Savage standin' on guard back of 'em, an' the' was a bigger lump
under my necktie than I generally wore. I didn't have mach call to
go anywhere, an' I sat there on my old pony, wonderin' whether or
not it paid to be game.

If my mother had been alive, jest at that point would have been
where the West would have lost the benefit of my personal
supervision--but then if my mother had lived I shouldn't never 'a'
left home. I stood a stepmother six months out o' respect to my Dad,
but I wouldn't 'a' stood that one a year--well, anyway, not unless
I'd been chained an' muzzled.

It's a funny thing to me how a man can drink an' fight an' carry on
for a year at a clip an' then all of a sudden feel a hurtin'
somewhere inside that nothin' wouldn't help but a little pettin'. He
knows doggone well 'at there ain't none comin' to him, so he hides
it by cuttin' up a little worse than usual but it's there, an' Gee!
but it does rest heavy when it comes. Why, take me even now when
the' wouldn't nothin' but a grizzly bear have the nerve to coddle
me, an' yet week before last I felt so blue an' solitary 'at I
couldn't 'a' told to save me whether I was homesick or whether it
was only 'cause the beans was a little sour.

I sat there on the old pony a good long time, an' then I heaved a
sigh 'at made me swell out like an accordion, an' headed back to the
valley trail. When I turned around, there, standin' in the trail
before me with a streak down each cheek, stood Barbie.

"Ya ain't goin', are ya?" sez she.