When East met West

For East is East and West is West. And never the twain shall meet.

He was all wrong, that feller--all wrong. And I’ll tell you how I know he was wrong.

I ain’t no pessimist. Not by a danged sight, I ain’t. If a little kid burns his fingers on a red-hot stove and keeps away from the fire from that time on, you don’t call him a pessimist. That’s me--burnt to a caution.

All the Harper tribe, as far back as I can figure out, was cautious. We bred more runners than we did fighters. Of course there ain’t as many of us as there is Smiths. Smiths predominate, as it were. Anyway, the Smith tribe ain’t got nothin’ to do with this.

I ain’t been in Piperock for several weeks. Me and “Dirty Shirt” Jones has been prospectin’ back in the Whisperin’ Creek hills, with our usual good luck--of gettin’ back before all our food was gone. And we finds my pardner, “Magpie” Simpkins, settin’ at the table in our shack, wearin’ his Sunday clothes.

Magpie is so danged tall that it takes him all day to find out whether a certain pain is indigestion or inflammation of the kneecaps. He’s solemn, Magpie is. And when that elongated, pious-faced cross between a scientific lecture and a ---- fool statement gets pouches under his eyes and droops his eyelids like a blood-hound--caution cometh to me.

Magpie is writin’. He’s got ink plumb to his elbow and the floor is plumb littered with paper. Does he welcome us effusively? Like ---- he does. He just looks at us, kinda reprovin’-like, as if we should ’a’ knocked.

“Well, you old cattywampus, howdy!” greets Dirty Shirt.

Dirty has one eye that kinda oscillates, as it were. Not bein’ what an astronomer would call ‘a fixed orbit,’ it does a lot of jigglin’ before it picks up what Dirty’s lookin’ at.

But it don’t noways affect Dirty’s aim, bein’ as he shoots with both eyes open, and most of the time with both legs workin’. Magpie looks him over solemnly and says--

“Mr. Jones, I give you good afternoon.”

Dirty spits in the general direction of the stove.

“I’ll take it,” says he.

“Mr. Harper,” says Magpie dignified-like.

I kicks the door shut, slides my gun around where I can get it real quick and looks my old pardner over. He’s shaved. Yeah, you can always tell when Magpie has shaved, because he’s got so danged many wounds. He’s got on a celluloid collar--one of them kind that it ain’t safe to smoke in. I can smell stove polish, which Magpie has used on his boots.

Take it all the way around, Magpie Simpkins is a dude.

“You ain’t got yore days mixed, have yuh?” I asked.

“Days mixed?”

He speaks like an actor--kinda runnin’ the scale in G flat, as yuh might say.

“This ain’t Sunday,” says I.

“I am well aware of it.”

“Then what’s the idea of dressin’ up thisaway?”

“The idea? Hah!” He kinda swells up with importance. “I’m the president.”

I looks quick at Dirty, who is starin’ at Magpie with his mouth wide open. Then he looks at me and shakes his head.

“Ike,” says he hoarse-like, “I knowed it. By ----, the human brain can jist stand so much. He’s been feeblin’ up in the head for a long time. I’ve seen it comin’ on by degrees, and I ain’t a mite surprized. There ain’t nothin’ yuh can do, except to hopple ’em so they can’t hurt nobody.”

Magpie looks at Dirty kinda funny and Dirty edges toward the door.

“Better git a rope, Ike,” advises Dirty, backin’ agin’ the door. “Them high-minded first symptoms is apt to degenerate into vi’lence, and we don’t want him to hurt nobody.”

“Set down, you ---- fool,” says Magpie. “I ain’t crazy.”

“Proves it on himself,” declares Dirty nervous-like. “They all swear they ain’t. Look out for his first rush, Ike.”

But I holds firm. To me he’s always been crazy so I ain’t scared of an extra degree.

“Democrat or Republican president?” I asks. “We didn’t git back in time for the convention, you remember.”

“Don’t try to be smart, Ike,” says he. “I plumb forgot that you fellers has been away. Since you was here, Piperock has advanced by leaps and bounds. Right now I am writin’ a biography of our fair city for all to read and appreciate how we have advanced. It is marvelous.”

“What is? The biography?” asks Dirty.

“No--our advancement. Gentlemen, we are on the threshold of a wonderful era for Piperock. No more shall the rest of the world point a finger of scorn at our community. No more shall they say that Piperock is uncivilized, unbalanced. From this day henceforth we shall blossom like the rose. Our ideals shall and will be realized to the fullest extremity. How is that, Ike?”

“Fits in with what we’ve just heard,” says I.

“And with the dawnin’ of a new day--” Magpie squints at his paper--“all these--that’s as far as I’ve got.”

“And that’s a ---- of a long ways, if you ask me,” said Dirty Shirt solemn-like.

“Now about bein’ president,” says I. “Yuh hadn’t ought to go that far, Magpie.”

“Hadn’t I? Huh! That’s who I am, Ike. Look upon me. I am the first president of the Piperock Chamber of Commerce.”

“What the ---- kind of a thing is that?” asked Dirty.