Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

674 or three hundred cans of tomatoes, all labeled. I dropped the curtain and got back outdoors. The thing seemed simple énough now— evidently these people were capable of a little sharp dealing themselves. They had probably held out those cans on their last year’s sale, putting in short cases, and were keeping them hid to sell with this year’s output. Its diversion gone, my mind went back to the fuzz on my phiz. I heard the woman busying herself at the rear of the cabin and went around. “Where can IJ get a razor?” I asked with- out preliminaries. She straightened up from the chicken she was picking, with as near an expression of surprise as her constitution permitted. “ Lawsy, ain’t you gone down to the can- nery with the rest of ’em?”’ she says. “No, I been sitting out in front all the time,” I told her. “I heard you killing the chicken and was darn glad of it. Have vour husband or the boys got a razor?” “JT reckon so. What for you want a razor? Goin’ to a party?” She liked the joke and cackled over it. The mountain people haven’t much use for blacks, but they have a few coon wheezes they fancy. “1’m going to shave,” I told her. “ T’ll get it for you,” she says, almost too willing, it seemed to me. I had an interesting spectator. The idea of a full grown man shaving himself was evidently a big novelty to the mountain woman, By the feel of the razor it hadn’t been used for several generations, and the soft soap wasn’t any too caressing to my rosy cheek. The deed done, I went up the ladder to the shakedown, not caring to waste the deacon’s surprise in a half light, preferring to reserve it for morning. I was nearly asleep when he rolled in be- side me, but by that time my recent act had been forgotten by worrying again over Nancy Grey, and I whispered to him: “ See anything of the girl?” “No. I told you she’s all right. Say, this bunch may not look like much, but they’ve got the best cannery in the moun- tains, down there in the hollow. Right good machinery and a man up from the city to run it for them. He eats here, too, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. though he was too busy to come un to sup- per. I tell you, the tomato is going to civilize this section.” The deacon was so enthusiastic over what he’d seen poking around with those men that he was positively garrulous. He might, in reality, have been what he posed as, a tomato buyer, instead of a moonshine sniffer. I finally had to tell him point blank to shut up and let me sleep. Vil. Havinc been the first one to bed it was natural that I should be the last one up. The night was chilly, and I covered my head with the blanket, as is my pleasing personal custom, with the result that I didn’t see the light poking in through the chinks of the loft. The first thing I knew was the deacon bellowing up the ladder that I better hurry if I expected to get anything to eat. I rolled out and down, for toilet preparations were a simple matter. The deacon was sitting with his back to the ladder. He turned to glance at me and his head stayed riveted that way while he stared like he was hypnotized by my smooth countenance. The others were studying me, too, but there was no surprise about them; probably the old woman had told them I’d gone crazy and shaved. The man sitting beside the deacon turned, too, to look at me, and I, on my part, stared at him. He was smooth-faced, also. More- over, there was something familiar about him. I couldn’t spot the sense of familiarity for a minute and by that time I was down and off the ladder. Then I realized that what I recognized was the glare with which he was regarding me. The next instant I was fighting for my life, trying to keep old Wambold from choking me. The deacon jumped for the smooth-faced man, who was Wambold, almost as soon as he jumped for me. But the rest of the gang were after the deacon, and I was under a pyramid of humanity higher than any moun- tain in this range. But I was doing fairly well. From previous experience I knew Wambold’s tactics in hand-to-hand encoun- ter and beat him to the bite. 3 Two or three shots rang out and gradual- Go VOOKS AUUG (C@