about the new saddle he's having made in Spokane. And even then he not
only chokes but he giggles. They do say a strong man in tears is a
terrible sight. But a husky man giggling is worse--take it from one who
has suffered. And all the time I knew his heart was furnishing enough
actual power to run a feed chopper. So did she!

"'The creature is so typical,' she says when the poor cuss had finally
stumbled down the front steps. 'He's a real type.' Only she called it
'teep,' having studied the French language among other things. 'He is a
teep indeed!' she says.

"I had to admit myself that Chester wasn't any self-starter. I saw he'd
have to be cranked by an outsider if he was going to win a place of his
own in the New Dawn. And I kept thinking wily, and the next P.M. when
Nettie and I was downtown I got my hunch. You know that music store on
Fourth Street across from the Boston Cash Emporium. It's kept by C.
Wilbur Todd, and out in front in a glass case he had a mechanical banjo
that was playing 'The Rosary' with variations when we come by. We
stopped a minute to watch the machinery picking the strings and in a
flash I says to myself, 'I got it! Eureka, California!' I says, 'it's
come to me!'

"Of course that piece don't sound so awful tender when it's done on a
banjo with variations, but I'd heard it done right and swell one time
and so I says, 'There's the song of songs to bring foolish males and
females to their just mating sense.'"

The speaker paused to drain her cup and to fashion another cigarette,
her eyes dreaming upon far vistas.