The sheriff was beginning to like these two oddly mated partners thoroughly. He moved across the floor to a chair. As he did so, he accidentally moved Shorty’s hat, revealing the pile of whittlings. Shorty manfully stepped into the breach.
Before the sheriff noticed, the little puncher had grabbed the handful of shavings and shoved them into his mouth.
“Now swaller,” whispered Tad in an undertone, as he dropped his neckscarf on the sill to cover the freshly whittled notch at the base of the steel bar.
Shorty swallowed, choked, gasped and his tanned face grew purple.
Tad, moving swiftly, promptly up-ended Shorty, thumping him on the back with an unconcern that hinted of boredom. A wad of mashed potatoes, well wadded with shavings, spewed forth and Tad promptly kicked the sodden mass under the bunk.
“Will yuh hand me the water pitcher, Sheriff? Thanks. Now irrigate, runt.”
He held the pitcher to Shorty’s mouth and poured a generous potion down the little puncher’s throat. Then, with a paternal air, he sat Shorty on the edge of the bunk and loosened his collar.
“Ain’t I told yuh, time and again, not tuh swaller yore grub whole, little ’un? Dang me if I can see how yuh ever growed up without chokin’ tuh death.”
Tad turned to the sheriff with an apologetic grin.
“In spite uh all I tell him, that li’l’ varmint will wolf his grub. It ain’t the fust time he’s choked down on me thataway. Onct, at a ice-cream sociable down on the Gila, a brockle-faced school marm, a-ketch-in’ him off his guard with a face full uh cake, ast him was his hair nacherally curly afore it slipped and left him bald between the horns. I’m out in the kitchen when the play comes up and he like tuh perished complete afore I gits there. The fiddler, a-thinkin’ the li’l’ cuss had th’owed a fit, empties a pailful uh pink lemonade on him. I tips him upside down, knocks the hunk uh cake loose from where it’s lodged between his buck teeth and his briskit, and the show is over. We spends a good half-hour huntin’ the loose change which drops outa his pocket durin’ the proceedin’s. I bin thinkin’ serious uh knockin’ his teeth out so’s he’d have tuh graze on mush and sech light truck.”