



Produced by Bill Brewer





THE JIMMYJOHN BOSS AND OTHER STORIES

By Owen Wister




To Messrs. Harper & Bothers and Henry Mills Alden whose friendliness and
fair dealing I am glad of this chance to record

Owen Wister




Preface

     It's very plain that if a thing's the fashion--
       Too much the fashion--if the people leap
     To do it, or to be it, in a passion
       Of haste and crowding, like a herd of sheep,

     Why then that thing becomes through imitation
       Vulgar, excessive, obvious, and cheap.

     No gentleman desires to be pursuing

     What every Tom and Dick and Harry's doing.

     Stranger, do you write books? I ask the question,
       Because I'm told that everybody writes
     That what with scribbling, eating, and digestion,
       And proper slumber, all our days and nights

     Are wholly filled. It seems an odd suggestion--
       But if you do write, stop it, leave the masses,
       Read me, and join the small selected classes.




The Jimmyjohn Boss


I

One day at Nampa, which is in Idaho, a ruddy old massive jovial man
stood by the Silver City stage, patting his beard with his left hand,
and with his right the shoulder of a boy who stood beside him. He had
come with the boy on the branch train from Boise, because he was a
careful German and liked to say everything twice--twice at least when it
was a matter of business. This was a matter of very particular business,
and the German had repeated himself for nineteen miles. Presently the
east-bound on the main line would arrive from Portland; then the Silver
City stage would take the boy south on his new mission, and the man
would journey by the branch train back to Boise. From Boise no one could
say where he might not go, west or east. He was a great and pervasive
cattle man in Oregon, California, and other places. Vogel and Lex--even
to-day you may hear the two ranch partners spoken of. So the veteran
Vogel was now once more going over his notions and commands to his
youthful deputy during the last precious minutes until the east-bound
should arrive.

"Und if only you haf someding like dis," said the old man, as he tapped
his beard and patted the boy, "it would be five hoondert more dollars
salary in your liddle pants."

The boy winked up at his employer. He had a gray, humorous eye; he was
slim and alert, like a sparrow-hawk--the sort of boy his father openly
rejoices in and his mother is secretly in prayer over. Only, this boy
had neither father nor mother. Since the age of twelve he had looked out
for himself, never quite without bread, sometimes attaining champagne,
getting along in his American way variously, on horse or afoot, across
regions of wide plains and mountains, through towns where not a soul
knew his name. He closed one of his gray eyes at his employer, and
beyond this made no remark.

"Vat you mean by dat vink, anyhow?" demanded the elder.

"Say," said the boy, confidentially--"honest now. How about you and me?
Five hundred dollars if I had your beard. You've got a record and I've
got a future. And my bloom's on me rich, without a scratch. How many
dollars you gif me for dat bloom?" The sparrow-hawk sailed into a
freakish imitation of his master.

"You are a liddle rascal!" cried the master, shaking with entertainment.
"Und if der peoples vas to hear you sass old Max Vogel in dis style they
would say, 'Poor old Max, he lose his gr-rip.' But I don't lose it." His
great hand closed suddenly on the boy's shoulder, his voice cut clean
and heavy as an axe, and then no more joking about him. "Haf you
understand that?" he said.

"Yes, sir."

"How old are you, son?"

"Nineteen, sir."

"Oh my, that is offle young for the job I gif you. Some of dose man you
go to boss might be your father. Und how much do you weigh?"

"About a hundred and thirty."

"Too light, too light. Und I haf keep my eye on you in Boise. You are
not so goot a boy as you might be."

"Well, sir, I guess not."

"But you was not so bad