Upside Down or Backwards

by W. C. Tuttle
Author of “Mary’s Little Lamb,” “With the Joker Wild,” etc.
“Well, she ain’t changed an awful lot since I left,” remarks Magpie Simpkins, as he cuddles his long legs up under his chin and tilts his chair against the side of the cabin.
“You can’t expect no big changes in uh wilderness like this in thirty days,” says I, and he nods emphatic like and spits at uh lizard.
“The East looks good, Ike,” he proclaims.
“Did the East look good to you or did you look good to the East?” I asks. “Seems to me that you gets uh heap civilized in thirty days. What’s the idea uh that hard hat?”
“Last word in head-gear, Ike,” he states, picking the yaller, pot-shaped thing off the ground, and patting it affectionate like. “They calls ’em Darby hats. Did yuh notice that green and red shirt in my valise? I annexes that in Chicago, Ill., U. S. A., and she sure is uh humdinger. Got uh necktie pin in that valise, too, that only assessed me ten dollars and eighty-five cents, and nobody what never seen uh real diamond could tell the difference.”
“Being as ignorance is bliss around here yuh may make uh hit, Magpie,” I replies. “The fact that yuh hangs your person full uh Christmas tree ornaments don’t lessen my hankering to hear yuh tell about how much capital yuh got interested in the Silver Threads.”
Magpie Simpkins is Ike Harper’s pardner, and I’m Ike Harper. We owns the Silver Threads mine, four burros, uh little grub and uh desire to find somebody with money to promote us.
Magpie’s physique is impressing, unless yuh views him edgeways, when yuh can’t get more’n uh glimpse. He’s six feet several inches tall, wears uh kind look and uh long mustache, and has the ability to let me into more trouble than man is heir to.
When we gets nine hundred dollars’ worth uh gold out of our placer mine on Plenty Stone Crick, Magpie gets the promoting itch. He orates that in the East is uh tribe uh philanthropists who spend their time hunting for uh shaft to sink their money in.