The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ma Pettengill, by Harry Leon Wilson

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Title: Ma Pettengill

Author: Harry Leon Wilson

Release Date: December 13, 2004 [eBook #14348]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MA PETTENGILL***

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MA PETTENGILL

by

HARRY LEON WILSON

Author of _Bunker Bean_, _Ruggles of Red Gap_, _Somewhere in Red Gap_,
etc.

1919

TO WILLIAM EUGENE LEWIS

CONTENTS

I. MA PETTENGILL AND THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

II. A LOVE STORY

III. RED GAP AND THE BIG-LEAGUE STUFF

IV. VENDETTA

V. ONE ARROWHEAD DAY

VI. THE PORCH WREN

VII. CHANGE OF VENUS

VIII. CAN HAPPEN!

IX. THE TAKER-UP

X. AS TO HERMAN WAGNER

XI. CURLS

I

MA PETTENGILL AND THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

From the Arrowhead corrals I strolled up the poplar-bordered lane that
leads past the bunk house to the castle of the ranch's chatelaine. It
was a still Sunday afternoon--the placid interlude, on a day of rest,
between the chores of the morning and those of evening. But the calm was
for the ear alone. To the eye certain activities, silent but swift, were
under way. On the shaded side piazza of the ranch house I could discern
my hostess, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill; she sat erect, even in a
rocking-chair, and knitted. On the kitchen steps, full in the westering
sun, sat the Chinese chef of the Arrowhead, and knitted--a yellow,
smoothly running automaton. On a shaded bench by the spring house, a
plaid golfing cap pushed back from one-half the amazing area of his bare
pate, sat the aged chore-boy, Boogles, and knitted. The ranch was on a
war basis.

And more: As I came abreast of the bunk house the Sabbath calm was
punctured by the tart and careless speech of Sandy Sawtelle, a top rider
of the Arrowhead, for he, too, was knitting, or had been. On a stool
outside the doorway he held up an unfinished thing before his grieved
eyes and devoutly wished it in the p