The Jimmyjohn Boss | Page 3

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Etext prepared by Bill Brewer, [email protected]

The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories
By Owen Wister

To Messrs. Harper & Bothers and Henry Mills Alden whose

friendliness and fair dealing I am glad of this chance to record
Owen Wister

Preface
It's very plain that if a thing's the fashion-- Too much the fashion--if the
people leap To do it, or to be it, in a passion Of haste and crowding,
like a herd of sheep,
Why then that thing becomes through imitation Vulgar, excessive,
obvious, and cheap.
No gentleman desires to be pursuing
What every Tom and Dick and Harry's doing.
Stranger, do you write books? I ask the question, Because I'm told that
everybody writes That what with scribbling, eating, and digestion, And
proper slumber, all our days and nights
Are wholly filled. It seems an odd suggestion-- But if you do write,
stop it, leave the masses, Read me, and join the small selected classes.

The Jimmyjohn Boss
I
One day at Nampa, which is in Idaho, a ruddy old massive jovial man
stood by the Silver City stage, patting his beard with his left hand, and
with his right the shoulder of a boy who stood beside him. He had
come with the boy on the branch train from Boise, because he was a
careful German and liked to say everything twice--twice at least when
it was a matter of business. This was a matter of very particular
business, and the German had repeated himself for nineteen miles.
Presently the east-bound on the main line would arrive from Portland;

then the Silver City stage would take the boy south on his new mission,
and the man would journey by the branch train back to Boise. From
Boise no one could say where he might not go, west or east. He was a
great and pervasive cattle man in Oregon, California, and other places.
Vogel and Lex--even to-day you may hear the two ranch partners
spoken of. So the veteran Vogel was now once more going over his
notions and commands to his youthful deputy during the last precious
minutes until the east-bound should arrive.
"Und if only you haf someding like dis," said the old man, as he tapped
his beard and patted the boy, "it would be five hoondert more dollars
salary in your liddle pants."
The boy winked up at his employer. He had a gray, humorous eye; he
was slim and alert, like a sparrow-hawk--the sort of boy his father
openly rejoices in and his mother is secretly in prayer over. Only, this
boy had neither father nor mother. Since the age of twelve he had
looked out for himself, never quite without bread, sometimes attaining
champagne, getting along in his American way variously, on horse or
afoot, across regions of wide plains and mountains, through towns
where not a soul knew his name. He closed one of his gray eyes at his
employer, and beyond this made no remark.
"Vat you mean by dat vink, anyhow?" demanded the elder.
"Say," said the boy, confidentially--"honest now. How about you and
me? Five hundred dollars if I had your beard. You've got a record and
I've got a future. And my bloom's on me rich, without a scratch. How
many dollars you gif me for dat bloom?" The sparrow-hawk sailed into
a freakish imitation of his master.
"You are a liddle rascal!" cried the master, shaking with entertainment.
"Und if der peoples vas to hear you sass old Max Vogel in dis style
they would say, 'Poor old Max, he lose his gr-rip.' But I don't lose it."
His great hand closed suddenly on the boy's shoulder, his voice cut
clean and heavy as an axe, and then no more joking about him. "Haf
you understand that?" he said.

"Yes,