Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

ADOLPH’S CLOUD OF GLORY. morning it was clamoring for attention in unprecedented fashion. He went back glumly into the house, found a kitchen opening off the living room and rummaged until he found a jar marked “ coffee.” Then he turned to the stove, a range, with a collection of split-logs in a box at its side. Clumsily Adolph filled the coal bed with paper and logs and touched a match to it. Five minutes later he stum- bled back into the living room, now filled with clouds of smoke, mopping his stream- ing eyes. It was at this moment that he heard brisk steps on the gravel outside and trotted eagerly to the window. “ Hello, there!” he called. A plump little woman in blue gingham, a basket on her arm, returned his greeting with a blend of cordiality and surprise. “ Howdy!” she returned. “I saw the smoke from your chimney jest as we was finishin’ breakfast, and I says to Art—that’s my husband— What’s Mr. Saylor doin’ up here so early?’ ‘ Better run over an’ see,’ says Art to me. You a friend of Mr. Saylor’s?” “ Well,” replied Adolph speculatively, “ Elliott says that a friend is a well spring in the wilderness. If this is true, I may truthfully say that Mr. Saylor is my friend. May I introduce myself? Baldwin is my name!” “T’m Mrs. Hopkins,” she rejoined, re- covering from the amaze into which his rhetoric had thrown her. ‘“ You all alone up here?” “Save for my muse, alas, yes,” admitted Adolph. His caller decided that the word was Adolph’s waggish abbreviation of some ‘strange musical instrument and padded competently toward the door. “T’ll come along in an’ fix you up,” she told him. - It was not the poet’s intention to ques- tion the thoughtful providence that thus provided him with a ready-made votary intent on “ fixing him up.” He welcomed her into the house with his most winning smile. | “ You look after Mr. Saylor?” he asked. ‘* Goin’ on twelve years now,” she replied, — _ bustling capably into the kitchen. “ When + mo ,<_ Z - < : -(_. es ~ <= ; — < ae ‘ 8h Sa, ee i r = “ = et ew a ee — me i aed > m _ . = a sz ~ ~ - et = = ig a om a ome 5 Sar 4 7 ne 2 fe ee —s - 3 sie oe ~ = a = ‘ Fat = — = ‘aa /. ee ee 771 I see the smoke comin’ out of his chimney I know he’s back and needin’ some cream and butter an’ things. That’s why I hur- ried over.” She set her basket on the kitchen table and made a rush for the stove. ‘‘ My land, the dampers! No won- der your stove smoked!” “T tried,” explained Adolph, “ to make some coffee and succeeded only in smoking myself out of the kitchen.” “And no wonder,” she exclaimed with satisfaction, “ when you shut all the dam- pers off.” “Dampers!” breathed Adolph with an admiring glance. “Of course! And you saw what was the trouble at once. Won- derful woman!” Mrs. Hopkins flashed him a suspicious glance that changed to a maternal smile when she encountered his guileless eyes. “Land a-goshen!” she cried, sniffing the mixture in the coffee pot and pouring it determinedly down the sink. “ What a sorry sight a man is when you put him in the kitchen! Now you jest set down | while I whip up a few cakes and find some bacon. Mr. Saylor always has a side or two of bacon around. You like wheat cakes, Mr. Baldwin?” Adolph sank weakly into a chair. He gulped hard and a hand moved involun- tarily over the region of his stomach. ‘““ Cakes!” he breathed. ‘ Bacon! vague, forgotten words!” The kitchen was permeated presently with the heavenly aroma of bubbling cof- fee, the pungent perfume of broiling bacon and browning flapjacks. Mrs. Hopkins was an aggressively skillful cook. Adolph’s appealing ineffectuality acted as a spur to her prowess. He refused sturdily to be banished to a solitary, if more genteel, meal in the living room, and partook of his ambrosial repast from one end of the kitchen table. “Now, don’t you,” advised Mrs. Hop- kins firmly, “ go messin’ around tryin’ to get yourself some dinner. I'll run over with some fried chicken for you around half past twelve—and, you drink milk, I sup- pose?” Oh, twice devastated plate. = comicbooks.co Adolph Jooked up solemnly from the act __ of replenishing his aad - - oS o “S ) Ea 7 (@) / —— * == : at =~.