Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

ead he slapped his thigh and guffawed in tis best stable manner: - _ ~~ Do you know what you remind me of? ‘These guys that play tunes on a table full of bells. You know—” and he gave an _ exceedingly broad imitation of the vaude- _ ville performer, who with bells of all tongues and sizes spread out before him, plays “‘ Poet and Peasant.” Springtime did not stop; he smiled, for Osborne had the gift of caricature, but went on with his bell ringing. Then the old man took out his watch and looked at It, shook it, and held it to his ear. “Son, you must be sick,” he said; “ it’s eight minutes past twelve. Didn’t you hear the whistles blow?” Apparently Osborne was ignoring Kitty rather pointedly. She stopped turning the crank and stretched herself cautiously, rubbed her elbows and forearms and shook herself. Her father, without any reference to her as his daughter, said: “ Always keep your help comfortable. Never coddle them. This girl ought to have a chair to sit in.” Springtime looked his contrition, and Kitty walked past her father without a glance. The old man knew just how far he could go with Kitty and there was a spark in her eye that told him this was one of the times when he ought to keep still. Springtime was rather elaborate in the way he settled the beans down on the half-full sack and in the way he pushed the full one hack so that the door could swing farther _ than it had ever swung before, but if he _ hoped to draw some favorable comment from the old man it did not work. _ At noon he carried a chair down and ade a hay cushion for Kitty out of a grain sack. When she was comfortable, there othing to stop him for the rest of the and he set out to make a record. oon while the sun spots crawled floor and up the walls Kitty > handle, stopping only when yhich he did as though he s of water to a fire. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. intervals Springtime asked if she w and Kitty said: « No, no! Don't att - All afternoon his fingers flew like thee = SL fa woman, and when a big ag was e tied it | i sheer happiness. “a _ When the plow works whistle blew and Kitty slumped down in the chair, six bushels were finished altogether: one by hand in four days and five by machine in One day Springtime reckoned that what with the stops he had had to make this was not 2 sample. working day and that with uninter- rupted time he could finish within three more days. Free to follow the trials of his fancy—free except for one thing, the loyal Kitty who had stuck by the handle as a mother sticks to a crib. In spite of his success he felt that he was not the man to make her happy, and as the unculled beans diminished so the wandering half of him began to shout for its rights, “I wish,” said Kitty as she got out of the chair, “ that you could top dad in get- ting a good price for these beans, He al- ways gets the top of the market, and he’s as proud of it as a man could be of any- thing. If you could get a cent or two above him he would respect you more than he does any one.” ‘Those are great beans,” said Spring- time. “ There isn’t a one there that’s a half shade off color.” ‘I know all about this price business, ’ said Kitty. ‘I’ve shopped around for wo- men’s things and I’ve seen the same thing— mufflers for instance—in two different stores, with about a third difference in the prices. One place would have a little card over the muffler, saying ‘ Hand-loomed ’ or something like that and that was what the extra dollar or so was for. Do you know what hand-loomed means?” Springtime shook his head. “Neither do I. Nobody does, but people fall for it, and the store that puts the card on the muffler and sells it for a third more sells ten times as many as the other oy I wonder what you could call these? You couldn’t call beans hand-loomed, could you?” - “ Hand-picked,” suggested Springume. | n't—they’re machine- 1 Al comicbooks.com