CHAPTER ELEVEN A BOOM THAT BUSTED SAY! wouldn't you 'a' figgered, after I'd brung Mace back t' the ole Bar Y, and made her paw so happy that the hull ranch couldn't hole him, and he had t' go streak up t' town and telephone Kansas City fer a grand pyano and a talkin'-machine--now _wouldn't_ you 'a' figgered that he'd 'a' treated me A1 when I come to ast him fer the little gal? Wal,--listen t' this! 'Fore ever I spoke to him, I says to myself, "It ain't no use, when you want to start up a mule, to git behind and push 'r git in front and pull. No, ma'am. The only way is to hunt a pan of feed 'r a pick-axe. "Now, Sewell's shore one of them long-eared critters--hardmouthed, and goin' ahaid like blazes whenever you wanted him to come short; then, again, balkin' till it's a case of grandfather's clock, and you git to thinkin' that 'fore he'll move on he'll plumb drop in his tracks. So no drivin'. Coaxin' is good enough fer you' friend Cupid." The first time I got a good chanst, I took in my belt, spit on my hands, shassayed up to the ole man, and sailed in--dead centre. "Boss," I begun, "some fellers marry 'cause they git plumb sick and tired of fastenin' they suspenders with a nail, and some fellers marry----" "Wal? wal? wal?" breaks in Sewell, offish all of a suddent, and them little eyes of hisn lookin' like two burnt holes in a blanket. "What you drivin' at? Git it out. Time's skurse." "Puttin' it flat-footed, then," I says, "I come to speak to you about my marryin' Macie." He throwed up his haid--same as a long-horn'll do when she's scairt--and wrinkled his forrid. Next, he begun to jingle his cash (_ba-a-ad_ sign). "So _that's_ what?" (He'd guessed as much a'ready, I reckon.) "Wal,--I'm a-listenin'." Then I got a _turrible_ rush of words to the mouth, and put the case up to him right strong. Said they was no question how I felt about Mace, and that this shore was a life-sentence fer me, 'cause I wasn't the kind of a man to want to ever slip my matreemonal hobbles. And I tacked on that the little gal reckoned _she_ knowed her own mind. "No gal ever _lived_ that knowed her own mind," puts in Sewell, snappy as the dickens, and actin' powerful oneasy. "But Mace ain't the usual brand," I says. "She's got a good haid--a _fine_ haid. She's like _you,_ Sewell." "You can keep you' compliments to home," says the boss. Then, after a little bit, "S'pose you been plannin' a'ready where you'd settle." (This sorta inquirin'.) "Ya-a-as," I says, "we've talked some of that little house in Briggs City which Doc Trowbridge lets--the one over to the left of the tracks." That second, I seen a look come over his face that made me plumb goose-flesh. It was the sorta look that a' ole bear gives you when you've got him hurt and into a corner--some appealin', y' savvy, and a hull lot mad. "Gosh!" I says to myself, "I put my foot in it when I brung up Billy's name. Sewell recollects the time I stuck in my lip."