“I had rather,” meditated Mr. Scraggs, “I had much rather wear the top of my head a smooth white record of a well-spent life than go amblin’ around the country like the Chicago fire out for a walk, and I repeat:  Why can’t people be honest?”

“I begin to pity somebody an awful lot,” said Red.  “Did you send him home barefoot?”

“You go on!” retorted Mr. Scraggs.  “I fell into the hands of the Filly-steins oncet, and they put the trail of the serpent all over me.  I run into the temple of them twin false gods, Mammon and Gammon, and I stood to draw one suit of sack-cloth and a four-mule wagon-load of ashes.”

“Is them the close you got on now?” said Charley.  “And what did you get for the ashes?”

“The play come up like this,” said Scraggs.  “After my eighteenth bestowin’ of the honored name of Scraggs upon a person that didn’t appreciate it the Mormon Church see fit to assume a few duties on me.  I was put in a position of importance in a placer minin’ districk inhabited by jack-rabbits, coyotes, Chinamen, and Mrs. Scraggses.  And still I wasn’t happy.  Them jack-rabbits et up my little garding patch; the coyotes gathered at nights and sung me selections from the ghost dance; the Chinamen sprung every con-cussed trick on me that a man who wears his whiskers down his back can think of; and day and night alike, Mrs. Scraggs, from one to eighteen, informed me what I’d ort to do.

“I tried to strike up a little friendly conversation with the Chinks, for variety, but it weren’t no use.  A Chinaman’ll be a Mormon, or a Democrat, or a cannibal, or any other durn thing for five cents, sixty days from date.  He ain’t got any more natural convictions than a Missouri River catfish.  They’d just keep a-watchin’ my face so’s they could agree with me.  Now, I didn’t want that.  I wanted to get up an argument with somebody I could sass back, because in my own house, where I was lord and master, if I happened to remark it was a nice, bright day everybody swore you couldn’t see your hand before your face, and I let the subject drop right there.  Mrs. Scraggs quar’led some among herself, but when I come in her motto was, ’United we stand him on his head, and divided we fall upon his neck.’  When she done the last, of a still day, you could hear the crack of my cervycal vertybree three mile.

“So, at last, I wearied.  I writ a letter to the Elders tellin’ ’em I enjoyed the work, but thought it was time for my spirit of self-sacrifice to exercise himself a little.  So would they mind givin’ me another job?  Somethin’ like lyin’ on a board and havin’ a doctor rip-saw chunks out of me for the benefit of Science, and let him lose the pieces, for all I cared.

“The Mormon Church, she come to my relief by sendin’ me out on a proselytin’ expedition to York State.  But I wasn’t built proper to lead errin’ sheep into the fold.  Most of the sheep they hollered ‘Baa!’ when they see me, and gathered distance with both feet.  If I did get a chance to talk to a man he always asked me awkward questions.  Like one old farmer, whilest I was explainin’ the advantages of havin’ as many helpmates and cheerful companions and domestic joys as possible, busts into me by takin’ holt of my coat and askin’ so confidential I couldn’t lie to him, ’How do you find it yourself?’