Maw's Vacation: The Story of a Human Being in the YellowstoneHough, Emerson
General
Maw's Vacation: The Story of a Human Being in the Yellowstone
Hough, Emerson
American wit and humor; Camping; Tourists; Yellowstone National Park
Of course Paw kicks about the crops and prices, but I've been living
with Paw forty years, and I dunno as I can remember a time when he
didn't kick. He kicks now on the wages he pays these city boys that come
out to farm; says they're no good at all. But somehow or other, things
gets raised. I notice the last few years we somehow have had more
clothes and things, and more money in the bank. When Paw bought the
automobile he didn't ask the minister if it was right, and he didn't
have to ask the bank for a consent, neither. Cynthy's back from
college, and it's all paid for somehow. Jimmy's in a mail-order store
in Chicago. I've got a girl to help me that calls herself a maid, which
is all right enough, though we used to call Judge Harmsworth's help a
girl and let it go at that, law me! My other girls, Hattie and Roweny,
are big enough to help a lot, and Paw reasons with them considerable
about it. I've always been so used to work that I think I can do it
better myself. I always like to do for my children.
But Paw, ever since I married him, has been one of those energetics.
They call him an aggressive business man. Some of them call him a
dominant man, because of his whiskers, though he knows well enough about
how scared of him I am. Only time I ever was scared of Paw was when he
got the car. I thought he would break his fool neck and kill Roweny,
that had clim in with him. He did break down the fence in front of the
house and run over the flower beds and all.
The Park-Bound Throng of Maws
But this summer we allowed we all would get in the car and take a big
trip out West--go right into some of the parks, if nothing happened.
We borrowed our tent from the Hickory Bend Outing Club that Paw belongs
to back home. The poles go along the fenders and stick out a good way
behind. I could always cook without a stove, from experience at picnics
when I was younger. The dishes goes in a box. Paw nailed a rack on top
of the fenders, and we carry a lot of stuff that way. Cynthy always has
her suitcase on the outside because it's the newest one. The other girls
set on the bedding on the rear seat, and I ride in front with Paw. We
mostly wear overalls.
Yes, times has changed, says Maw.
As a dispassionate observer in one of our national parks, expressing the
belief in modern speech, I'll say they have. I have met Maw this
summer, ninety thousand of her, concentrated on a piece of mountain
scenery about fifty miles square--Maw on her first vacation in a life of
sixty years. Dear old Maw!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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