Adventure Magazine Cover — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A eee = ee eee 2 = ~~ —_ eg i ae F 6 = | of it, I move that we adjourn. Tomorrow will be spent in preparin’ things. We've got a lot of work to do. ‘Scenery,’ you'll bring yore autymobile in tomorrow?” Scenery Sims admits that he will. Scenery is a little, thin son of a gun, with a E-string voice, and owns the only horseless vehicle in Yaller Rock County. “The ladies will be busy on their cos- tumes,” says Magpie, “and there will be much decoratin’ to be did. The time is kinda short to complete all the details; but it is goin’ to be the biggest thing ever pulled of in the West. Our grandchildren will be proud of us.” “Yours won’t be,” says Dirty Shirt. It’s kind of a mean remark, bein’ as Mag- pie never was married. Nobody laughed, but those directly behind us kinda eased themselves aside out of the line of fire. Magpie shook his head and polished the nail of his trigger finger on his right ear. “We've got to be meek,” sayshe. “ “The meek shall inherit the earth.’ ”’ “That won’t be a —— of a lot of fun, if there ain’t nothin’ but meek ones left,” says I. “There'll be a of a lot of earth to divide, too,” says Dirty Shirt. And that’s all we knew about the meetin’. Pye got a hunch that Dirty spoke up too quick. I told him that they’ve been arguin’ about me and him before we got there, but he don’t care. There ain’t a chance to steal them animals for Paradise, even if we was so inclined—which we ain’t—so we decided to let nature take its course. Early the next mornin’ we finds Magpie paintin a big sign. He ain’t noways ar- tistic, but readable. At the top is one word, in letters two feet high— PAGEANT And just below that is two more big words— OF PROGRESS “What's that, Magpie?” asks Dirty Shirt. “Depictin’,” says Magpie, wipin’ some black paint out of his mustache, ‘‘the prog- tess of Piperock. Pageant means a high- toned parade. There has been parades be- fore, but this is the first pageant. If you two fellers will go up to Wick Smith’s house you'll prob’ly find Mrs. Smith and Miss Greenbaum workin’ on yore costumes. They was goin’ to make ’em first thing today.” eh ne ph ph iain, he - on <> i am ag ae Adventure “Our costumes?” I asks. ‘‘Whyfor cos- tumes for us, Magpie?”’ ““Have to have ’em, Ike.” “Oh, well, if we have to have ’em.” Me and Dirty spells out the next thing on the list: WHEN EAST MEETS WEST THE EAST IS AMAZED AT THE PROGRESS OF THE WEST THEY MINGLE LIKE BROTHERS THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN VICTORY THE SPIRIT OF PIPEROCK— PROGRESS DON’T FORGET THE BIG DANCE AT THE MINT HALL THATCHER'S COMBINED ORCHESTRA WILL FURNISH THE STRAINS AND SCENERY SIMS WILL DO THE CALLIN COME ONE AND ALL TWO DOLLARS PER EACH WILL COVER THE PAGEANT AND DANCE PIPEROCK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE MAGPIE SIMPKINS, President We found Wick Smith at the store. He hoodled Hassayampa into takin’ charge of the animals again and is runnin’ his own store; but he ain’t cheerful. “Tomorrow is Labor Day,” says he with tears in his voice. “I ort to be happy, I s’pose, ‘cause the proceeds of the pag-unt is to help pay me for them animals; but somehow I can’t seem to rend the veil, as Old Testament says, and see the silver linin’.” “Aw, itll be all right,” says Dirty. ‘Parades ain’t much to worry about.” “Thasso?” Wick squints at Dirty. ‘“You’ve survived some of our parades, ain’t yuh, Dirty?” “Yeah, but you’ve got to figure that Piperock is civilized. It ain’t noways what she used to be, Wick. Right now Piperock is meek and mild.” “Tl betcha,” nods Wick. “Well, I still has hopes, but—I dunno. [I can’t quite figure out my wife lookin’ like a statoo of eEomicbooks.com STS Mee eee al er tp has sorte! or