SAMMY HUNTS A JOB
Sammy Porter, detailed by Hopalong, the trail-boss, rode into Truxton three days before the herd was due, to notify the agent that cars were wanted. Three thousand three-year-olds were on their way to the packing houses and must be sent through speedily. Sammy saw the agent and, leaving him much less sweeter in temper than when he had found him, rode down the dismal street kicking up a prodigious amount of dust. One other duty demanded attention and its fulfillment was promised by the sign over the faded pine front of the first building.
"Restaurant," he read aloud. "That's mine. Beans, bacon an' biscuits for 'most a month! But now I 'm goin' to forget that Blinky Thompkins ever bossed a trail wagon an' tried to cook."
Dismounting, he glanced in the window and pulled at the downy fuzz trying to make a showing on his upper lip. "Purty, all right. Brown hair an' I reckon brown eyes. Nice li'l girl. Well, they don't make no dents on me no more," he congratulated himself, and entered. His twenty years fairly sagged with animosity toward the fair sex, the intermittent smoke from the ruins of his last love affair still painfully in evidence at times. But careless as he tried to be he could not banish the swaggering mannerisms of Youth in the presence of Maid, or change his habit of speech under such conditions.
"Well, well," he smiled. "Here I 'are' again. Li'l Sammy in search of his grub. An' if it's as nice as you he 'll shore have to flag his outfit an' keep this town all to hisself. Got any chicken?"
The maid's nose went up and Sammy noticed that it tilted a trifle, and he cocked his head on one side to see it better. And the eyes were brown, very big and very deep—they possessed a melting quality he had never observed before. The maid shrugged her shoulders and swung around, the tip-tilt nose going a bit higher.
Sammy leaned back against the door and nodded approval of the slender figure in spic-and-span white. "Li'l Sammy is a fer-o-cious cow-punch from a chickenless land," he observed, sorrowfully. "There ain't no kinds of chickens. Nothin' but men an' cattle an' misguided cooks; an' beans, bacon an' biscuits. Li'l Miss, have you a chicken for me?"
"No!" The head went around again, Sammy bending to one side to see it as long as he could. The pink, shell-like ear that flirted with him through the loosely-gathered, rebellious hair caught his attention and he leveled an accusing finger at it. "Naughty li'l ear, peekin' at Sammy that-a-way! Oh, you stingy girl!" he chided as the back of her head confronted him. "Well, Sammy don't like girls, no matter how pink their ears are, or turned up their noses, or wonderful their eyes. He just wants chicken, an' all th' fixin's. He 'll be very humble an' grateful to Li'l Miss if she 'll tell him what he can have. An' he 'll behave just like a Sunday-school boy.
"Aw, you don't want to get mad at only me," he continued after she refused to answer. "Got any chicken? Got any—eggs? Lucky Sammy! An' some nice ham? Two lucky Sammies. An' some mashed potatoes? Fried? Good. An' will Li'l Miss please make a brand new cup of strong coffee? Then he 'll go over an' sit in that nice chair an' watch an' listen. But you ought n't get mad at him. Are you really-an'-truly mad?"
She swept down the room, into the kitchen partitioned off at the farther end and slammed the door. Sammy grinned, tugged at his upper lip and fancy-stepped to the table. He smoothed his tumbled hair, retied his neck-kerchief and dusted himself off with his red bandanna handkerchief. "Nice li'l town," he soliloquized. "Fine li'l town. Dunno as I ought to go back to th' herd—Hoppy did n't tell me to. Reckon I 'll stick in town an' argue with th' agent. If I argue with th' agent I 'll be busy; an' I can't leave while I 'm busy." He leaned back and chuckled. "Lucky me! If Hoppy had gone an' picked Johnny to argue with th' agent for three whole days where would I be? But I gotta keep Johnny outa here, th' son-of-a-gun. He ain't like me—he likes girls; an' he ain't bashful."