PAGE 9
The Jimmyjohn Boss
by
“I skinned a coon in San Saba, Texas, this day a year.”
At the sound of a voice, some of their eyes turned on the speaker, but turned back to the fire again. The spirit had spoken from the clay, aloud; and the clay was uncomfortable at hearing it.
After some more minutes a neighbor whispered to a neighbor, “Play you a game of crib.”
The man nodded, stole over to where the board was, and brought it across the floor on creaking tip-toe. They set it between them, and now and then the cards made a light sound in the room.
“I treed that coon on Honey,” said the young man, after a while–“Honey Creek, San Saba. Kind o’ dry creek. Used to flow into Big Brady when it rained.”
The flames crackled on, the neighbors still played their cribbage. Still was the day bright, but the shrinking wedge of sun had gone entirely from the window-sill. Half-past Full had drawn from his pocket a mouthorgan, breathing half-tunes upon it; in the middle of “Suwanee River” the man who sat in the corner laid the letter he was beginning upon the heap on his knees and read no more. The great genial logs lay glowing, burning; from the fresher one the flames flowed and forked; along the embered surface of the others ran red and blue shivers of iridescence. With legs and arms crooked and sprawled, the buccaroos brooded, staring into the glow with seldom-winking eyes, while deep inside the clay the spirit spoke quietly. Christmas Day was passing, but the sun shone still two good hours high. Outside, over the snow and pines, it was only in the deeper folds of the hills that the blue shadows had come; the rest of the world was gold and silver; and from far across that silence into this silence by the fire came a tinkling stir of sound. Sleighbells it was, steadily coming, too early for Bolles to be back from his school festival.
The toy-thrill of the jingling grew clear and sweet, a spirit of enchantment that did not wake the stillness, but cast it into a deeper dream. The bells came near the door and stopped, and then Drake opened it.
“Hello, Uncle Pasco!” said he. “Thought you were Santa Claus.”
“Santa Claus! H’m. Yes. That’s what. Told you maybe I’d come.”
“So you did. Turkey is due in–let’s see–ninety minutes. Here, boys! some of you take Uncle Pasco’s horse.”
“No, no, I won’t. You leave me alone. I ain’t stoppin’ here. I ain’t hungry. I just grubbed at the school. Sleepin’ at Missouri Pete’s to-night. Got to make the railroad tomorrow.” The old man stopped his precipitate statements. He sat in his sledge deep1y muffled, blinking at Drake and the buccaroos, who had strolled out to look at him, “Done a big business this trip,” said he. “Told you I would. Now if you was only givin’ your children a Christmas-tree like that I seen that feller yer schoolmarm doin’ just now–hee-hee!” From his blankets he revealed the well-known case. “Them things would shine on a tree,” concluded Uncle Pasco.
“Hang ’em in the woods, then,” said Drake.
“Jewelry, is it?” inquired the young Texas man.
Uncle Pasco whipped open his case. “There you are,” said he. “All what’s left. That ring’ll cost you a dollar.”
“I’ve a dollar somewheres,” said the young man, fumbling.
Half-past Full, on the other side of the sleigh, stood visibly fascinated by the wares he was given a skilful glimpse of down among the blankets. He peered and he pondered while Uncle Pasco glibly spoke to him.
“Scatter your truck out plain!” the buccaroo exclaimed, suddenly. “I’m not buying in the dark. Come over to the bunk-house and scatter.”
“Brass will look just the same anywhere,” said Drake.
“Brass!” screamed Uncle. “Brass your eye!”
But the buccaroos, plainly glad for distraction, took the woolly old scolding man with them. Drake shouted that if getting cheated cheered them, by all means to invest heavily, and he returned alone to his fire, where Bolles soon joined him. They waited, accordingly, and by-and-by the sleigh-bells jingled again. As they had come out of the silence, so did they go into it, their little silvery tinkle dancing away in the distance, faint and fainter, then, like a breath, gone.