Me and Peewee runs the HP outfit for Hank. Peewee Parker weighs two hundred and fifty on the hoof, and he ain’t so awful tall. I’m “Hozie” Sykes, one of the real old Sykes family. My folks was in this country when the Mayflower came over. I’ve heard paw tell about one of his great, great grandfathers, who was livin’ down in Arizona at that time. He heard about this boatload of folks comin’ over; so the old man hitched up his oxen and headed for California. He said the damn’ country was gittin’ overrun with foreigners.
I’m merely tellin’ yuh this to prove my pedigree. Peewee don’t know much about his family further back than two generations, but that don’t hurt his chances to be a good puncher. Owners of cow outfits don’t question yuh much, when yuh apply for a saddle-slickin’ job.
Hank Boll-Weevil Potts married Susie Hightower. Sometimes I look at Hank and know dang well he wishes it was merely an unfounded rumor. Susie weighs two-twenty, and takes after her pa—and that’s takin’ quite a lot. “Zibe” Hightower is somethin’ for to take after. He ain’t very big, but if all the rest of the meanness in the world was give him, you’d never notice the difference in his actions.
Zibe wears flowin’ mustaches, two guns and a scowl. He’s been in the San Pablo range since long before they built the hills and made the cuts for water to run off in, and he says he’ll be here long after it’s all flat land again. Nobody knows how old he is, but I’ve heard him tell how he showed the cliff dwellers how to build their huts.
Everythin’ was goin’ along all right, except for an occasional fight among ourselves or with the town of Oasis, that sink-pot of iniquity to the south of San Pablo, when along comes Eveline Annabel Wimple. Now, I don’t mean any disrespect to a pretty lady. They’re necessary, I reckon. Hank showed me her card, and it says, in real pretty gold letters—Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T.
I got a good look at her, and I says, “Well, they ain’t so bad to see.”
“What ain’t?” he asks.
“Them D. T’s. I had an idea they was more serpentine, as yuh might say.”
“That D. T. stuff means Dramatic Teacher.”
“Pertainin’ to actin’?” asks Peewee.