AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mead’s Hotel at the end of the street, and Beardsley’s Hotel almost opposite Laura, and Tinkham’s Furniture Store near the middle of the next block, really did have two stories. Curtains fluttered at their upstairs windows and showed how honest those buildings were, in that row of false fronts.
That was the only difference between them and the other buildings. They were all of pine lumber beginning to weather gray. Each building had two tall glass windows in its front, and a door between them. Every door was open to the warm weather, and every doorway was filled with a strip of faded pink mosquito netting tacked onto a framework to make a screen door.
In front of them all ran the level board sidewalk, and all along its edge were hitching posts. There were always a few horses in sight, tied here and there to the posts, and sometimes a wagon with a team of horses or oxen.
Once in a while, when she bit off a thread, Laura saw a man cross the sidewalk, untie his horse, swing onto it and ride away. Sometimes she heard a team and wagon, and when the sounds were loudest she glanced up and saw it passing by.
One day an outburst of confused shouting startled her. She saw a tall man come bursting out of Brown’s saloon. The screen door loudly slammed shut behind him.
With great dignity the man turned about. He looked haughtily at the screen door, and lifting one long leg he thrust his foot contemptuously through the pink mosquito netting. It tore jaggedly from top to bottom. A yell of protest came out of the saloon.
The tall man paid no attention whatever to the yell. He turned haughtily away, and saw in front of him a round little short man. The short man wanted to go into the saloon. The tall man wanted to walk away. But each was in front of the other.
The tall man stood very tall and dignified. The short man stood puffed out with dignity.
In the doorway the saloonkeeper complained about the torn screen door. Neither of them paid any attention to him. They looked at each other and grew more and more dignified.
Suddenly the tall man knew what to do. He linked his long arm in the little man’s fat arm, and they came down the sidewalk together, singing.
“Pull for the shore, sailor!
Pull for the shore!
Heed not the stormy winds—”
The tall man solemnly lifted his long leg and thrust his foot through Harthorn’s screen door. A yell came out. “Hey, there! What the—”
The two men came on, singing.
“Though loudly they roar!
Pull for the shore, sailor—”
They were as dignified as could be. The tall man’s long legs made the longest possible steps. The puffed-out little man tried with dignity to stretch his short legs to steps as long.
“Heed not the stormy winds—”
The tall man gravely thrust his foot through the mosquito-netting door of Beardsley’s Hotel. Mr. Beardsley came boiling out. The man marched solemnly on.
“Though loudly they roar!”
Laura was laughing so that tears ran out of her eyes. She saw the long, solemn leg rip the mosquito netting in the door of Barker’s grocery. Mr. Barker popped out, protesting. The long legs stalking and the fat short legs gravely stretching went away from him haughtily.
“Pull for the shore!”
The tall man’s foot pushed through the screen door of Wilder’s Feed Store. Royal Wilder yanked it open and said what he thought.
The two men stood listening gravely until he stopped for breath. Then the fat little man said with great dignity, “My name is Tay Pay Pryor and I’m drunk.”
They went on, arm in arm, chanting those words. First the pudgy little man,
“My name is Tay Pay Pryor—”
Then both of them together, like bullfrogs,
“—and I’m drunk!”
The tall man would not say that his name was T. P. Pryor but he always came in solemnly, “—and I’m DRUNK!”
