Big Spring - The Casual Biography Of Prairie Town

Text extracted from opening pages of book: BIG SPRING The Casual Biography of a Prairie Town By SHINE PHILIPS Drawings By JERRY BYWATERS New York PRENTICE-HALL, INC. 1942 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION i Chapter i WATERHOLE s Chapter 2 PILLROLLER 18 Chapter 3 SHE'S TAKEN BAD, DOC 40 Chapter 4 LAW AND DISORDER 57 Chapter 5 SADDLEBAG PARSONS 69 Chapter 6 NAME YOUR PIZEN 80 Chapter 7 BARBERSHOP BALLAD 97 Chapter 8 DRUMMERS 107 Chapter 9 GIT ALONG LITTLE DOGIES 119 v CONTENTS 10 SQUATTERS 134 Chapter 11 CRITTERS 143 Chapter 12 COME AND GET IT 160 Chapter 13 TENDERFEET 168 Chapter 14 PUT YOUR LITTLE FOOT DOWN .... 177 Chapter 15 IT'S A FUNNY THING 193 Chapter 16 BOOK LEARNING 202 Chapter 17 FOLKS AT HOME 211 Chapter 18 SOMETHING ABOUT SUNSETS 223 VI BIG SPRING INTRODUCTION A Her came moseying into my drugstore the other night a stranger to these parts he was looked like he'd been dumped out of an airplane that was grounded on account of the weather. We had right smart weather that day. At two o'clock in the afternoon it was 90 degrees in the shade and the shade durn hard to find. Long about dark a sandstorm roared in, a real humdinger. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face. At ten o'clock sharp we had some free electrical fireworks with sound effects in the sky, like the world was coming to an end. Then we had a hailstorm with pellets as big as hen's egg hitting the roof. This was followed by a waterspout that lasted maybe half an hour, and then I'll be John Browned if we didn't have a dry norther that would send you hunting for your long ones. And the sand began to blow again, Must have come from way over in New Mexico because the mud was ankle deep 4 around here. Somewhere along the linein this full house of meteor ology, one of our most revered modern conveniences had to make a forced landing. Well, this feller I reckon he was heading for California was plumb disgusted. What kind of a so-and-so place is this, he griped. One minute I need air conditioning; the next I need an overcoat. You don't like our weather? I asked him. I do not, he said, grim-like. 1 INTRODUCTION Well, I'll tell you, I said. You just hold your horses and wait a minute and it'll change. He looked kind of miffed. That doesn't answer my orig inal question, he said. Where am I? You're in Big Spring, Texas, I told him. The biggest little town in the U. S. A. Is that so, he said sarcastically. Give me a chocolate ice cream soda. My mouth is full of grit. Maybe you ought to keep it shut, I told him, fizzing the carbonated water into the chocolate syrup. He made me tired, that feller. He looked kind of surprised, so I put two scoops of ice cream into the soda to make up for the crack. Here you are, I said. We got no control over the weather, you know. Never did have. Don't reckon they do any better along that line where you come from. There's just one more thing I want to ask you, this feller said. How did they ever happen to put the biggest little town in the U. S. A. in this particular Godforsaken spot? I'm telling you, that got my dander up. When I thought what it had cost in working and slaving and living and dying to put Big Spring here, it made me mad to have anybody get flippant about it. That's a long story, I snapped. A mighty long story. That's just what I need, said Smarty. A very long story. Serve you right if I told you, I said to him, thinking that in the old days we would already be out inthe street fighting it out. But I guess civilization has made us soft. I couldn't feel worse, he said, sucking on his straw. So I told him. 1 WATERHOLE It looks like God kind of made it easy for Big Spring to be a town three hundred miles each way from every thing and a natural jumpin' off place. If you don't know where Big Spring is, it's in West Texas, in the foothills The Big Spring. of the Cap Rock, where the Great Plains start, running and rolling all the way north, clear through to Colorado. Nary a bush to interfere with your vision, and you can see as far