Say! wouldn’t you ’a’ figgered, after I’d brung Mace back t’ the ole Bar Y, and made her paw so happy that the hull ranch couldn’t hole him, and he had t’ go streak up t’ town and telephone Kansas City fer a grand pyano and a talkin’-machine–now wouldn’t you ’a’ figgered that he’d ’a’ treated me A1 when I come to ast him fer the little gal?
Wal,–listen t’ this!
’Fore ever I spoke to him, I says to myself, “It ain’t no use, when you want to start up a mule, to git behind and push ’r git in front and pull. No, ma’am. The only way is to hunt a pan of feed ’r a pick-axe.
“Now, Sewell’s shore one of them long-eared critters–hardmouthed, and goin’ ahaid like blazes whenever you wanted him to come short; then, again, balkin’ till it’s a case of grandfather’s clock, and you git to thinkin’ that ’fore he’ll move on he’ll plumb drop in his tracks. So no drivin’. Coaxin’ is good enough fer you’ friend Cupid.”
The first time I got a good chanst, I took in my belt, spit on my hands, shassayed up to the ole man, and sailed in–dead centre.
“Boss,” I begun, “some fellers marry ’cause they git plumb sick and tired of fastenin’ they suspenders with a nail, and some fellers marry––”
“Wal? wal? wal?” breaks in Sewell, offish all of a suddent, and them little eyes of hisn lookin’ like two burnt holes in a blanket. “What you drivin’ at? Git it out. Time’s skurse.”
“Puttin’ it flat-footed, then,” I says, “I come to speak to you about my marryin’ Macie.”
He throwed up his haid–same as a long-horn’ll do when she’s scairt–and wrinkled his forrid. Next, he begun to jingle his cash (ba-a-ad sign). “So that’s what?” (He’d guessed as much a’ready, I reckon.) “Wal,–I’m a-listenin’.”
Then I got a turrible rush of words to the mouth, and put the case up to him right strong. Said they was no question how I felt about Mace, and that this shore was a life-sentence fer me, ’cause I wasn’t the kind of a man to want to ever slip my matreemonal hobbles. And I tacked on that the little gal reckoned she knowed her own mind.