his one a
little stout, he'd fold his arms, throw back his head, an' say, "Laugh,
varlets, laugh! Like the cracklin' o' thorns under a pot, is the
laughter of fools." This was the brand of langwidge 'at flowed from
this one, an' he wasn't no ways stingy with it.

Well, they had kept these two at boys' jobs an' boys' wages, an' when I
offered 'em the position of deputy watchmen, they fair jumped at it.
Said Local Color, "It will be a golden opportunity to perpetuate the
seething thoughts which crowd upon my brain." Said Hamlet, "I thank
thee, sir, for this, thy proposition fair. In sooth I'll try the
cold-air cure, and in the majesty of prime-evil silence, I shall make
the snow-capped mountains echo to the wonderful rhapsodies of
Shakespeare." Well, the' was a super-abundance of cold air an'
prime-evil silence an' snow-capped mountains, an' I didn't care a hang
what he did to 'em, so long as it kept me from gettin' everlastin' sick
o' my own company.

I never see any company yet 'at wasn't a shade better'n just my own. I
knew I could stand these two innocents for four months, an' if they got
violent I could rope an' tie 'em. When everybody begun to get ready to
pull out, I took the twenty-mule team down to town to get our needin's.
I took the children along with me, an' I sez to 'em, "Now, boys, no
drinkin' goes up above through the winter. We simply have to go out an'
get disgusted with it before we start back."

Well, we sure had a work-out. On the sixth day Hamlet, he throws his
arm around my neck an' busts out cryin' an' sez, "Happy, it is the
inflexible destiny o' the human race to weary of all things mortal, an'
I'm dog-tired o' bein' drunk--an' 'sides, I'm busted."

It turned out that he didn't have any advantage over me an' Locals in
this respect, so we went to the company store an' got three bushels o'
nickle libraries, enough grub to do six men six months, enough tobacco
to do twelve men a car, an' a little yeller pup 'at we give six bits
for. I didn't 'low to run any risks this deal.

When we got back 'most everybody had pulled out, an' the roads was
beginnin' to choke up. Slocum an' the two capitalists was there waitin'
for us, but when all their stuff was loaded on the wagon the' wasn't
room for the men; so Miller, the youngest capitalist, who was a bit of
a highroller, an' had been shakin' up the coast off an' on, he took off
four trunks, an' sez to me, "Happy, if you run out of clothes, here's
four t