Humorous stories; Washington (State) -- Fiction; Western stories
By the end of that second day, after Herman threw kisses to her for ten
minutes from on top of the woodshed, where he was safe, she telephoned
her brother to come over here quick, if he had the soul of a man in his
frame, and kill Herman like he would a mad dog.
But Eloise left the next morning, without waiting for anything suitable
to be pulled off by her family. It was because, when she went to bed
that night, she found a letter from Herman pinned to her pillow. It had
a red heart on it, pierced by a dagger that was dropping red drops very
sentimentally; and it said would she not hasten to take her vast beauty
out in the moonlight, to walk with Herman under the quiet trees while
the nightingale warbled and the snee, or sidehill mooney, called to its
lovemate? And here, as they walked, they could plan their beautiful
future together.
This was beyond Eloise even with a full battery of kitchen utensils at
hand. She left before breakfast; and Herman had to come in and wash
dishes.
The next excitement was Herman committing suicide, out in the woodshed,
with a rope he'd took off a new packsaddle. Something interrupted him
after he got the noose adjusted and was ready to step off the chopping
block he stood on. I believe it was one more farewell note to the woman
that sent him to his grave. Only he got interested in it and put in a lot
more of his own poetry and run out of paper, and had to get more from the
house; and he must of forgot what he went to the woodshed for because an
hour after that he committed an entirely new suicide with his fowling
piece.
Near as I could gather, he was all ready to pull the trigger, looking
down into this here frowning muzzle before a mirror; and then something
about his whiskers in the mirror must of caught his eye. Anyway, another
work of self-destruction was off. So he come in and helped with lunch.
Then he told me he'd like to take some time off, because he was going
up to the deep pool to drown himself.
I said was he really bent on it? He said it was requisite, because away
from this beautiful lady, who had torn his heart out and danced on it, he
could not continue to live, even for one day. So I come down on Herman. I
told him that, hard up as I was for help, I positively would not have a
man on the place who was always knocking off work to kill himself. It et
into his time, and also it took the attention of others who longed to see
him do it.
I said I might stand for a suicide or two--say, once a month, on a quiet
Sunday--but I couldn't stand this here German thoroughness that kept it
up continual. At least, if he hoped to keep on drawing pay from me, he'd
have to make way with himself in his own leisure moments and not on my
time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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