Uncle Sagamore and His Girls by Charles Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

was pretty wild stuff, and it had a poor flavor on account of mixing with the enamel it ate off your teeth while you was swallowing it. Of course, they didn’t fool me any. I knew they was really talking about evidence; they always mentioned it that way, like it was something else. Anyway, Uncle Sagamore says that as soon as election was over there was generally a rain, and the crops might perk up a little. Murph said he understood how it was, and he got back in the convertible.
    We drove on around the square and started home. But just as we was going down the street past Curly Minifee’s filling station we heard a yell, and when we looked around it was Curly hisself. He was running across the street waving for us to stop. Uncle Sagamore put on his brakes, and him and Pop looked at each other.
    Curly trotted on over and stood by the window on Uncle Sagamore’s side. He had two pasteboard boxes under his arm, and he was grinning real friendly.
    “Here,” he says, handing the boxes in to Uncle Sagamore. “I don’t know what you men must be thinkin’ of me, forgettin’ to give you the inner tubes for those tires a while ago.”
    Pop and Uncle Sagamore looked at the boxes kind of suspicious, but before they could say anything, Curly says, “No charge, men. I just wanted you to know I ain’t one to do things half way. You bought your tires from me, and by golly, I want you to have good tubes for ’em.”
    “Well sir, that’s downright neighborly of you,” Uncle Sagamore says.
    “Forget it,” Curly told him. “Nothin’s too good for good customers.” He grinned again, and clapped Uncle Sagamore on the shoulder, but it seemed to me like his eyes was kind of cold and nasty. “So you’re Sagamore Noonan? I’ve heard about you for years.”
    “Is that a fact?” Uncle Sagamore says.
    “It sure is,” Curly said. He took two cigars out of his pocket and give ’em each one. “Well, I won’t keep you. You’ll probably be hearin’ about me in a day or two, and I just wanted to be sure you remembered me.”
    “Oh, we will,” Pop says.
    “Say, I bet you will, at that,” Curly said. He give ’em a big grin, and went back across the street. Uncle Sagamore started the truck again, and we drove on out of town. He was kind of quiet.
    “What you reckon he means?” Pop asked.
    Uncle Sagamore thought about it for a while. But all he said was, “Hmmmm.”
    When we got back to the farm, they laid down on the porch again with Pop smoking a cigar and Uncle Sagamore sailing out some tobacco juice ever now and then and neither one saying anything, so I got Sig Freed and we went off to dig for gophers. Sig Freed’s a real long-coupled dog with legs so short his chest almost drags on the ground, and he loves to dig in gopher holes. He was raised in the city, but he’s as crazy about farm life as I am.
    We found a gopher mound pretty close to Uncle Finley’s ark. That’s down the hill below the side of the house, about halfway to the edge of the lake. Sig Freed started burrowing in, throwing the dirt back with his front feet and stopping ever once in a while to sniff a big nose full of gopher smell and snort. Uncle Sagamore says the reason he snorts is to blow out the old smell and draw in a fresh batch to be sure he was right the first time.
    I yelled for Uncle Finley to watch, but he was up on the scaffold hammering nails into the ark, and he didn’t hear me. He’s pretty deaf, and even if he did hear he wouldn’t pay any mind; he’s all wrapped up in the sin situation around the country, and in the ark. You see, he’s got this idea the world’s going to end one of these days in a regular gully-washer of a rain and everybody’s supposed to drown except him. I think he kind of looks forward to it.
    Uncle Sagamore says it was the Vision that tipped him off about it, three or four years ago. It was around two o’clock in the morning when the Vision showed up there in the back bedroom and touted him, and Uncle