Jake was duller than
Otto. He could scarcely read, wrote even his name with difficulty, and he
had a violent temper which sometimes made him behave like a crazy man--tore
him all to pieces and actually made him ill. But he was so soft-hearted
that anyone could impose upon him. If he, as he said, `forgot himself' and
swore before grandmother, he went about depressed and shamefaced all day.
They were both of them jovial about the cold in winter and the heat in
summer, always ready to work overtime and to meet emergencies. It was a
matter of pride with them not to spare themselves. Yet they were the sort
of men who never get on, somehow, or do anything but work hard for a dollar
or two a day.
On those bitter, starlit nights, as we sat around the old stove that fed us
and warmed us and kept us cheerful, we could hear the coyotes howling down
by the corrals, and their hungry, wintry cry used to remind the boys of
wonderful animal stories; about grey wolves and bears in the Rockies,
wildcats and panthers in the Virginia mountains. Sometimes Fuchs could be
persuaded to talk about the outlaws and desperate characters he had known.
I remember one funny story about himself that made grandmother, who was
working her bread on the bread-board, laugh until she wiped her eyes with
her bare arm, her hands being floury.
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