Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

664 So now I just turned my head a little and cocked up a sleepy eye to see had I been dreaming or had somebody really come up on the porch. Well, somebody had real- ly come up on the porch, and of course, me bein’ shoeless and my feet still being reared aloft, the somebody had to bé a woman. Worse yet, the woman had to be Elizabeth Fraser. . | When I tell you that Elizabeth was the haughtiest woman in our county, you will believe that I took my feet offen that rail and stuck ’em into my carpet slippers quicker ’n scat. Yes, Elizabeth was haugh: ty; she was what you might call a real bon vivant, as I heard one drummer say to an- other ‘down at the hotel one time. She was a she-aristocrat, and there ain’t no worse aristocrat than that. an aristocrat all right, but he can’t be as full-fledged an aristocrat as a woman can. Elizabeth had took her thirty-third degree long ago. Mebbe it ain’t good manners to keep-a she-aristocrat standing up on my porch . while I tell you a little bit about Elizabeth, but let us shoot. I can apologize to Eliz- abeth: another time if I happen to think of it. If not, so’be it. Elizabeth had one real. reason for being an aristocrat: she was the richest woman in town. Her husband had been Bob Fra- ser, dead for ten years or so now. I mind the time when Bob had a little — shop up at Horner’s Crossroads.. He done blacksmithing and wagon repairing and such like acts of kindness to travelers in the days before automobiles. When auto- mobiles come in, Bob come right in with them. He was the first man in our town to see that automobiles was going to make one or two men rich before they. was re- placed by flying machines. | First: off, Bob. begun to repair autos and sell gasoline. a Car that sold better ’n any other car. Bob was a good picker. He got his agency in our town going first rate, and then he start- ed another in another town, and pretty soon he had five, each one being under the name of another man, but the profits or most of them accruing unto Bob. ~ In a few years Bob could get a smile A man can: be . Then he got the agency for - ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WELKLY. from any bank president, and the smile would be generally accompanied by.a loan, the amount being fixed by Bob accordin’ to. his needs at the time. At the end of them few years Bob buys two acres of land along the railroad. He buys it for about a quarter of what it’s worth, having, it appeared, held an option for a long time. He was a far-seeing man,. Bab was. On a part of the two acres he sticks up a.nice factory, mostly- built ‘of cement. In this factory he begins to build an auto of his own. Since he had been ‘taking autos to pieces and putting them together again for -a long time, he knowed a considerable about them. The auto he- turned out was as nice a looking car as if it cost two thousand dollars, but it sold for only eight hundred. No more details ain’t necessary about. the building of the Fraser fortune. Money just flowed in on Bob like one of these. here tidal waves you read about. He built a great big house, of: course, and .had ser-_ vants and all such, and sent his son Jimmie, . who this story is a good deal about, to an Eastern college, and had him highly edu-. cated, and Elizabeth, notwithstanding she -had been a farmer’s daughter, got so you’d have thought she had no spine or else an ossified one—she was that unbending—and then Bob laid himself down and died, nat- urally leaving all his pile right where it had been at the time he took ‘to his final bed. Elizabeth grieved, but didn’t unbend. So much for her. And now for Jimmie. Jimmie was one of the nicest kids ever was. When he had come -home from col- lege he went right to work. I think mebbeé his decision growed out of a conference he must have had with old Bob, for Bob had remained as plain as an old hat till the day of his death. All the frills of his way of life was due to Elizabeth. | Why, Bob used to sneak up to my house whenever he got a chance, and we would play seven-up and drink coffee and have a good time all around. I never went to his house, because he didn’t invite me. I guess he thought my two hundred and some pounds would clutter up his parlor—and mebbe he had a thought. about Elizabeth, too. Time was when Elizabeth would give oemicbooks.com