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Updated: May 14, 2025
"Jasperson," replied Ajax soberly, "is being removed in a spring-wagon to his own ranch. To-morrow he will be a very sick man, but I think I've got him out of his scrape." "Uncle Jake says," murmured Ajax, "that Laban Swiggart has been 'milking' us ever since we bought this ranch." Laban was our neighbour.
She misinterpreted the action. "You ain't going to prosecute?" she faltered. Ajax nodded to me. Upon formal occasions he expects me, being the elder, to speak. If I say more or less than he approves I am severely taken to task. "Mrs. Swiggart," I began, lamely enough, "I am sure that your husband can cure hams " Ajax looked at me indignantly.
Swiggart, "you'll lose what has been saved, mother, if you stand there in the rain." For five days it rained steadily. Our creek, which for eleven months in the year bleated sweetly at the foot of the garden, bellowed loudly as any bull of Bashan, and kept us prisoners in the house, where we had leisure to talk and reflect.
Swiggart launched his "proposition." He wished to pack bacon. Hogs, he pointed out, were selling at two cents a pound; bacon and hams at twelve and fifteen cents. We had some two hundred and fifty hogs ready for market. These Laban wanted to buy on credit. This seemed a one-sided bargain.
When I married Laban Swiggart I was an honest woman, though full o' pride and conceit. And he was an honest man. To- day we're thieves and liars." "Mrs. Swiggart," said Ajax, springing forward and raising her to her feet. "You must not kneel to us. There sit down and say no more. We know all about it, and it's blotted out so far as we're concerned."
We assured Mrs. Swiggart that we should esteem it a pleasure to give her mother a lift. Ajax had met the old lady at a church social some six months before, and, finding her a bonanza of gossip, had extracted some rich and curious ore. In San Lorenzo we duly found Isaac Rosenbaum, who proved an optimist on the subject of bacon.
If Ikey Rosenbaum says that bacon is likely to rise or stay where it is, we will accept Laban's proposition." The following morning we started early. The short cut to San Lorenzo lay through the Swiggart claim, and the road passed within a few yards of the house. We saw Mrs. Swiggart on the verandah, and offered to execute any commissions that she cared to entrust to two bachelors.
Many persons had suffered grievously at the hands of Mr. Swiggart, but none, saving Miss Dutton, could boast of beating him in a horse-deal. Presently I expressed surprise that Jasperson had the honour of Miss Dutton's unofficial acquaintance. "I was interdooced last fall," said our friend, "at a candy-pullin' up to Mis' Swiggart's. Not that Miss Birdie was a-pullin' candy.
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