talent lies"--and here Leander
winked knowingly--"in managin' the help."

"Land's sake!" interrupted the fat lady. "Why don't you kick?"

Leander sighed softly. "I tried to once. As an experiment it partook of
the trustfulness of a mule kickin' against the stony walls of Badger
Canon. But to resoom about the difficulties that split the Dax family.
Before Johnnie got mislaid in that matrimonial landslide o' his, he herds
with us. Me an' him does the work of this yere shack, and my wife just
roominates and gives her accomplishments as manager full play. She never
put her hand in dirty water any more than Mrs. Cleveland sittin' up in the
White House parlor. Johnnie done the fancy cookin'; he could make a pie
like any one's maw, and while you was lost to the world in the delights of
masticatin' it, he'd have all his greasy dishes washed up and put away--"

"No wonder she hated to lose a man like that," interrupted the fat lady,
feelingly.

"But he took to pinin' and proclaimin' that he shore was a lone maverick,
and he just stampeded round lookin' for trouble and bleatin' a song that
went:

"'No one to love,
None to caress.'

"Well, the lady that answers his signal of distress don't bear none of the
brands of this yere range. She lives back East, and him and her took up
their claims in each other's affections through a matrimonial paper known
as _The Heart and Hand_. So they takes their pens in hand and gets through
a hard spell of courtin' on paper. Love plumb locoes Johnnie. His spellin'
don't suit him, his handwritin' don't suit him, his natchral letters don't
suit him. So off he sends to Denver for all the letter-writin' books he
can buy--_Handbook of Correspondence, The Epistolary Guide, The Ready
Letter-Writer_, and a stack more. There's no denyin' it, Johnnie certainly
did sweat hisself over them letters."

"Land's sakes!" said the fat lady.

"Yes, marm; he used to read 'em to me, beginnin' how he had just seized
five minutes to write to her, when he'd worked the whole day like a mule
over it. She seemed to like the brand, an' when he sent her the money to
come out here an' get married, she come as straight as if she had been
mailed with a postage-stamp."

"The brazen thing!" said the fat lady.

"They stopped here, goin' home to their place. My Lord! warn't she a
high-flyer! She done her hair like a tied-up horse-tail--my wife called it
a Sikey knot--and it stood out a foot from her head. Some of the