off firmly. Whenever that old crook talks about taking
anything off your hands he's plotting as near highway robbery as they'll
let him stay out of jail for. He was sad when I refused two hundred and
fifty dollars a span for my best mules.
He went off shaking his head like he hadn't expected such inhumanity
from an old friend and neighbour to one who through hard luck was
now down and out.
Well, I hear no more about whales; but a circus is coming to Red Gap
and old Pete, the Indian, says he must go down to it, his mind being
inflamed by some incredible posters pasted over the blacksmith shop at
Kulanche. He says he's a very old man and can't be with us long, and
when he does take the one-way trail he wants to be able to tell his
friends on the other side all about the strange animals that they never
had a chance to see. The old pagan was so excited about it I let him go.
And he was still more excited when he got back two days later. Yes, sir;
he'd found a way to fortune.
He said I'd sure think he was a liar with a crooked tongue and a false
heart, but they had an animal at that circus as big as our biggest covered
mess wagon and it would weigh as much as the six biggest steers I ever
shipped. It has a nose about five feet long--he was sure I wouldn't
believe this part--that it fed itself with, and it carried so much meat that
just one ham would keep a family like Pete's going all winter. He said

of course I would think he was a liar, but I could write down to Red
Gap to a lawyer, and the lawyer would get plenty of people to swear to
it right in the courthouse. And so now I must hurry up and stock the
place with these animals and have more meat than anybody in the
world and get rich pretty quick. Forty times he stretched his arms to
show me how big one of these hams would be, and he said the best part
was that this animal hardly ate anything at all but a little popcorn and a
few peanuts. Hadn't he watched it for hours? And if I didn't hurry
others would get the idea and run prices up.
I guess Pete's commercial mind must of been engaged by hearing the
boys talk about