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TITLE: HAPPY HAWKINS
AUTHOR: ROBERT ALEXANDER WASON
EBOOK: E02437 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

Happy Hawkins

by Robert Alexander Wason

TO

MY OLD PAL

CONTENTS

      I   THE DIAMOND DOT

     II   CONVINCING A COOK

    III   UNDER FIRE

     IV   PROFESSIONAL DUTY

      V   JUST MONODY--A MAN

     VI   THE RACE

    VII   MENTAL TREATMENT FOR A BROKEN LEG

   VIII   THE LETTER

     IX   ADRIFT AGAIN

      X   A WINTER AT SLOCUM'S LUCK

     XI   DRESS REFORM AT THE DIAMOND DOT

    XII   THE LASSOO DUEL

   XIII   BUSINESS is BUSINESS

    XIV   THE CHINESE QUESTION

     XV   THE DIAMOND DOT AGAIN

    XVI   THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMAN

   XVII   IN RETIREMENT

  XVIII   CUPID

    XIX   BARBIE MAKES A DISCOVERY

     XX   RICHARD WHITTINCTON ARRIVES

    XXI   HAPPY MAKES A DISCOVERY

   XXII   A FRIENDLY GAME

  XXIII   CAST STEEL

   XXIV   FEMININE LOGIC

    XXV   THE WAYS OF WOMANKIND

   XXVI   A MODERN KNIGHT-ERRANT

  XXVII   THE CREOLE BELLE

 XXVIII   THE DAY OF THE WEDDING

   XXIX   THE FINAL RECKONING

    XXX   THE AFTERGLOW

CHAPTER ONE

THE DIAMOND DOT

I wasn't really a Westerner an' that's why I'm so different from
most of 'em. Take your regular bonie fide Westerner an' when he dies
he don't turn to dust, he turns to alkali; but when it comes my turn
to settle, I'll jest natchely become the good rich soil o' the
Indiana cornbelt.

I was born in Indiana and I never left it till after I was ten years
old. That's about the time boys generally start out to hunt Injuns;
but I kept on goin' till I found mine--but I didn't kill him--nor
him me neither, as far as that goes.

I allus did have the misfortune o' gettin' hungry at the most
inconvenient times, an' after I 'd been gone about two weeks I got
quite powerful hungry, so I natchely got a job waitin' on a lunch
counter back in Omaha. The third day I was there I was all alone in
the front room when in walked an Injun. He was about eight feet
high, I reckon; and the fiercest Injun I ever see. I took one look
at him a' then I dropped behind the counter and wiggled back to the
kitchen where the boss was. I gasped out that the Injuns was upon us
an' then I flew for my firearms.

When the boss discovered that the Injun and fourteen doughnuts,
almost new, had vanished, he was some put out, and after we had
discussed the matter, I acted on his advice and came farther West.
That business experience lasted me a good long while. I don't like
business an' I don't blame any one who has to follow it for a livin'
for wantin' to have a vacation so he can get out where the air is
fit to breathe.

Just imagine bein' hived up day after day with nothin' to see but
walls an' nothin' to do but customers. You first got to be friendly
with your visitors to make 'em feel at home, an' then you got to get
as much of their money as you can in order to keep on bein' friendly
with 'em in order to keep on gettin' as much of their money as you
can.

Now out in the open a feller don't have to be a hypocrite: once I
worked a whole year for a man who hated me so he wouldn't speak to
me; but I didn't care, I liked the work and I did it an' he raised
my wages twice an' gave me a pony when I quit.

He was the sourest tempered man I ever see; but it was good trainin'
to live with him a spell. Lots of men has streaks of bein'
unbearable; but this man was the only one I ever met up with who was
solid that way, and didn't have one single streak of bein' likeable.
He was the only man I ever see who wouldn't talk to me. I was a
noticing sort of a kid an' I saw mighty early that what wins the
hearts o' ninety-nine men out of a hundred is listenin' to 'em talk.
That's why I don't talk much myself. But you couldn't listen to old
Spike Williams, 'cause the' wasn't no opportunity--he didn't even
cuss.

We was snowed up for two weeks one time an' I took a vow 'at I'd
make him talk. I tried every subject I'd ever heard of; but he
didn't even grunt. Just when things was clearin' off, I sez to him,
usin' my biggest trump: "Spike," sez I, "do you know what they say
about you?"

"No," sez he, "but you know what I say about them," an' he went on
with his packin'.

I thought for a while 'at the year I'd spent with Spike Williams was
a total loss; but jest the contrary. It had kept me studyin' an'
schemin' an' analysin' until, after that year had been stored away
to season, I discovered it was the best year I'd ever put in, an'
while I hadn't got overly well acquainted with Spike, I had become
mighty friendly with myself and was surprised to find out how much
the' was to me.

Did you ever think of that? You start out an' a feller comes along
an' throws an opinion around your off fore foot an' you go down in a
heap an' that opinion holds you fast for some time. When you start
on again another feller ropes you with a new opinion, an' the first
thing you know you are all cluttered up an' loaded down with other
fellers' opinions, an' the' ain't enough o' your own self left to
tell what you're like; but after that winter with Spike I was pretty
well able to dodge an opinion until I had time to learn what it
meant.

But the main good I got out of Spike was learnin' how to take old
Cast Steel Judson. It was some years after this before I met up with
him; but the good effect hadn't worn off and me an' Cast Steel just
merged together like butter an' a hot penny. I wasn't much more 'an
a kid even then, but law! I wish I knew just half as much now as I
thought I did then. My self respect was certainly a bulky article
those days an' I wasn't in the habit of undervaluin' my own
judgment--not to any great extent; but that habit o' study I'd
formed with Spike was my balance wheel, an' I generally managed to
keep my conceit from shuttin' out the entire landscape. The' wasn't
a great deal escaped my eye, 'cause I begun to notice purty tol'able
young that experience is consid'able like a bank account: takes a
heap o' sweat to get her started, but she's comfortable to draw on
in a pinch.

Ol' man Judson was a curious affair, had his own way o' doin' every
blessed thing, an' whenever he hired a man he always went through
the same rigamarole. "Now what I'm contractin' for," he'd say, "is
just only your time an' whatever part o' your thinkin' apparatus as
is needed in doin' YOUR share o' my business. If I detail you to sit
in the shade an' count clouds, I don't want no argument, I want the
clouds counted. When I don't specially express a hungerin' for any
of your advice, that's the very time when you don't need to give
any. Whenever you think you have a kick comin'--why think again.
Then if you still see the kick, make it to the foreman. If that
don't work make it to me; but when you make it to me, you want to be
mighty sure it will hold water. Above all things I hate a liar, a
coward, an' a sneak. Now get busy 'cause life is short an' time is
fleetin'."

That was the way he used to talk, an' some used to set him down as a
tyrant, an' some had him guessed in as a rough old codger with a
soft heart,--everybody took a guess at him,--but the blood in the
turnip was that ol' Jabez Judson was purty tol'able sizey when you
carne to fence him in. Everybody called him Cast Steel Judson, an'
you might work through the langwidge five times without adding much
to the description. Hard he was an' stern an' no bend to him; but at
the same time you could count on him acting up to his nature. He
wa'n't no hypocrite, an' th''s a heap o' comfort jest in that. A
feller ain't got no kick comin' when a rattler lands on him; but if
a wood dove was to poison him, he'd have a fair right to be put out.
The only child 'at Cast Steel had was one daughter; but that don't
indicate that paternity was one long vacation for Jabez. Barbie--her
full name was Barbara--was the sweetest an' the gamest an' the most

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