Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

-_ VINGO’S LADY SERPENT, I was behind the counter wrapping up sugar in five-pound packages against the Saturday night rush; but I stopped when Alvina came over. She looked pale and in some way different. “What kind of luck did he have?” I asked her. “Buck,” she said in a low, strange voice, “that’s the man.” I straightened up at that. “‘ What man?” “The one I’ve been wanting to meet all my life. Oh, isn’t he wonderful?” Even then I thought she was making fun of him. Alvina had more natural born wis- dom than any woman I ever knew, and she must have realized at the very beginning that men of his class and girls of hers were not meant for each other. She never took men seriously, and even after looking at her again and noticing how tired and un- happy she looked, I still thought she was joking. “Seems to me you’ve got enough scalps at your belt already,” I said, reaching into the barrel for the sugar scoop. “He’s wonderful,” she repeated in a dreamy, husky little voice. ‘‘ Hasn’t he the most beautiful eyes?” “‘ Alvina!”’ I said. “We're going hunting again, day after to-morrow,” she said in the same dreamy voice. “Why!” I exclaimed. about this fellow!” “Pm not ashamed of it,” said Alvina. I dropped the scoop back into the barrel. It was the beginning of the end, and I knew it. “What’s going to happen to all these men you've been stringing along?” I de- manded. “How about me? How about old man Clayburn? How about the twins? How about that chinless young fool at the quarry? How about that married man, Jacobson, up at Cypress Spoon?” ‘Oh, shucks,” said Alvina. “As far as I can make out, you’ve let every one of us believe—and I'll be damned if I know how you do it-—that you’re crazy about the man you’re talking to, and that the rest don’t count.” -“Nobody counts but Anatole,” said Alvina. “I’m getting tired of this place “You're crazy anyhow. It’s deadly. If Anatole hadn’t come here to-day, I’d have gone back to Georgia inside of a week.” : I think I began to hate Alvina at exactly that point. VITl. It’s queer about those Southern swamp towns. You go out for a walk, or you kill a snake, or do anything—it doesn’t matter what you do—and while you’re about it you can make sure that not a living soul has seen you. Then you find out that a dozen ~ pairs of eyes have been upon you all the time. just happened to see you and you didn’t happen to see them. No matter what time of day or night it is, somebody sees every- thing that you do. | Anatole Logan and Alvina Barnes went through the broom sage field that morning, then through a pine hammock and into an- other broom sage field behind the Dimlock farm. They didn’t pass near a single habi- tation. They didn’t pass near any of the wood-cutting or tie-cutting gangs. Prob- ably they didn’t see a living soul from the time they left the commissary until they returned. But before dark that night I heard from six pairs Of grinning lips, that while she was crawling through an old barbed wire — fence back of Dimlock’s place, Alvina had caught the hem of her dress and that the Northerner, in stooping to free it, had kissed her. And that she had returned that kiss with another that lasted a mighty long time. Ed Randolph, with his nose and mouth all swollen and one eye puffed shut, was in the commissary when the rumor-bearers began coming in. When he heard -about that kiss he looked a whole lot sicker than he had looked before. was in the store at the same time, and Uncle Dan came nearer to being a radio broad- casting station than any medium of commu- nication in the quarters— and there were plenty. And I knew that the story of that — kiss would be in both rock quarries, the turpentine camp at Cypress Spoon and the farthest, most remote tie-camp in the sec- _tion before dark. oO No; they weren’t spying. They Uncle Dan Vickus — comicbooks.co > 6.02 one > ~ s ma = f yi Sy ee a oe