Prairie Folks | Page 4

he needed for the present. He qualified his refusal
to buy with a cordial invitation to go out and see his shotes, in which he

took infinite pride. But Uncle Ripley said: "I guess I'll haf t' be goin'; I
want 'o git up to Jennings' before dinner."
He couldn't help feeling a little depressed when he found Jennings
away. The next house along the pleasant lane was inhabited by a
"new-comer." He was sitting on the horse-trough, holding a horse's
halter, while his hired man dashed cold water upon the galled spot on
the animal's shoulder.
After some preliminary talk Ripley presented his medicine.
"Hell, no! What do I want of such stuff? When they's anything the
matter with me, I take a lunkin' ol' swig of popple-bark and bourbon.
That fixes me."
Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt like whistling now.
At the next house he set his pail down in the weeds beside the fence,
and went in without it. Doudney came to the door in his bare feet,
buttoning his suspenders over a clean boiled shirt. He was dressing to
go out.
"Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way. Jest wait a minute an'
I'll be out."
When he came out fully dressed, Uncle Ethan grappled him. "Say, what
d' you think o' paytent med"----
"Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what y're gitt'n'."
"What d' ye think o' Dodd's"----
"Best in the market."
Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney went on:
"Yes, sir; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I know, I've tried it. I
don't go much on patent medicines, but when I get a good"----
"Don't want 'o buy a bottle?"

Doudney turned and faced him.
"Buy! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want 'o sell." Ripley glanced up at
Doudney's new granary and there read "Dodd's Family Bitters." He was
stricken dumb. Doudney saw it all and roared.
"Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to sell each other bitters.
Ho--ho--ho--har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many bottles did you
git?"
"None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan, as he turned and made off,
while Doudney screamed with merriment.
On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden. Doudney
had canvassed the whole neighborhood, and he practically gave up the
struggle. Everybody he met seemed determined to find out what he had
been doing, and at last he began lying about it.
"Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail?"
"Goose eggs f'r settin'."
He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus never paid his debts,
and he would only promise fifty cents "on tick" for the bottle, and yet
so desperate was Ripley that this quasi sale cheered him up not a little.
As he came down the road, tired, dusty and hungry, he climbed over
the fence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn, and slunk into
the house without looking back.
He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a Democratic
poster to be pasted there.
The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that sign
wriggling across the side of the barn like boa-constrictors hung on rails.
He tried to paint them out, but every time he tried it the man seemed to
come back with a sheriff, and savagely warned him to let it stay till the
year was up. In some mysterious way the agent seemed to know every

time he brought out the paint-pot, and he was no longer the
pleasant-voiced individual who drove the calico ponies.
As he stepped out into the yard next morning, that abominable,
sickening, scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed his
glance--it blotted out the beauty of the morning.
Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the throat, a
whisp of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob at the back of
her head.
"Lovely, ain't it! An' I've got to see it all day long. I can't look out the
winder but that thing's right in my face." It seemed to make her savage.
She hadn't been in such a temper since her visit to New York. "I hope
you feel satisfied with it."
Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean, sweet newness was
gone. 'He slyly tried the paint to see if it couldn't be scraped off, but it
was dried in thoroughly. Whereas before he had taken delight in having
his neighbors turn and look at the building, now he kept out of sight
whenever he saw a team coming. He hoed corn away in the back of the
field, when he should have been bugging potatoes by