Tamawaca Folks: A Summer Comedy

A Summer Comedy
By JOHN ESTES COOKE
Publishers THE TAMAWACA PRESS U. S. A.
Copyrighted 1907 by G. J. WILSON
The author begs to state that whatever is contained in this modest volume has been written in a spirit of the broadest goodfellowship, and with malice toward none. He has met odd and entertaining people in all quarters of the world and has brought them together in Tamawaca Folks merely that he might weave them into his little romance, and with no thought of being in any way personal. Therefore, since these are many and variant types and can have no individuality for that reason, the writer begs his reader not to attempt to fit any of the fictitious characters to living persons, lest your neighbor try to fit one of my masquerade costumes to you—which would be an impertinence I am sure you would not like. The temptation, I admit, is natural, because the people portrayed are all human and even their composites have prototypes in nearly every locality. But desist, I entreat you.
Tamawaca exists, and is as beautiful as I have described it. I chose it as the scene of my story because I once passed an entire summer there and was fascinated by its incomparable charm. The middle West has no spot that can compete with it in loveliness.
When Jarrod finally sold out the Crosbys he had a chance to breathe freely for the first time in years. The Crosbys had been big ranch owners and herders, mine owners, timber and mill owners, bankers, brokers, bucket-shop manipulators and confirmed bull-dozers and confidence-men. They played the game for big stakes always and won by sheer nerve and audacity.
Jarrod was their lawyer and they kept him in hot water every minute. They had a habit of rounding up other folks' cattle, cutting other people's timber, jumping claims, tapping mines and misbehaving generally. And Jarrod had to straighten out these misdeeds and find a way to keep his clients from behind the bars.
Old man Crosby, who had been shot in the hip in a raid, ran the Bank of Oklahoma, and ran it so crookedly that Jarrod was often in despair. No one would believe a Crosby under oath, while Jarrod was acknowledged by even his enemies to be square as a die and fair as the scales of justice. So his position was extremely difficult. He saved the Crosbys from their misdeeds for years, by dint of hard work and constant diplomacy, and at last, when a thousand penalties confronted them and could not be staved off much longer, the lawyer managed to sell for them their entire holdings and induced them to retire from business in general and lawlessness in particular.