Back to the farm and the new mown hay.
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After reading the accounts in the Saturday Blade of the Stillman divorce case, our hired man, Gus, asks me if he can have the job as “Indian” guide at my Pequot, Minnesota, cabin resort this summer and fall. Gus, however, is doomed to disappointment, because I have engaged a real half breed Indian for the job.
* * *
Although, as Gus, our hired man, says, Deacon Miller, my neighbor, doesn’t like my Whiz Bang and claims he tears it up outside his door and lets the wind scatter the pieces of paper all over his wheat field, we’ll have to give the Deacon credit for rearing a bunch of ladylike cows. One of the Deacon’s bossies broke through the barbed-wire fence which separates his pasture from mine, while I was at Pequot. The cow unceremoniously walked into my house through the open door, looked at the pictures on the wall and then walked up to the mirror to see if her horns were on straight.
Not finding anyone at home, the cow, as is the custom, left her card and departed.
* * *
Johnny Beaton, noted Minnesota Bohemian, told a rather good story the other day while he and I were shopping for schnapps in Minneapolis. During the inspection of our purchases, Johnny, who hails from Ranier, Minn., on the Canadian boundary, said he had recently engaged in a rip-roaring poker game. In this game were two Englishmen from the Canuck side of the line. The Englishmen always referred to a five-dollar bill as “a pound.” “I’ll raise you two pounds,” said the first Englishman. “I’ll make it five bloody more pounds,” replied the second. About this time a local bootlegger, who had been testing his own product, blurted out as he pushed in his wad of money in the center of the table: “I’ll raise you three tons.” The bootlegger hauled in the pot.