That brought a snort.
“An ol’ fool like me?” he ran himself down, though with twinkling eyes. “They hain’t nobody as would have me.”
I wanted to ask him how about the Widow O’Mally who lives in the old Weir house in the river bottoms. For everybody in Tutter knows that he shines around her every chance he gets. Dirty as he is in his own home, he’s some foxy old sheik, let me tell you, when he gets dolled up in his sparking clothes. But, of course, he wasn’t going to admit any of that stuff to a couple of boys.
He had better luck with the next batch of cookies.
“Jest help yourselves, boys,” was the liberal invitation, as he scooped the cookies out of the black pan with a pancake turner that was used other times for swatting flies. “I know how boys is,” he added, wiping off a cookie that had rolled across the floor. “You kain’t git ’em filled up. I was that way, too, when I was your age. So don’t be bashful. Jest pitch in an’ help yourselves. When I’ve got company I like to see ’em eat.”
We did the mannerly thing, of course, each of us taking a cookie and thanking him for it. Nibbling at mine, sort of gingerly, I found it wasn’t half bad.
Well, we came to terms about the house moving. It would cost us ten bucks, Butch said. Poppy tried to bring him down to nine dollars, figuring, I guess, that every dollar saved was a dollar earned, but, no, the house mover held out, ten dollars was his price, and we could take it or leave it.
Here I ran to the barn to say hello to Jerusalem, the “tow” mule, for we’re old friends. I wasn’t there very long. And when I joined Poppy in the street I noticed that he was acting sort of peculiar-like.
“Say, Jerry,” says he, “are you prepared for a big surprise?”
“What’s wrong now?” says I.