Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

THE BULLY OF discover that, as far as evidence reported by the naked eye was concerned, Arcadia-on- Ooglagoochee was no fairy paradise. The vision of tropical loveliness he had brought South with him faded before a stark reality consisting of raw, ugly drainage ditches— deep, unhealed gashes in the face of nature —and harsh, new land; but over it all marched the incomparable Florida sun and above it arched the imperishable blue of the Florida sky. And Teddy eventually found a spot that suited him perfectly. One glance at this estate was sufficient to apprise him that its former owner had started in with all the enthusiasm of a new broom, but that he had soon grown weary. An attractive Spanish bungalow which fronted on the black and sinister Ooglagoo- chee was painted only on one side; a tool shed and a chicken house were only half completed, and the automobile road in from the highway was rock-surfaced only part way; but five thousand healthy young grapefruit trees thrived in the rich soil and land had been turned elsewhere for the growth of the celebrated tomatoes. There was work to be done—plenty of muscle-toughening work. This estate, Ted- dy was sure, would give him ample oppor- tunity to associate with the eternal verities and the sweet simplicities. “How much?” he asked the anxiously hovering Battling Cudlip. “ This place,” the one-time prize fighter began with enthusiasm, “sold dirt cheap to the last owner for eighty-nine thousand dollars. It is one of the finest, choicest home sites and farm sites in Florida, con- taining as it does upward of two hundred acres of the richest crop land in the world and facing, as it does, the historic and beautiful Ooglagoochee River—”’ “T can show you a better farm than this for twenty thousand spot cash,” broke in one of the clustering salesmen. “Vou can have this for nineteen,” snapped Battling Cudlip. The price seemed absurdly cheap to Ted- dy Armbister, but it soon appeared that the matter of price settling was not in his hands, but in those of the eager and competitive salesmen. 7 BISCAYNE BAY. 507 He heard the price fall successively from nineteen to eighteen thousand, and from eighteen to seventeen, and from seventeen on all the way down to twelve, at which point Battling Cudlip declared he would see his own mother boiled in coconut oil before he would shave the price of this ele- gant hundred thousand dollar property an- other nickel. “It strikes me as fair enough,” said Teddy Armbister. ‘Ill take it at that figure.” Some minutes elapsed before the cries of pain and baffled rage died away; and when he could make himself heard again, Teddy said: “Tl buy the plantation at that figure. I’ll put down a five-hundred-dollar binder and pay the balance when some reliable lawyer checks up on the title. Is that sat- isfactory?”’ Tears of gratitude stood in Battling Cud- lip’s eyes. ‘ Fellow,” he said, “ you’ve bought you a farm, and I’m here to tell you you’ve snapped up a bargain that would make Shylock himself break down and cry. It’s larceny to let this place go at that price, but my commission is going to bail me out of my boarding house and buy me a shirt and a hair cut and a pair of shoes and the right to climb aboard a rattler head- ing back for the land of the brave and the home of the free.” Such bitter remarks, to be sure, are no ~ longer uttered in Florida. Those who con- tinue to utter piercing wails because of the bubble’s collapse are but dimly heard in the rising shouts of the recuperating boost- er, for Florida is on the way back to nor- malcy with many a glad yo-ho, and next season or perhaps the one to follow will surély witness a revival paralleling in a modest way the lush and hectic times of the boom. When the last broken-hearted real estate salesman had wended his weary way back to Miami, Teddy Armbister, with Battling Cudlip, set about exploring his estate, and the more he saw of it the better he liked it. There was, for example, a little sturdy dock jutting out into the black, coiling current of the Ooglagoochee, although Ted- DOOKS mie (E@) (EO)