The Siege Of The Drug Store

________________________________________________
Title:     The Siege Of The Drug Store
Author: Henry Wallace Phillips [More Titles by Phillips]

"Once upon a time, when I was scarcely married at all, you might say," began Mr. Scraggs, "I quit workin' for a livin' and started a scientific school."

"_You_ did?" cried Red, after one astonished second vanished in the past.

"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Scraggs, "I did. _It_ was for the investigation and pursuit of this, here doctrine of chances. The idee was to put a little box full of playin'-cards on the table, and draw them forth one at a time, to see just how they'd fall. Some of the students got that interested they bet on the results."

"Oh!" said Charley, "I took a course in that one winter myself. Did you always draw _one_ card at a time out'n that box, Zeke?"

"So help me, Bob! I did," returned Mr. Scraggs most earnestly. "Hence I didn't get rich. It sometimes happened that a Wild Wolf from Up the Creek would breeze in, full of rum, plumb foolishness, and money. Oh, man! High or low, red or black, odd or even, coppered or open, on the corner or let her rip, last turn and in the middle, from soda-card to hock, them brier-whiskered sons-of-guns would whipsaw my poor little bank till there wasn't much left of her but sawdust. Yes, sir," mourned Mr. Scraggs, "I made enough out of the early birds to eat, but them Roarin' Bears from Bruindale uset sometimes to apply the flat of their hands to my seat of learning till the sparks flew out of my eyes. In short, this sportin' life was too much up and down hill for me. No sooner would I git ready to declare a dividend than one of my outside customers would come in and take that dividend and wipe both feet on it, roll on it, stomp it, fly ten foot in the air and come down on it, bite chunks out of it, and then I'd light a match, gather the crumbs from the floor, and wisht I could git holt of something at once easy and reliable.

"Well, there was a friend of mine lived at the Transcontinental Hotel. The partition between his room and mine didn't come clear to the ceiling, so when I arrived home late I uset to heave a boot over on top of him and have a chin. He was a nice feller, Hadds. A pale, thin sort of man, very red-headed--that is to say, not red-headed like some parties I have known, but a sort of bashful red, that would ha' been different if it could; and he wore eight large freckles on his face. There would have been more if there had been more room. Hadds was then workin' for the railroad company, but not happy. He was in the dispatcher's office, and I'd hear him holler in his nightmares, 'There they go! Bang! Everybody killed! I always expected it!'

"You see, he lived in fear of running two excursion trains together. Nervous cuss--oh, awful! Not without reason, neither. Seems when he was at college he studied chemistry. Always experimentin'. Mixed two things that was born to live apart. Hadds left simooltaniously with that corner of the buildin'. He didn't stop till he reached the Transcontinental Hotel.

"Hadds worked at me to start a drug store with him. He'd saved some out of his wages, and he knew I had a fluctuatin' roll. He says, 'You're goin' bust some day, young man--why don't you quit it? You come with me and we'll make a decent thing. It's mighty lucky for the gang that they swill patent medicines instead of lettin' that Jones up the street give' em a quick finish over the prescription counter. That pill-wrangler couldn't tell the difference between an auger-hole riffle-board and a porous plaster if there wasn't a label on the box. Jeeminnetticus!' says Hadds, 'when he mixes coffin varnish for a man you'd think he was scramblin' eggs. Come on, Washy,' he says, 'while you got the price. You'd like the business.'

"One night it happened Bitter Water Simpson was borne on the wings of evening to my place of business, and he calculated that the last two cards in the box would come out, queen first, trey next. He was so sure he inquired about the theory of limits.

"'The limit,' says I, 'is the clothes and contents, body and immortal soul of E. G. W. Scraggs. You slam your wad down and I'll cash it.'

"It had occurred to me there was no use foolin' longer. If I busted this gun-fighter I went into the drug business; if he busted me I'd take a walk.

"He laid down one thousand dollars' worth of Government promises, and I took a long breath, drew forth, first trey, next queen, removed his money from the table with a light, sure touch, threw the layout in the stove, blew out the lamp, remarked that the bank was closed, and stood prepared to deal in chemicals instead of playin'-cards.

"Simpson was surprised. 'Ain't I goin' to get satisfaction?' says he.

"'If it's to be had on the prescription counter you do,' says I. 'Otherwise, I prefer to stay satisfied myself.'

"It would have been better if he'd refrained from abusing me. I was younger then, and while not in the least quarrelsome, yet such talk as Simpson talked to me was entirely uncalled for. Besides that, he got festive with guns. I relieved him of his guns and sat him on the stove till he promised to behave. Nobody ever heard me kick when them fellers nailed me to the burnin' oak for anywhere's up to five hundred a night. Howsomever, it wound up amiable; I staked Simmy to a new pair of pants, and kept him in spendin' money till ridin' again appeared among the possibilities. I never could get used to people pullin' guns on me.

"So, then, there was a drug store goin' in no time. Both me and Hadds was happy as could be, and workin' like a pair of mules. When we had things fixed, and a sign 'Hadds & Scraggs' in gold letters four foot high, I felt I really was a prominent citizen. But dear friends and brothers, always there's somebody handy with a fly to stick in your ointment. Once I went down street to see how that sign looked a little ways off, and up rides a puncher.

"'Hadds & Scraggs!' says he: 'I wonder what kind of merchandise them is? Well, I must take a Hadds and a Scraggs home to show the boys.'

"He knocked every bit of poetry out of that sign. Howsomever, poetry ain't the chief business of a drug store, and when you come to the practical side we done mighty well. We got in a line of patent medicines with pretty red and blue labels that took the popular taste. As there was a minin' boom over the hill, our line of gold pans and gunpowder went well. A new seeder brought in some money, and with rubber boots, snowshoes, baseballs, carpenters' tools, spectacles, lumber, and an agency for a self-binder as side issues, I see myself getting on in the world.

"'Tweren't long before nobody'd think of buyin' a faro layout or a deck of cards elsewhere than at our store, and as for perfumed soap and perfumery, why, I think our feller-citizens must have et the one and drunk the other, for we unloaded by the box and pailful. When we'd count the kitty nights, 'Didn't I tell you?' Hadds would holler. 'Put your feet in my tracks and you'll wear diamonds!'

"And I guess I would if it hadn't been for a lady. There's a woman in it, nine times out of ten, when a man's ruined; and the other time there's a man in it. If neither one nor t'other's in it it's a durned uninterestin' occurrence, anyhow. Yes, sir; we come under the double-cross kindness of a female major.

"One night--Sufferin' Ichabod! but that was a night.'--we were jerried to a standstill in one half-hour, or thirty minutes, by the clock.

"Things was slack this evening nobody in the store but Hadds, Keno Jim and me, throwin' poker dice for cigars, when the door opens and here come Major Pumpey and his wife from the army post. We were not glad to see the Major. He was a little, pussy, red-faced, pop-eyed man, pompous as a banty rooster, with black whiskers and a mustache like a cat. He had a voice on him like barrels rolling in a brewery vault. It would surprise you quite a little to hear that number ten voice come a-roarin' out of that number two man. The Major used to corral everything he wanted and say, 'Charge it!' two octaves below a bull's beller, Bein' a military person, he was fond of charges; me and Hadds, bein' plain civilians, weren't. We charged it and we charged it, but that there Major's defenses were impregnerville. I had told Hadds that the next time Pumpey said 'Charge it' I was goin' to take him at his word, then and there, and rush him along on his ear till I felt better. But, of course, now his wife was along I couldn't.

"She was just as different from the Major as anything could be: a tall, pale, rangey woman, kind-hearted and good-natured as they make 'em, but with a pair of nose-grabber specks, and a way of letting her hands flop at the wrist, whilest she talked in a high gobbley-gobble style, like singin' a tuneless tune. They made a pair to draw to. The Lord only knows what you'd got if you filled. My! And the general effect of that lady! She wore her hair in an omelet, and looked as if she'd been put in her clothes by a boiler explosion.

"There was another powerful difference between them two. The Major he gazed on the wine when it was any color at all. He didn't care so much for decoration as he did for quantity. He passed his time in bein' tee'd, tee-heed, or teeterin'. On the other hand, his lady couldn't stand plain raw water. Honest, friends and brothers! I ain't stringin'! I have it on the word of their striker that Mrs. Pumpey couldn't be induced to take a drink of water unless it was boiled, and as for spirited liquors--Oh, murder! Don't mention it!

"As the Major entered I observed upon his person a kind of uprightness that no sober man ever had, varied with quick little steps sideways, for no good visible reason, and when he comes up to the counter he grabs it with both hands and says, 'How do--gla' meecher--hot, ain't it?'

"I admitted it was hot, told him I was glad to meet him, too, and as this last wasn't no more than a plain lie I asked the lady quick what we could do for her.

"Perfumery was wanted, so I passed the bottles out. Mrs. Major would take a lady-like sniff and say, 'Dee-lee-shus! Ha-oow do eeyou lieek that, Ma-JAW?'

"And when de major laid his hands on the right one of the numerous bottles floatin' in the atmosphere about him he'd hold it a yard off, give a snort like a buzz-saw striking a knot, and after a minute's silence roar, 'Ain't that nice, b-y-y-y GOSH!' and slam the bottle down.

"It was tryin' on the nerves. First place, the way he come out with that 'b-y-y-y Gosh!' hit you in the pit of the stomach like standin' alongside a bass-drum, and it was only a question of time when he slammed one of them bottles through the show case. So I flagged Hadds for help, and the two of us plied the lady with perfumery so fast that the Major couldn't get his oar in, at which he cut loose for himself, wanderin' around behind the counter, smellin' of every bottle on the shelves.

"It ain't everything in a drug store has as pleasant a greetin' for your nose as perfumery, and once or twice, when I looked around, to kind of keep cases on him, I see the Major had struck a shock. But at last he come across a sample that pleased him. I saw him swig a good lungful of it, and his mouth opened wide with delight.

"'Well, I guess you'll be amused for a while,' thinks I. So I paid no more attention.

"The next thing Hadds looks up. 'Here!' he yells; 'drop that! That's chloroform, you bull-head!'

"The call come too late--leastways, to work as intended. The Major dropped the bottle, but he also dropped himself, two shelves, and about six dozen glass jars of everything you ever heard of. Powers of darkness! Flat on his back laid the hero of many charges, whilest over his manly form and face trickled cough mixture, Canady balsam, liniment, sugar syrup, castor oil, and more sticky, oily, messy kinds of stuff than I'll ever tell you. The worst of it was that a bottle of carmine had landed last in the wreck and, bustin', flew over everything. As there wasn't a dry spot for a rod it looked like the Major had done a turn of bleedin' at every vein same as the young man we used to read about at school. In fact it was much worse than that. It appeared to be the most awful tragedy any one man ever was concerned in.

"Before we got our wits about us poor Mrs. Pumpey see her Major afloat on a gory sea, and without askin' for explanations she give a loud holler and fainted on our stock of fancy dishes.

"'Here's where we make a lot of money, I don't think,' screeches Hadds--he was an excitable person, that Hadds. 'Come!' he hollers, 'help me get 'em out of here! There's enough chloroform loose to sleep the bunch of us!'

"We lugged the Major and his wife to the back of the store. I made a piller for her out'n some rolls of wall-paper, but the Major had to get along as best he could. There he lay, his little round stummick stickin' in the air, breathin' like a wind-broken horse.

"Keno Jim and me looked after the lady whilest Hadds pranced around the Major and cussed scientific cuss-words. Of course, Keno and me didn't know no more what to do than a photograft of the Wild Man of Borneo when there was a fain tin' woman in the question. As I said, I hadn't been married enough to learn, and the present line of Mrs. Scraggses was healthy, whatever other faults they might have. Hadds 'ud come over and tell us half of something, and then rush back to the Major, tearin' his hair.

"'Blast it, Hadds!' says Keno, 'quit callin' the man names and let us know what to do for this woman.'

"'Give her a drink of whisky!' yells Hadds. 'Come here, Zeke, and see what ails this beggar now!'

"If he hadn't called me off like that lots of things wouldn't happened. 'Look at him!' says Hadds, and grinds his teeth. 'Forty dollars' worth of stuff smashed--charge it, of course. Prob'ly he's goin' to die on our hands--'twould be just like his unmerciful nerve. Pass me that bottle of ammonia, Zeke.'

"Then Keno hollered for me. He'd pried the Majoress' mouth open, stuck a cork in to it keep it so, and then fed her the revivifier. She wasn't a handsome woman at the best, but with that cork in her mouth----!

"'I gave her to there of whisky,' says Keno, indicatin' about four Swede fingers on a water tumbler. 'Do you think that'll bring her to ?'

"'Like a bear trap,' says I. 'Do you mean to say you sluiced that much raw jump-and-holler into a woman that can't stand uncooked water? Well, you are an allotropic modification of the genus jackass, like Hadds says of the Major.'

"Keno got purple in the face. He slammed the glass down and walked out. 'Now you can look after your own women,' says he, bitter. Them scientific cuss-words cut him to the heart.

"I looked at the lady. The color was coming back to her face. Evidently she'd be around in a minute or two. Then Hadds fairly whoops at me:

"'Come here! Come 'here! You're a nice pardner, you are, standin' there with your hands in your pockets!'

"'Well, what'll I do, Hadds?' says I.

"'Do? I don't care what you do, so long's you don't look so aggravatin' useless. D'yer think this specimen of an officer and gentleman appears to be--what in blazes is he doin' now?'

"'Don't abuse the poor cuss,' says I. 'He really couldn't help it.' Then I had an inspiration. Several times in my life I've been afflicted that way. 'See here,' says I, 'he took his dose through the nose. Why don't you give him the remedy the same way? Try a pinch of that Scotch snuff.'

"'Why, sure!' says Hadds. He'd tried anythin' at that stage of the game.

"Well, dear friends and brothers, it ain't down in the farmer-coop-here, nor no other agriculcheral reports, and I dunno as you could bank on it in every case, but from what I see on this occasion, if you ever happen to have a friend or relative that's over-indulged in choreform and can't seem to recall himself, wait till he takes a deep breath, and mix about an ounce of Scotch snuff in his air supply. It may work wonders.

"'Hoor-rash-o!' says the Major, comin' to a sittin' position. 'Hoor-rash-o!' says he again, and then he went off like a pack of firecrackers. A sneeze wouldn't more'n get fairly started before another'd explode in the middle of it. And the Major was as powerful a sneezer as he was talker. Gee! them bass sneezes of his sounded like a freight-engine exhaust. Mind you, he didn't open his eyes; just sat there, covered with carmine and soothin' syrup, rockin' backward and forrard and sneezin' like George Washington. There was somethin' kind of horrible about it. Me 'n' Hadds looked on petrified.

"Then, 'Oh, my poor husband! What are they doin' to you?' says a v'ice behind us, and the Majoress skipped across the floor and fell on the Major. That's the word for it; she let go all holts an' dropped, gatherin' him up in her arms.

"'What did you say, Willie?' she asks.

"'Hoor-rash-o!' says the Major. 'A-kissh-uuu! ha-ha-hrrrum-pah! A-ketcheer! Aketcher-hisssh-hoor-rash-o!'

"Now, Hadds, when he see the lady weepin' that way, was all broke up. He didn't know about Keno's goblet full of whiskey, so he thought it was genuine emotion.

"'Don't cry, ma'am,' says he. ''Twill be all right in a minute. That red's nothin' but carmine and simple syrup--it'll all come out in the wash, and sneezin's good for the man.'

"The Mayoress she rose and looked at Hadds. There was a glare in her eye more'n human. I read in a book once about the tremenjous dignity of the lady the trouble was all about. It didn't seem reasonable any female person could act that way till I see the Majoress. She had dignity enough for two maiden ladies at a niece's weddin' and a nigger head-waiter. The way she laid holt of Hadds' collar was impressive a great deal more than I'm able to tell you. Poor Hadds was faded. He looked like a pup caught with a chicken in his mouth. They made a grand march to the general goods counter, the Majoress still resemblin' a foreign queen. Arrived there, she took up a hairbrush, and with a motion the grandest I ever see in a human bein' she brought it down atop of Hadds' head. Whacko!--Christmas, what a crack.

"'_Now_, will you let my Willie alone?' says she.

"Hadds jumped up and down and rubbed his head.

"'What ails you?' says he, near cryin'.

"'Hadds!' I remonstrated to him, 'remember you're speakin' to a lady.'

"'Lady!' yells Hadds. 'Lady! Look at the lump on my head!'

"It was at this unfortunate minute a young feller see fit to come into the store to buy some matches. He stopped a minute, as he took a general view. There was the Major, apparently bleedin' profusely, yet not carin' a great deal, seemin' more concerned in rockin' bac'ard and forrard and sneezin'. His manner seemed to say, 'So long as you don't interfere with the innocent pleasures of a sneeze I don't care what breaks.' There was Hadds rubbin' his head: there was me with my mouth open; and there was the Majoress, leanin' over the counter and smilin' a dark, mysterious smile.

"The customer didn't know what to do.

"'Well?' says the Majoress, sharp and businesslike.

"The young feller jumped.

"'I beg your pardon,' says he. 'I'd like a box of matches.'

"The Majoress shook her head.

"'People don't always get what they like in this world,' says she.

"'No,' says the young feller. 'No, ma'am.' And then come an awkward silence.

"The Majoress still shook her head.

"'This is a sad world,' she says.

"'Yes, ma'am,' says the young feller, edgin' for the door.

"'But you can have the matches,' says she.

"With that she hit him square between the eyes with a ten-cent box. The young feller drew himself up proud.

"'I don't come in here to get insulted,' says he.

"The Majoress resumed her mysterious smile.

"'Why not?' says she.

"The young feller opened his mouth twice, but nothin' to suit the occasion seemed to occur to him. He wheeled and tried to walk off dignified, but the matches snappin' under his feet spoiled the effect.

"'By-by!' says the Majoress; 'come again!'

"She grabbed a tray of mouth-organs and heaved it after him; they scattered like a shrapnel shell. The young feller didn't wait to close the door. We heard him gallopin' up the board walk like he was needin' fresh air. We stood stock still for a matter of five seconds, I reckon; Hadds and me scart to move, and the Majoress with her brow wrinkled in thought. All of a suddent, with no more warnin' than a streak of lightnin', she burst out cryin'. 'Oh, oh, oh!' says she, 'how I have been deceived in men!' Then to relieve her feelin's she got to work with both hands.

"There was a genuine Sand-hill cloudburst of hair-brushes and combs, porous plasters, tooth-powder, tooth-brushes, pomade, soap, Jew's-harps, playin'-cards and the old Boy knows what all. It struck me then what a waste of time it was for a citizen to get loaded and tear the linin' out of a saloon; the place where you can really get the worth of your time and money is a drug store. Hadds and me made one desp'rate plunge for her through the terrific fire she kept up. I don't suppose that lady could hit a barn with a rock, unless she was inside of it, under ordinary conditions; but I'll bet she didn't miss one out of a possible ten that night. She caught me under the eye with a mouth-organ, on top of the head with a jar of tooth-powder, whilest smaller articles flew off'n me in all directions.

"Hadds took holt of her hands and talked implorin'.

"'Please, ma'am!' says he, 'please? Don't throw things around like that! Remember they cost money! We can't sell tooth-brushes after you've strewed the floor with 'em! I ask you please! Please!'

"'Villain!' says she haughtily. 'How dast you put your evil hands on me?'

"'Hadds,' says I, 'leggo the lady. We pass. Let us retire behind the prescription counter and bear up like men. There's only one thing on earth that E. G. W. Scraggs is willin' to admit has him trimmed to a peak, and you see that same before you now. 'Twas ever thus since childhood's hour, when my maiden Aunt Susan took the raisin' of me. Take any form thou wilt but this, and my firm nerve ain't goin' to tremble; but stacked again this form, my nerve is floppin' like a hotel wash in a hurricane.'

"So I slung Hadds over my shoulder and we went behind the prescription counter.

"I tried to distract his mind by tellin' him a funny story. However, the rip-split-smash outside kind of jumbled three yarns into one. Besides, Hadds was foamin' so it was all I could do to keep him from goin' over and kickin' the Major, who still was oblivious to surroundings, and enwrapped in the gentle art of sneezin'. Then there come a fearful bump from outside. I knew by that a showcase was no more.

"'Zeke!' yells Hadds, 'think of somethin' before that woman has us all in.'

"'Haddsy, old horse,' I says, 'we've only got one show. If we can create a diversion we win. My head's that rumpled, the only thing strikes me is for us to go out there and play cat-fight. Holler, and meaowl, and spit, and screech, and jump around till she can't help but look at us. That's the way I uset to amuse the twins when they needed killin'; of course we'll look like a pair of fools----'

"'Yes!' hollers Hadds. 'What do we look like now? You get three guesses!'

"'Come along!' says I.

"Well, dear friends and brothers, our hearts was in that diversion, let alone the stake we'd invested in the store. If you don't think one bald-headed E. G. W. Scraggs and one red-headed Tommy Hadds put up a high-grade article of cat-fight I don't know how I'm goin' to prove to the contrary; but it was so.

[Illustration: "Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight."]

"Why, we buck-jumped four foot in the air, sideways, edgeways and straight pitch-and-teeter; we mi-auwed, and scratched, and tore and rolled over, and kicked with our hind legs, and such yells was never heard in a human habitation before nor since.

"It worked. The Mayoress stopped and leaned over the counter.

"'Warm it up, Hadds!' I whispers. 'We got her lookin'!'

"So then we rollicked for a ramps. I see the Majoress smile; she p'inted her finger toward us.

"'S-sick 'em!' says she. 'Sick 'em, Towser!'

"It would have been all right; we was playin' on velvet, and could have led that woman out of the store as easy as anything if that concussed Major hadn't 'a' come to in the wrong place.

"I caught one glimpse of him holdin' tight with both hands to a shelf, with his eyes jumpin' out of his head and his face as white as flour.

"Of course no man would really believe that the spectacle of two grown men playin' cat-fight in the ruins of a drug store, whilest his own wife looked on and said 'Sick 'em!' was anything but an optickle delusion, caused by reasons he was familiar with.

"'It's never come like this before!' hollers the Major, and then he goes down backward for the final touch, carryin' away a kerosene lamp, and the same landin' in a barrel of varnish.

"Well, sir, what with the stuff that was loose around there and the varnish, my coat tails was afire when I lugged the Major out to where Hadds was industriously savin' the Mayoress' life.

"The two hose companies got out in good shape, but a most unforchinit dispute over who was to claim first water on the fire led 'em to use axes and spanner wrenches and sections of hose on each other whilst our drug store burned green and purple and pink, neglected. Inside of ten minutes eight firemen was ready for the hospital; a good citizen took the Major and Majoress in for the night, and all that was left of our promisin' business enterprise was a small heap of wood ashes and a very bad smell.

"'Well,' says I, 'shake, Hadds; it's all over.'

"He grabbed my hand, weepin'.

"'No, it ain't, Scraggsy, Old Man Rocks,' says he. 'You stood by me noble, and I'll do the same by you.' He fumbled in his pocket. 'I've saved a complete equipment from the wreck,' says he, and with that he hauls out a couple of decks of cards and a box of poker chips. 'All is lost save honor, Zeke," says he, 'but I reckon we can raise a dollar or two on that.'

"I was so moved in my feelin's I could only shake his manly hand.

"When I could speak, says I, 'We'll rise like a couple of them Fenian birds from the ashes, pard.'

"And hope springin' eternal once more in our chests, we took a little drink at Jimmy's place and went to bed happy."

[The end]
Henry Wallace Phillips's short story: The Siege Of The Drug Store

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN