"No; Dan never says nothin' to Cape; or does anythin' 'cept talk to
Enright an' the rest of us about how he can't stand Cape shiftin'
them eyes. An' it ain't affectation on the part of Dan; he shorely
feels them shifts. Many a time, when it's go to be red eye time with
Cape, an' as the latter is scroop'lously makin' said transfers, have
I beheld Dan arise in silent agony, an' go to bite hunks outen a
pine shelf that is built on the Red Light wall.
"'Which that ornery Cape,' says Dan, as he picks the splinters from
his mouth after sech exercises, 'would drive me as locoed as a
coyote if I don't take refooge in some sech play like that.'
"But, as I su'gests about this term 'ornery;' it depends a lot on
who uses it, an' what for. Now Dan never refers to old Cape except
as 'ornery;' while Enright an' the rest of us sees nothin' from soda
to hock in Cape, doorin' them few months he mingles with us, which
merits sech obloquys.
"No; ornery is a word that means what it says an' is shore
deescriptif. Coyotes is ornery, sheep is ornery; an' them low-flung
hoomans who herds sheep is ornery, speshul. Of course, the term has
misapplications; as an extreme case, I've even heard ign'rant
tenderfeet who alloodes to the whole West as 'ornery.' But them
folks is too debased an' too darkened to demand comments."
"You are very loyal to the West," I remarked.
"Which I shorely oughter be," retorted the old gentleman. "The West
has been some loyal to me. Troo! it stands to reason that a party
fresh from the East, where the horns has been knocked offen
everythin' for two or three hundred years, an' conditions genial is
as soft as a goose-ha'r pillow, is goin' to notice some turgid
changes when he lands in Arizona. But a shorthorn, that a-way,
should reserve his jedgment till he gets acquainted, or gets
lynched, or otherwise experiences the West in its troo colors. While
Arizona, for speciment, don't go up an' put her arms about the neck
of every towerist that comes chargin' into camp, her failure to
perform said rites arises rather from dignity than hauteur. Arizona
don't put on dog; but she has her se'f-respectin' ways, an' stands a
pat hand on towerists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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