“You all hear me, I tell you!” says the Hen, taking a-hold of Boston’s arm sort of motherly. “While I am the school-teacher in Palomitas I shall not permit you boys to play your pranks on strangers; and ’specially 139 not on this gentleman––whom I claim as a friend of mine because we both come from the same dear old town.”
That was the first time anybody’d ever heard the Hen wasn’t hatched-out in Kansas City. But it didn’t seem as if calling her hand would be gentlemanly, so nobody said nothing; and off she went again––talking this time to Boston, but winking the eye away from him at the boys.
“It is merely a joke, sir,” says the Hen, “that these young men are playing on you––and as silly a joke as silly can be. Sometimes, in spite of my most earnest efforts to stop them, they will go on in this foolish way: pretending to be wild and wicked and murderous and all such nonsense, when in reality there is not a single one among them who willingly would hurt a fly. What Miss Mortimer said about smacking you, as I hardly need to explain, was a joke too. Dear Miss Mortimer! She is as full of fun as a kitten, and as sweet and gentle”––Carrots, not seeing what the Hen was driving at, all the time was looking like a red-headed 140 thunder-storm––“as the kindest-hearted kitten that ever was!
“And now, I assure you, sir, this reprehensible practical joking––for which I beg your indulgence––definitely is ended; and I am glad to promise that you will find in evidence, during the remainder of your stay in Palomitas, only the friendliness and the courtesy which truly are the essential characteristics of our seemingly turbulent little town.”
The Hen stopped for a minute to get her wind back––which give the boys a chance to study over what they was told they was, and what kind of a town it turned out to be they was living in––and then off she went again, saying: “I beg that you will pardon me, sir, for addressing you so informally, without waiting for an introduction. We do not always stand strictly on etiquette here in Palomitas; and I saw that I had to put my cards down quick––I mean that I had to intervene hurriedly––to save you from being really annoyed. Now that I have cleared up the trifling misunderstanding, I 141 trust satisfactorily, we will go back to where we ought to have started and I will ask Mr. Charles to introduce us.” And round she cracked to Santa Fé and says: “Will you be so kind as to introduce my fellow-townsman to me, Mr. Charles?”
Santa Fé had begun to get a little cooled off by that time; and, like as not––it was a wonder the way them two passed cards to each other––the Hen give him some sort of a look that made him suspicion what her game was. Anyway, into it he come––saying to Boston, talking high-toned and polite like he knowed how to: “I have much pleasure, sir, in presenting you to Miss Sage, who is Palomitas’s idol––and a near relative, as you may be interested in knowing, of the eminent Eastern capitalist of the same name. As she herself has mentioned, Miss Sage is our school-teacher; but her modest cheek would be suffused with blushes were I to tell you how much more she is to us––how broadly her generous nature prompts her to construe her duties as the instructress of innocent youth. Only a moment ago you had an 142 opportunity for observing that her word is our law paramount. I am within bounds in saying, sir, that in Palomitas she is universally adored.”
“Oh, Mr. Charles! How can you!” says the Hen, kind of turning away and looking as if what Charley’d said really had made her feel like blushing a little. Then she faced round again and shook hands with Boston––who was so rattled he seemed only about half awake, and done it like a pump––and says to him: “Mr. Charles is a born flatterer if ever there was one, sir, and you must pay no attention whatever to his extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents itself”––she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and ketchy––“to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our youthfully strenuous community; to apply, as it were, the touchstone of Boston social standards––the standards that you and I, sir, recognize––to the sometimes too rough ways of our rough little frontier settlement. It is true, though, and I am proud to say it, that the boys do like me––of course Mr. 143 Charles’s talk about my being an idol and adored is only his nonsense; and it is true that they always are nice about doing what I ask them to do––as they were just now, when they were naughty and I had to make them behave.
“And now, since the formalities have been attended to and we have been introduced properly, and since you and I are fellow-Bostonians and ought to be friendly”––the Hen give him one of them fetching looks of hers––“you must come over to the bar and have a drink on me. And while we are performing this rite of hospitality,” says the Hen––pretending not to see the jump he give––“we can discuss your projected lion-hunt: in which, with your permission, I shall take part.” Boston give a bigger jump at that; and the Hen says on to him, sort of explaining matters: “You need not fear that I shall not sustain my end of the adventure. As any of the boys here will tell you, I can handle a forty-five or a Winchester about as well as anybody––and big-game hunting really is my forte. Indeed, I may say––using one of our 144 homely but expressive colloquialisms––that when it comes to lion-hunting I am simply hell!”
Boston seemed to be getting worse and worse mixed while the Hen was rattling her stuff off to him––and I reckon, all things considered, he wasn’t to be blamed. He’d got a jolt to start with, when he come in and found what he took to be a preacher dealing faro; and he was worse jolted when his fool-talk––and he not knowing how he’d done it––run him so close up against a shooting-scrape. But the Hen was the limit: she looking and acting like the school-ma’am she said she was, and yet tangled up in a bar-room with a lot of gamblers and such as Kerosene Kate and old Tenderfoot Sal and Carrots––and then bringing the two ends together by talking one minute like he was used to East, and the next one wanting to set up drinks for him and telling him she knowed all there was to know about gun-handling and how at lion-hunting she was just hell! I guess he was more’n half excusable, that young feller was, for looking 145 like he couldn’t be counted on for telling for certain on which end of him was his heels!
What he did manage to work out clear in that fool head of his was he had the chance to get the drink he needed, and needed bad, to brace him; so over he come with the Hen to the bar and got it––and it seemed to do him some good. Then Carrots––who’d begun to ketch on a little to what the Hen was after––spoke up and told him it was true what Miss Sage had told him about her kittenishness, and she hadn’t meant nothing when she was talking about smacking him; and to show he had no hard feeling, she said, he must have one on her. Then Blister Mike, having sized matters up, chipped in too: saying it would make him feel comfortabler––having done some joking himself by talking the way he did and getting his gun out––if they’d all have one on the bar.