Plain Mary Smith

more than reading about how Professor So-and-so had mixed a little of this acid and a squirt of that other truck, and found out what his highly esteemed friend Her

something about the beauteous maid and her feller. Or a tune on the guitar. Or a little chin concerning the way Baldy Smith tried to play six cards in a jack-po

en mercifully preserved the rabbits. So it become time for lunch, and also Sandy was now an Injun, whilst Sammy was Iron-jawed Pete, the Nightmare of the Red Man. Iron-jawed Pete says to Chief Sandy Eagle-bird, "Pick up chips! Make a fire!" But the haughty soul of the noble savage riz at the notion. Be darned if he'd pick up chips. "All right," says Iron-jawed Pete, "then I'll shoot you." And, the gun not being loaded, he promptly blew Sandy full of bird-shot. I've heard about these wonderful destroyers-cannon a quarter of a mile long, t

n South. The father used to get drunk, come home, break the furniture, and throw the old woman out of the house; that is, if she di

it wasn't all getting my name up. All my life I've had a womanish horror of men or animals with their gear out of order. I'd walk ten mile to dodge a cripple. And this here Sandy, with his queer little hop, and his little cl

ehind the ruin they called a barn. Execution was the game he played. He h

se. First off, he hung back, but by and by I had him tearing around lively, because we were aboard ship with a storm coming up to port, a pirate to sta'bbud, breakers forrud, and a rocky coast aft. Anybody would step quick under them conditions. So Sandy he moseyed aloft and hollered do

n the scene, in the person of Sandy's mother, and did us in a single pa

the worse I felt. I wanted to get to my own room without mother's seeing me, but she came to the head of the stair when I was

ecial," says I, airi

ed my hair. Finally my wrongs come out hot and fast. I told about his hanging the cat, and made

ving a good time, that mother of his com

ce or twice, and managed to look as serious as anyt

Can I say exactly wh

es

ys, "she looked up the tree and saw Sandy. 'Sandy Gra-a-y!' she hollers; 'Sandy Gray! You one-eyed, warp-sided, nateral-born fool!

a fit on the spot. That made me ma

he right thing. You kiss your mother and forget all about it-you di

"But she needn't of.... Darn

off the ha

ang cats?" I says, very scornf

y again; think how funny it would have seemed

r smoothing down. "Well, I'll try