Next day we “dolled up” as pretty as possible so as to be somewhat presentable at the convention banquet. We had just started to leave the room when Gus became so grief stricken that I was forced to cancel the engagement and remain by his bedside. The shock came in the form of a telegram from Maggie, the hired girl, and read as follows:
“Pedro took violently ill last night from heart disease—Horse Doctor Hawkins unable to diagnose his sickness and Pedro was rushed on truck to Minneapolis—Bull specialists in the Midway Packing plant say his trouble is homesickness due to Gus’ absence—All hope given up—What shall we do?”
An hour later, while Gus was still shedding tears and demanding that we return home at once, we received a second message, this one from my brother, which read:
“Pedro died at 6:00 o’clock—Does Gus want his body brought to Robbinsdale for burial?—A son was born to the Hereford cow one hour after Pedro passed—Have named him Pedro Junior after his father, which assures continuation of the Pedro Bullage.”
Pedro’s death and my intermittent headaches rather dampened our spirits and so we started back for Robbinsdale. Waiting in Chicago for our connections to Minnesota, and wishing to cheer up Gus and to ease the pain of Pedro’s death I said to him, “Gus, you have done pretty good on the trip so I will get you something nice. What do you want?” We were just passing a bird store and Gus said, “Get me a pet monkey.” So I bought him a ring tail monk, which he now has at Breezy Point and with which he spends most of his time after his day’s work.
As this is written I have somewhat overcome the effects of tapering off, but the memory of this last jamboree has made an everlasting record on Gus’ snoose dampened mind.
* * *
Deacon Miller’s son, Pete, has a new racket. It appears that he bought a golden trombone from some Chicago mail order house, and every night he entertains the boys and girls of the neighborhood with his melodies. Everybody likes to see the way Pete is coming to the front and when it comes to playing fast music, etc., Pete can slide that golden trombone in and out to beat the band.