Dirty Work for Doughgod

Author of “For the Parson of Paradise,” “Jay Bird’s Judgment,” etc.

“No, sir,” says Mike Pelly. “No more female teachers for Paradise. ’Cause why? ’Cause all the fool punchers fall in love with her and ruin her educational qualities—that’s why. We don’t no more than get a she teacher, until all the saddle-slickers around here quit working and prevents her from teaching the young idea how to shoot straight.”

“This here miss, who writes me from Great Falls, orates that she’s the goods,” states “Doughgod” Smith. “She slings a good hand.”

“Let her sling it—in Great Falls,” says Mike. “As chairman of the Board of Trustees of Paradise, I hereby open and above board objects to anything but a male teacher.”

“I places my bet with yours,” says J. B. Whittaker, owner of the Cross J outfit. “Women has always been the bane of my existence, and in a case like this I opens my mouth like a wolf and openly howls for a man. _Lignum vitæ._”

“_E pluribus unum_,” says Mike, and the session is over.

Me and “Chuck” Warner sets there on the saloon steps and listens to those words of wisdom. Chuck wiggles his ears a lot at the decision and watches them adjourn for a drink.

“Confounded old coots,” says Chuck sad-like. “Only one of them is married, and he ain’t got no kids. I don’t blame Mike for harboring resentment against the weaker sex—after seeing his wife, but them other two loveless lunatics ain’t got no cause to boycott calico for educational purposes. I figured on a woman teacher, Henry.”

“You and me both,” says I. “According to fiction, a puncher has to fall in love with a school-teacher.”

Old Doughgod Smith wanders out and comes over to us, wiping his mustache.

“You’re three lovely old joy-killers, Doughgod,” says Chuck. “Regular old race-suiciders.”

“Now, now, Chuck,” says Doughgod, setting down with us. “Don’t blame me. It’s two against one, and I’m the one. Also, I’m sort of up against it. I didn’t know them snake-huntin’ cohorts of mine were so bitter against women—honest to gosh! That Miss—” Doughgod scratched his head—“I don’t know her name right now—well, she sounds on paper like a regular teacher; so I told her to come and take the job. She’s on her way now, and I don’t know how to head her off.”

“Two ways out,” states Chuck. “Either shoot J. B. or Mike and get a warmhearted man in their place, or meet the train and send her back from whence she comes.”

“Meet her at the train? Me? Not Doughgod Smith! Not me, Chuck. I got rheumatism in the vocal cords when it comes to denying a female anything. I can stand without hitching long enough to meet a lady in a crowd, but I don’t walk right up and speak to one. Reckon I’ll have to pay her way back.”

“I could meet her if I was properly coaxed,” observes Chuck. “Me—I ain’t scared of no female woman.”

“Would you do that, Chuck?” asks Doughgod anxious-like. “Honestly, would you?”

“Yeah. Give me the money for the ticket.”

“By grab, Chuck, you and me are friends for life. Here’s twenty. I don’t know what the ticket costs, but I ain’t asking questions. If she asks for me, you tell her—what’ll you tell her?”

“I never rehearse, Doughgod. I’ll tell her something—you gamble on that.”

Doughgod wanders away, hugging himself, so me and Chuck buys a drink. We meets “Muley” Bowles and “Telescope” Tolliver, and Chuck tells them about the trustee meeting.

“That’s a danged shame,” states Telescope. “This here country is pining for the touch of a woman’s gentle hand. Now, when she shows up, we got to tell her to pilgrim along. Just ’cause them two old, dried-up specimens don’t want women, it ain’t no reason why we don’t.”

“Dogs in a manger,” says Muley, shaking his fat face until it wobbles. Muley had had about enough cheer for a fat man, and he ain’t none too secure on his feet. “As the poet would shay:

“Drink to me only with thy eyes, Oh, women, lovely women, If I hadn’t washed las’ Shummer I’d like to go in schwimmin’.”

“Muley, you’re making light of a dark subject,” chides Telescope. “This is a case of two old pelicans trying to cut the sentiment out of the cow business, and we’ve got to frustrate it. _Sabe?_”

“Shentiment?” asks Muley serious-like. “This is my shentiments:

“Love is a fleeting flower That fleeted away from me, Like a tumble-weed in a cyclone Adrift on a Wintry sea. Where are the loves of yesterday That made my heart so light? Gone like the howl of a coyote That was howled at the moon last night.

“That’s shentiment,” says Muley. “Deep from the heart. Who’s going to the dance at the Triangle tonight, eh?”

“Dances is secondary to the main issue,” says Telescope judicial-like, “and poetry is incidental. We must contemplate deep and act as our better natures dictates.”

Muley Bowles is a self-made poet. Something inside that two-hundred-and-forty-pound carcass seems to move him to rime, and nothing can stop him. He’s so heavy in a saddle that all of his broncs are bowed in the legs and run their shoes over awful.

Telescope Tolliver came from down in the moonshine belt, and he’s got some strange and awful ideas of what constitutes a code of honor. He’s so long in the legs that a bronc has to pitch twice at the same time to get him high enough to throw.

Chuck Warner is a Roman-nosed puncher, with the shortest legs on record and the trusting eyes of a bird-dog. According to all we can find out, Chuck is a titled person. Of course, being an ordinary puncher, he don’t wish to have folks know him as anything but just plain Chuck, but the title remains just the same—Ananias the Second. I won’t go so far as to say that he can’t tell the truth, but I will insist that he won’t.

Me—I’m Henry Clay Peck. I play the banjo cheerfully, take my baths on the same day of every month and do what I’m told. I can’t blame nor credit anybody but me for what I am.

The four of us punches cows for the Cross J, draw down forty a month and spend our leisure time trying to figure out how old J. B. Whittaker ever got so much talent together in one bunch. We sure make a pretty good quartette for singing. We’ve got one tenor and three other voices.

We hives up around Mike Pelly’s bar that day and sings songs until Chuck suggests that we better go down to the depot and see if the lady comes in. We’ve got several trains a day; so it’s up to us to see ’em all. The train ain’t in yet; so we sings a few more songs. After a while the train comes in—but no lady. Muley starts an argument with the conductor over it, but the conductor is a big, mean-looking person; we takes Muley away from him and sets him on a truck.