.. everybody likes him....
"Did you ever notice his limp ... only slight ... scarcely noticeable,
isn't it?... he's a corking mechanic as well as shoemaker ... mighty
clever ... now for instance, you wouldn't ever have known, unless I told
you, that his left leg is made of wood?"
"I wouldn't even suspect it."
"--lost his left leg when he was a brakeman ... made that wooden leg for
himself ... it works so smoothly that he's thinking of taking out a
patent on it."
"Why does a woman take to a man with a wooden leg?"
"--makes good money ... and he has a way about him with the girls ...
he goes about so quietly. He's so gentle and considerate ... acts, but
doesn't say much, you know! that's what they like!"
"--damned sorry for his wife and two kids, though; when Willets comes to
town again I'm not going to let him have my shack any more ... might be
some trouble ... divorce or something."
There was trouble and very shortly. In a month Willets had poisoned his
wife ... with rough-on-rats ... and the quiet little shoemaker went to
the penitentiary for life ... a life-time of shoe-making.
* * * * *
I rented a tent and pitched it on an island in the middle of the Kaw, or
Kansas River. There I was alone. I rented a boat to take out my
possessions.
I lived naked till I grew brown all over. I studied and read and wrote
to my full desire, there in the grateful silence of trees and waters--a
solitude broken only by an occasional train streaming its white trail of
smoke as it whistled and raced round the curve of shining track toward
Laurel.
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