Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

pretty sick. I knew what the answer was before he opened his mouth. “Well, Buck,” he said with a foolish old giggle, “I reckon they ain’t no cause _ fer keepin’ it a secret. I’m courtin’ that Barnes girl.” ~ “Vou’re old enough to be her grand- father,” I blurted out. | -*T been all over that,” he said stiffly, blowing out Turkish tobacco smoke from his nose. “ We talked the whole thing out -_—her and me. And what’s more, a man *ain’t any older than what he feels. I don’t feel a day over forty. She wants a good home and a good steady, reliable man. She ain’t int’rested in yo’ young squirts.” “Did she say sor” His grin made me feel sicker than ever. Old man Clayburn with his long, patri- - archal beard had had dignity and he de- served respect. This smooth-faced, smirking foxy grandpa was simply ridiculous. “JT ain’t sayin’ all we done talked about, Buck.” “Do you think she loves you?” That silly smirk again. “If she ain’t, she’s waverin’.” “Did she get you to buy those clothes and that car?” “Well, what if she did and what if she didn’t?” he said peevishly. “ My Lawd, yo’re wuss than them two girls o’ mine. Just pryin’ and questionin’ and doubtin’, Ain’t I free, white and old enough to know what I’m doin’? Is there any law agin a man fallin’ in love with whatever girl he sets his mind on? Just because I been settin’ back and keepin’ my mouth shet fer the last ten, fifteen years, everybody seems to think I ain’t fitten fer nothin’ but the crave. What about how lonely I been? What about how lonely I’m goin’ to be when them girls marries the twins and leaves me in that house all by mahself? Yo’ think I’m nothin’ but an old back number. Well, I ain’t. I want some com- fort and happiness in mah old age and I’m goin’ to have it.” “Don’t you think it’s kind of risky,” T put in feebly, ‘“‘a man your age marry-~ ing a girl who’s hardly into her twenties?” ‘J been all over that,” he snapped. - “Sho! Yo’ make me sick and tired, Buck!, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, I should think yo’d be happy to see a little happiness comin’ to me.” “You sure she'll make you happy?” He tossed the mangled stub of the cigar- ette away. “ Well, I ain’t got her yit. But she’s waverin’. And when she sees these here clothes and this blue roadster—” He stopped with his mouth slightly agape, and I saw a new wave of red climb up into his leathery, lined old face. Old man Clayburn was blinking his eyes rapidly and breathing short and quick. I looked down the sidewalk where he was staring. Alvina, in the red dress, was coming. She was still too far away to be identified as to features, but nobody in Vingo had a dress like that one. And the two fox terriers were running along in front of her. I wanted to make a bet with the old man that when Alvina saw him and the sky-blue roadster trimmed in red, she would do but one thing. She would sink down on the ground and all but faint with laughter. But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings any more than I had, and, besides, something was happening. Was Alvina ever around when something wasn’t happening? She was coming up the sidewalk at a trun, her white arms and her white silk stockings twinkling in the sunlight. And the dogs were yelping. Then I saw that a small rabbit was lead- ing the procession—a small gray-and-tan swamp rabbit that was traveling just about as fast as any rabbit has ever traveled. It was coming straight down the side- walk in long, frantic leaps, and the dogs were only a few feet behind it. It didn’t seem to realize that safety lay in the deep, grassy ditch on either side. I suppose, to a rabbit mind, that sidewalk, reaching on and on, would seem like only a part of the inferno that those yelping little beasts were providing for it. It must have been frantic with fear. I heard Alvina’s voice, shrill and mad- dening: “ Sick ’im! Sick ‘im! Atta pup- pies!” The end came less than a dozen yards from the commissary porch. Peggy, the nimbler of the pair, drew abreast of the swamp rabbit. Saliva was flung from her ae ey Eom chooks (e(0)