“Yes, I reckon I do know him,” he replied, “pooty well, too; a great sight better than is profitable to him, and he knows it. Oh, you bet he knows it, and hates me as he does the dry murrain that gin the crows fifteen of his best cows last summer. I knowed him back in Scrabble Town.
“They wouldn’t allow him to come within pistol shot of a church back thar, because they mor’n suspected he stole the wine and bread from the communion table one day. They were down on him flatter than a stone on a cricket allers arterwards. He’s a deacon out here though, but that ain’t nothin’. He can’t fool me with his prayin’. I want no sech crooked old disciple as he is intercedin’ for me, you know.”
“I was hoping he would subscribe for this book,” I remarked, “but I am afraid there is not much use of my going there if he is so very mean.”
“Look’e here, stranger,” he remarked earnestly, “you mout just as well stop thar whar you’re standin’. Subscribe! He’ll gig back from a subscription list jest as he would from a six-shooter.”
“Ah, but this is a religious work, and perhaps he would lend that his support,” I answered quickly.
“Religious work be shelved!” exclaimed the farmer. “That doesn’t help ye any; you can’t do anythin’ with him, ’cause he hain’t got no more soul than an empty gin bottle. You mout as well bait a rat trap with a cat’s head and expect the varmin to go a-nibblin’ at it, as to expect him to put his name down to anything that’s agwine to take coin from his pockets.
SLEEPY DOBY.
“You’re a stranger in these yer parts I see, and tharfore haven’t the slightest idea what a towerin’ mean man he is; why he’d run a mile to git on the sunny side of a feller to cheat him out of his shadow! I knowed him back in old Indiany. He’s from the same place that I am, but you can kick me clear over to them foot-hills and back ag’in if I don’t feel like takin’ pizin every time I have to own up to it. He used to be in cahoot with a tanner back thar named Doby; sleepy Doby, the boys called him, for he was the sleepiest feller you ever did see. Go asleep while workin’ at anythin’. He would drop asleep sometimes while scrapin’ a hide, and cut the consarned thing all into parin’s; at other times he would fall back into the tan vat, then wake up and holler for the boys to come and fish him out.
“They say he dropped asleep once while ringin’ a hog to prevent him from rootin’ up the clover patch. The minister of the village had to pause in the middle of a sermon he was preachin’ half a block away, until the squealin’ subsided.