



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