The Golden Honeymoon | Page 7

and it seemed to tickle them and I told them one or two other
stories, hut altogether I wasn't on my feet more than twenty or
twenty-five minutes and you ought to of heard the clapping and
hollering when I set down. Even Mrs. Hartsell admitted that I am quite
a speechifier and said if I ever went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, her son

would make me talk to the Rotarians.
When it was over, Hartsell wanted we should go to their house and play
cards, but his wife reminded him that it was after 9.30 P.M., rather a
late hour to start a card game, but he had went crazy on the subject of
cards, probably because he didn't have to play partners with his wife.
Anyway, we got rid of them and went home to bed.
It was the next morning, when we met over to the Park, that Mrs.
Hartsell made the remark that she wasn't getting no exercise so I
suggested that why didn't she take part in the roque game.
She said she had not played a game of roque in twenty years, but if
Mother would play she would play. Well, at first Mother wouldn't hear
of it, but finally consented, more to please Mrs. Hartsell than anything
else.
Well, they had a game with a Mrs. Ryan from Eagle, Nebraska, and a
young Mrs. Morse from Rutland, Vermont, who Mother had met down
to the chiropodist's. Well, Mother couldn't hit a flea and they all
laughed at her and I couldn't help from laughing at her myself and
finally she quit and said her back was too lame to stoop over. So they
got another lady and kept on playing and soon Mrs. Hartsell was the
one everybody was laughing at, as she had a long shot to hit the black
ball, and as she made the effort her teeth fell out on to the court. I never
seen a woman so flustered in my life. And I never heard so much
laughing, only Mrs. Hartsell didn't join in and she was madder than a
hornet and wouldn't play no more, so the game broke up.
Mrs. Hartsell went home without speaking to nobody, but Hartsell
stayed around and finally he said to me, he said:
"Well, I played you checkers the other day and you beat me bad and
now what do you say if you and me play a game of horseshoes?"
I told him I hadn't pitched a shoe in sixteen years, but Mother said:
"Go ahead and play. You used to be good at it and maybe it will come

back to you."
Well, to make a long story short, I give in. I oughtn't to of never tried it,
as I hadn't pitched a shoe in sixteen years, and I only done it to humor
Hartsell.
Before we started, Mother patted me on the back and told me to do my
best, so we started in and I seen right off that I was in for it, as I hadn't
pitched a shoe in sixteen years and didn't have my distance. And
besides, the plating had wore off the shoes so that they was points right
where they stuck into my thumb and I hadn't throwed more than two or
three times when my thumb was raw and it pretty near killed me to
hang on to the shoe, let alone pitch it.
Well, Hartsell throws the awkwardest shoe I ever seen pitched and to
see him pitch you wouldn't think he would ever come nowheres near,
but he is also the luckiest pitcher I ever seen and he made some pitches
where the shoe lit five and six feet short and then schoonered up and
was a ringer. They's no use trying to beat that kind of luck.
They was a pretty fair size crowd watching us and four or five other
ladies besides Mother, and it seems like, when Hartsell pitches, he has
got to chew and it kept the ladies on the anxious seat as he don't seem
to care which way he is facing when he leaves go.
You would think a man as old as him would of learnt more manners.
Well, to make a long story short, I was just beginning to get my
distance when I had to give up on account of my thumb, which I
showed it to Hartsell and he seen I couldn't go on, as it was raw and
bleeding. Even if I could of stood it to go on myself, Mother wouldn't
of allowed it after she seen my thumb. So anyway I quit and Hartsell
said the score was nineteen to six, but I don't know what it was. Or
don't care, neither.
Well, Mother and I