Wells River High School - Chatterbox Yearbook (Wells River, VT)

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THE CHATTERBOX 11 We tried to have a heart to heart talk with him. but it was no use. He turned the criticisms which we direc- ted at him with jokes which must have been stale when Noah was sailing toy boats around in his old man s bath tub. One day Ed Marshall says to him, “If you can see a real joke, I’m the president of China.” “Well I can see one now,” says the shrimp looking straight at Ed with a silly giggle, which took all the sting out of his come-back. When we plugged up our ears with beeswax and cotton, he began a series of physical jokes. He put a wad of chewing gum in Ed’s hair, salt in the sugar bowl, and a chopped up whisk broom in our blankets. The time had come to do something desperate, but what was there we could do? After some hours of laborious thinking we hit upon a regular scheme. It happened that “Al” had been riding over to the ranch of Lem Pearsall lately to see Lem’s gal Mehitable. So the next day we laid for “Al.” “I see you’ve been over to Pearsall’s quite a lot lately,” says Ed. “You’ve got a good eye for a pretty face, but Mehitable’s a darn nice girl and the feller who cops her will be lucky.” “Al” is growing redder every minute but Ed goes on, “I s’pose it would seem to you as though I was meddlin’ in your personal affairs too much if I told you how to make a hit with her, so I guess I’ll keep my mouth shut.” No, go ahead and tell me,” says the poor fish falling into the trap. “Well, it’s so simple anybody would have thought you’d have thought of it yourself, but its this way,” Ed goes on. “she’s the kind of girl that likes a nervy happy lad, so just you go on springing every joke on her you ever thought or heard of and she’ll be your weeping bride any time you want her.” He took this for granted, it seems, and after that we hardly ever got any of his stale stuff uncorked on us. He saved it to spring on Mehitable when he rode over to her shack which stood across the creek.

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1« THE CHATTERBOX you lose your breath, and whoop how glad he is to see you are back again. He is the kind of comedian who re- marks when anything falls on the floor, like a pile of dishes, “You’ll find it on the floor.” He always said, “What can I do you for?” instead of “What can I do for you.” In short he wore the bunch of cowboys’ nerves to a frazzle, who had to put up with this sort of humor, which was really about as funny as a wooden leg, though he couldn’t be shown this. He broke into ranch life with a dead joke the first day. As he rode up and dismounted he remarked that, “I see they ain’t had no communication from Washing- ton by mail or telephone for over two weeks.” “No?” Pete Bohn bit. “And why’s that?” “Why, Washing- ton’s been dead more than a century,” the coot shot back at him. Then he doubled up in laughter, slapping his chaps with antics fit for a circus. For one solid hour af- ter that he kept his mouth going, firing one joke after another in an endeavor to keep up the reputation he fig- gered he’d made with us. He dug up the joke about an Englishman who was told that death is like a tin can tied to a dog’s tail, “because its bound to occur,” only he got it mixed and got it off by saying “it’s bound to a dog.” We did laugh then. By the next evening we had our minds completely made up about the popularity of “Al” Hicks. He was not serious a minute. For instance, someone would ask him if he thought it was going to rain. He would look up into the sky, as if studying, and feeling around in his pocket, remark, “Why, no I don’t feel any change in my pocket.” Or again, while we were eating he would be asked to pass the butter. He would nod without making a move for the dish. “That’s what I always do,” he’d declare, “you see I had an uncle once who was killed by a goat.”

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12 THE CHATTERBOX All went well for a week, when one night he came galloping up to the ranch a full two hours ahead of time. “What’s the matter with that old Pearsall coyote,” he gasps? Is the reason he don’t have any friends or ac- quaintances because he is crazy and if he is, why didn’t you tell me about it before? Why, tonight I was trying my level best to entertain him. The fact is tonight’s the night I’ve set to ask Mehitable if she didn’t think Hicks would be a shorter and easier name to write than Pearsall. When I turned up this evenin’, I was lucky enough to get a word with her alone. I asked her to meet me at the water tank by the railroad track in an hour’s time be- cause I’d important things to speak to her about. Well, she agreed to slip away and meet me there. Ever since I’ve been callin’ on her, that old galoot, her father, has sat right into every one of our conversations. He thought he was some story teller, I guess, until two evenings ago I cut loose on him with some of my yarns like you told me to do and since then he sort of shut up and left the floor to me. I was settin’ in the parlor alone with him to- night trying to cover up Mehitable’s get-away by telling him a couple of gags when he jumps on me with his gun and a meat ax, with which he declared his intention of separating me from my life. A feller like that oughter be in jail and I’d go round up a posse now only I got to get down to the water tank as I’m twenty minutes late already.” The second he was gone we nearly fell over each other in racing for the railroad tracks to overhear his proposal to Lem Pearsall’s gal. “You want me to what?” we heard Mehitable ex- claim. “Marry me, I said,” A1 Hicks’ voice floated to us. “You’ll be happy with me. How can you help it? I’ll keep you merry as a lark all day pullin’ jokes on you like ----”. “Say,” Mehitable cut in, “is this the important thing you brought me all the way out here to tell me? If I’d supposed for a minute that you was entertaining