"'As a jedge of diction,' he concloods, 'an' 318 a lover of proper speakin', I'm onreserved in the view that the statements of both ought to be preeserved as spec'mens of English ondeefiled.'
"Thar havin' been talk enough, an' Enright an' Peets contendin' that it's Wolfville's treat, both sides goes weavin' over to the Red Light an' onbends in quite a frolic.
"It'd shore been better if we had first cut down the corpse, an' tharby dodged the wrath of Missis Rucker. It's certainly a oversight. Bar that single incident, thar arises nothin' to mar the good feelin' which everywhar preevails. Forchoonately, that don't occur none ontil noon next day; an' by that time the Red Dog folks has all gone home, leastwise all who can go without fallin' out of the saddle. Which if them Red Dogs is present, an' able to form opinions, them intemp'rate exhibitions of Missis Rucker, an' what she says an' threatens ag'inst us, speshully Enright, would have mortified us to death.
"As showin' the vagaries of the female mind, Missis Rucker seelects that lynchin' as a topic at chuck time, an' she shore does carry on scand'lous. We ain't but jest filed into the 319 dinin' room, when she t'ars loose at Enright like a cyclone in a calico dress. Son, she certainly does curry our old Lycurgus frightful!
"What does Enright do?
"Whatever can he do more'n mootely arch his back, same as a mule in a storm of hail, an' stand it?
"When Missis Rucker has done freed her feelin's, an' got them reecrim'nations dealt down to the turn, she shakes a finger onder Enright's subdooed nose, an' fulm'nates a warnin'.
"'I tells you once before, Sam Enright,' she says, 'an' I tells you now ag'in, that you-all drunkards is either goin' to cease pesterin' me the way you does, or I'm bound I'll make some among you plenty hard to locate. Now don't you go tellin' me nothin',' she shouts, as Enright starts to say somethin'; 'don't go harrowin' me up with none of your fabrications. It's nothin' but your egreegious pompos'ty that a-way, an' a gen'ral deesire to put on dog an' lord it over us pore females with meals to cook an' water to draw, which sets you-all to hangin' parties to the windmill whar they're plumb in the way. An' all after me takin' my hands 320 out of the dough, too, the time you Stranglers puts that B'ar Creek Stanton over the jump, an' goin' in person to the stage corral to p'int out a beam which is a heap better adapted.'
"'But, ma'am,' expostyoolates Enright, 'you've done followed off the wrong wagon track entire. It ain't us none; it's them Red Dog savages. So far as Wolfville's concerned, him bein' swung to the windmill, that a-way, is plumb fortooitous.'
"'Jest the same,' returns Missis Rucker, who's merciless an' refooses to be softened, 'you better take heed a heap. This once I lets you get away with that Red Dog crawl-out. But if ever I finds another party suspended to the windmill so's I can't get no water, thar's a passel of sots, of whom you, Sam Enright, is the onregen'rate chief, who'll shore get their grub fortooitous.'