uaint narratives of
McVey, who was a born raconteur. What added to their subtle humor
immensely was the fact that the embodied jokes were almost always turned
at his own expense. But the last of his relations brought tears into the
eyes of one woman at least, and made Douglass kick embarrassedly at the
glowing log heap until the sparks arose in an inverted cascade of fire.

"Theah is some people in thu wohld that seem just bawn foh trubble! They
are built a-puppos, like a woodpecker, an' mizzery nacherally poahs upon
'em when everybody else is so allfired happy that it hurts.

"I mind a fambly o' that kind which come oveh yeah from thu Picketwire
(Purgatoire River) three yeah ago. They was foah on 'em, two ole ones
an' a couple o' kids, boy 'n gyurl, 'bout sixteen yeahs ole, each."

"How old, each?" asked Douglass, artlessly.

"'Bout sixteen yeah ole, each, I said, an' I didn't stuttah, neither!
They was twinneds. Thu boy was tow-haided an' ornary; thu gyurl were a
roan, even redder'n me! I think she were thu freckledst critter I eveh
see, an' ugly! Say, honest, she was afeared to look inter a lookin'
glass an' every time she see her face axcidental she hollered!

"Thet outfit were shore onlucky! Fust theah hosses got into a loco
patch, an' one dawk night walked oveh a clift thinkin' it were thu aidge
o' a sun crack. Then theah cow gits lumpy jaw an' haster be shot. Thu
hekid tried to hold out kyards one night when Lem Bowers was feelin'
mean, an' it took thu waggin an' hawness to pay fer sawin off hes laig.
An' when he got so's he could mosey about agin, hes krutch got stuck in
thu frawg o' the railroad crossin' in Gunnison an' a freight train
mussed him up redic'lous!

"Naow yuh'd think thet thu two thousand plunks thu Company paid hes paw
fer dammitches was a purty faih standoff fer past hawdships, but thet
fambly's luck was suthin' scandalous! It were all in hunner dollah
bills, an' thu ole woman cached 'em in thu mattrass of her baid. Thu
mattrass were stuffed with wild hay, an' one day when thu ole woman were
out pickin' Oregan grape an' osho-root fer thu ole man's rheumatiz, a
burro loafered into camp an' et up thu hull shootin' match!

"The she-kid rustles a jawb as biscuit-shooter in a Swede beanery oveh
to Crested Butte, but she was so plum ugly thet she scahed away all thu
feeders an' thu boss sues her foh his come-back. Then she hikes out with
a tinhawn Greaser an' ketches thu small-pawx down to Taos,