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

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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

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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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THE CHATTERBOX 13 thoughts of matrimony about me I’d have driven you off long ago. Do you see this?” She stepped back suddenly so that we could see as well as A1 Hicks that she was holding a short-barreled shot-gun in her hands. “I brought this out here tonight to use on you if you sprang another one of them whisker- ed wheezes on me. Do you know that they’re all I’ve been listening to the past twenty-two years. My father is the same kind of would-be humorist that you are. That’s why he ain’t got a friend in this part of the coun- try or any other. Yet you talk about my marrying you and dooming myself to a life of mental torture listening to you—”. She broke off as the mournful whistle of the nine-eleven reached her ears, fell back a step, and raised the shot-gun so that it pointed directly at Hicks’ head. “When this freight pulls up here for water,” she tells him, “one of two things is going to happen. Either you’re going to climb on the bumpers and ride out of this country and state never to return, or this gun is going off and your worthless nut with it. I’ll leave it to you to de- cide what its going to be. Now”—as the train slowed up beside ’em—“take your choice.” And A1 Hicks took it. When the freight pulled away from the water tank it took him with it, riding the beam for parts unknown. —G. L. R. ’22 THE ISLE OF MYSTERY Chapter 1 Anita Barstone stood on the steps of her home in California. The place was a large majestic looking man- sion of red brick with a wide piazza which surrounded the house. On the east side was a garden of flowers and walks led in all directions from this.