Happy Hawkins

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

I wasn't really a Westerner an' that's why I'm so different from most of 'em. Take your regular bonie fide Westerner an' when he dies he don't turn to dust, he turns to alkali; but when it comes my turn to settle, I'll jest natchely become the good rich soil o' the Indiana cornbelt.

I was born in Indiana and I never left it till after I was ten years old. That's about the time boys generally start out to hunt Injuns; but I kept on goin' till I found mine—but I didn't kill him—nor him me neither, as far as that goes.

I allus did have the misfortune o' gettin' hungry at the most inconvenient times, an' after I 'd been gone about two weeks I got quite powerful hungry, so I natchely got a job waitin' on a lunch counter back in Omaha. The third day I was there I was all alone in the front room when in walked an Injun. He was about eight feet high, I reckon; and the fiercest Injun I ever see. I took one look at him a' then I dropped behind the counter and wiggled back to the kitchen where the boss was. I gasped out that the Injuns was upon us an' then I flew for my firearms.

When the boss discovered that the Injun and fourteen doughnuts, almost new, had vanished, he was some put out, and after we had discussed the matter, I acted on his advice and came farther West. That business experience lasted me a good long while. I don't like business an' I don't blame any one who has to follow it for a livin' for wantin' to have a vacation so he can get out where the air is fit to breathe.

Just imagine bein' hived up day after day with nothin' to see but walls an' nothin' to do but customers. You first got to be friendly with your visitors to make 'em feel at home, an' then you got to get as much of their money as you can in order to keep on bein' friendly with 'em in order to keep on gettin' as much of their money as you can.

Now out in the open a feller don't have to be a hypocrite: once I worked a whole year for a man who hated me so he wouldn't speak to me; but I didn't care, I liked the work and I did it an' he raised my wages twice an' gave me a pony when I quit.

He was the sourest tempered man I ever see; but it was good trainin' to live with him a spell. Lots of men has streaks of bein' unbearable; but this man was the only one I ever met up with who was solid that way, and didn't have one single streak of bein' likeable. He was the only man I ever see who wouldn't talk to me. I was a noticing sort of a kid an' I saw mighty early that what wins the hearts o' ninety-nine men out of a hundred is listenin' to 'em talk. That's why I don't talk much myself. But you couldn't listen to old Spike Williams, 'cause the' wasn't no opportunity—he didn't even cuss.

We was snowed up for two weeks one time an' I took a vow 'at I'd make him talk. I tried every subject I'd ever heard of; but he didn't even grunt. Just when things was clearin' off, I sez to him, usin' my biggest trump: "Spike," sez I, "do you know what they say about you?"

"No," sez he, "but you know what I say about them," an' he went on with his packin'....