The Pimienta Pancakes

O Henry

While we were rounding up a bunch of the Triangle-O cattle in the Frio bottoms a

projecting branch of a dead mesquite caught my wooden stirrup and gave my ankle a

wrench that laid me up in camp for a week.

On the third day of my compulsory idleness I crawled out near the grub wagon, and reclined

helpless under the conversational fire of Judson Odom, the camp cook. Jud was a

monologist by nature, whom Destiny, with customary blundering, had set in a profession

wherein he was bereaved, for the greater portion of his time, of an audience.

Therefore, I was manna in the desert of Jud's obmutescence.

that his pose was resentful by fixing upon me with his light blue eyes a look of cold

suspicion.

"Say, you," he said, with candid, though not excessive, choler, "did you mean that straight,

or was you trying to throw the gaff into me? Some of the boys been telling you about me

and that pancake racket?"

"No, Jud," I said, sincerely, "I meant it. It seems to me I'd swap my pony and saddle for a

stack of buttered brown pancakes with some first crop, open kettle, New Orleans

sweetening. Was there a story about pancakes?"

Jud was mollified at once when he saw that I had not been dealing in allusions. He brought

some mysterious bags and tin boxes from the grub wagon and set them in the shade of the

up in aspirations for to eat some canned grub that hasn't ever mooed or baaed or grunted or

been in peck measures. So, I gets on my bronc and pushes the wind for Uncle Emsley

Telfair's store at the Pimienta Crossing on the Nueces.

Livros Grátis

last twenty yards into Uncle Emsley's store. I got up on the counter and told Uncle Emsley

that the signs pointed to the devastation of the fruit crop of the world. In a minute I had a

bag of crackers and a long-handled spoon, with an open can each of apricots and pineapples

and cherries and greengages beside of me with Uncle Emsley busy chopping away with the

hatchet at the yellow clings. I was feeling like Adam before the apple stampede, and was

digging my spurs into the side of the counter and working with my twenty-four-inch spoon

when I happened to look out of the window into the yard of Uncle Emsley's house, which

was next to the store.

"There was a girl standing there--an imported girl with fixings on-- philandering with a

croquet maul and amusing herself by watching my style of encouraging the fruit canning

'I'd be awful edified to meet Miss Learight.'

"So Uncle Emsley took me out in the yard and gave us each other's entitlements.

"I never was shy about women. I never could understand why some men who can break a

mustang before breakfast and shave in the dark, get all left-handed and full of perspiration

and excuses when they see a bold of calico draped around what belongs to it. Inside of eight

minutes me and Miss Willella was aggravating the croquet balls around as amiable as

second cousins. She gave me a dig about the quantity of canned fruit I had eaten, and I got

back at her, flat-footed, about how a certain lady named Eve started the fruit trouble in the

first free-grass pasture--'Over in Palestine, wasn't it?' says I, as easy and pat as roping a one-

year-old.

busted into the game.

"That evening, while I set on the counter with a peach and two damsons in my mouth, I

asked Uncle Emsley how Miss Willella was.

"'Why,' says Uncle Emsley, 'she's gone riding with Jackson Bird, the sheep man from over

at Mired Mule Canada.'

by the bridle while I got off; and then I walked out straight ahead till I butted against the

mesquite where my roan was tied.

"'She's gone riding,' I whisper in my bronc's ear, 'with Birdstone Jack, the hired mule from

Sheep Man's Canada. Did you get that, old Leather-and-Gallops?'

"That bronc of mine wept, in his way. He'd been raised a cow pony and he didn't care for

snoozers.

"I went back and said to Uncle Emsley: 'Did you say a sheep man?'

He's got eight sections of grazing and four thousand head of the finest Merinos south of the

bird with the Jackson plumage to his name.

hossback, and I never touched him! They never irritated me like they do most cowmen. You

wouldn't go to work now, and impair and disfigure snoozers, would you, that eat on tables

and wear little shoes and speak to you on subjects? I had always let 'em pass, just as you

would a jack-rabbit; with a polite word and a guess about the weather, but no stopping to

swap canteens. I never thought it was worth while to be hostile with a snoozer. And because

I'd been lenient, and let 'em live, here was one going around riding with Miss Willella

Learight!

"An hour by sun they come loping back, and stopped at Uncle Emsley's gate. The sheep

person helped her off; and they stood throwing each other sentences all sprightful and

sagacious for a while. And then this feathered Jackson flies up in his saddle and raises his

little stewpot of a hat, and trots off in the direction of his mutton ranch. By this time I had

turned the sand out of my boots and unpinned myself from the prickly pear; and by the time

"'Afternoon!' says I to him. 'You now ride with a equestrian who is commonly called Dead-

I always introduce myself before the draw, for I never did like to shake hands with ghosts.'

over at Mired Mule Ranch.'

popped over one after the other with my forty-five, just to show him. 'Two out of three,'

says I. 'Birds just naturally seem to draw my fire wherever I go.'

"'Nice shooting,' says the sheep man, without a flutter. 'But don't you sometimes ever miss

the third shot? Elegant fine rain that was last week for the young grass, Mr. Judson?' says

he.

"'Willie,' says I, riding over close to his palfrey, 'your infatuated parents may have

slough off this here analysis of rain and the elements, and get down to talk that is outside

the vocabulary of parrots. That is a bad habit you have got of riding with young ladies over

says I, 'don't ever want any nest made out of sheep's wool by a tomtit of the Jacksonian

"Jackson Bird flushed up some, and then he laughed.

times; but not for the purpose you imagine. My object is purely a gastronomical one.'

"I reached for my gun.

"'Any coyote,' says I, 'that would boast of dishonourable--'

"'Wait a minute,' says this Bird, 'till I explain. What would I do with a wife? If you ever saw

that ranch of mine! I do my own cooking and mending. Eating--that's all the pleasure I get

out of sheep raising. Mr. Judson, did you ever taste the pancakes that Miss Learight makes?'

"'Me? No,' I told him. 'I never was advised that she was up to any culinary manoeuvres.'

"'They're golden sunshine,' says he, 'honey-browned by the ambrosial fires of Epicurus. I'd

after?'

"'Sure,' says Jackson. 'Miss Learight is a mighty nice girl, but I can assure you my intentions

go no further than the gastro--' but he seen my hand going down to my holster and he

"'You ain't such a bad little man,' says I, trying to be fair. 'I was thinking some of making

there'll be singing at your ranch, and you won't hear it.'

"'To convince you that I am sincere,' says the sheep man, 'I'll ask you to help me. Miss

Learight and you being closer friends, maybe she would do for you what she wouldn't for

me. If you will get me a copy of that pancake recipe, I give you my word that I'll never call

upon her again.'

"'That's fair,' I says, and I shook hands with Jackson Bird. 'I'll get it for you if I can, and glad

Mule; and I steered northwest for old Bill Toomey's ranch.

Willella and me passed a gratifying evening at Uncle Emsley's. She sang some, and

about the pancake receipt, and I thinks I will persuade it from Miss Willella and give it to

"So, along about ten o'clock, I put on a wheedling smile and says to Miss Willella: 'Now, if

there's anything I do like better than the sight of a red steer on green grass it's the taste of a

nice hot pancake smothered in sugar-house molasses.'

"Miss Willella gives a little jump on the piano stool, and looked at me curious.

"'Yes,' says she, 'they're real nice. What did you say was the name of that street in Saint

Louis, Mr. Odom, where you lost your hat?'

"'Pancake Avenue,' says I, with a wink, to show her that I was on about the family receipt,

and couldn't be side-corralled off of the subject. 'Come, now, Miss Willella,' I says; 'let's

hear how you make 'em. Pancakes is just whirling in my head like wagon wheels. Start her

off, now--pound of flour, eight dozen eggs, and so on. How does the catalogue of

outfits that wouldn't do that much by a family feud.'

"'Drink this here down,' says Uncle Emsley, handing me the glass of water. 'You've rid too

far to-day, Jud, and got yourself over-excited. Try to think about something else now.'

"'Do you know how to make them pancakes, Uncle Emsley?' I asked.

and mix 'em with eggs and buttermilk as usual. Is old Bill going to ship beeves to Kansas

City again this spring, Jud?'

"That was all the pancake specifications I could get that night. I didn't wonder that Jackson

Bird found it uphill work. So I dropped the subject and talked with Uncle Emsley for a

while about hollow-horn and cyclones. And then Miss Willella came and said 'Good-night,'

and I hit the breeze for the ranch.

stopped on the road for a few frivolous remarks.

That pancake receipt must be a jookalorum, the way they hold on to it.'

sorry for him; 'but I did want to know how to make them pancakes to eat on my lonely

ranch,' says he. 'I lie awake at nights thinking how good they are.'

"'You keep on trying for it,' I tells him, 'and I'll do the same. One of us is bound to get a

rope over its horns before long. Well, so- long, Jacksy.'

"You see, by this time we were on the peacefullest of terms. When I saw that he wasn't after

Miss Willella, I had more endurable contemplations of that sandy-haired snoozer. In order

to help out the ambitions of his appetite I kept on trying to get that receipt from Miss

Willella. But every time I would say 'pancakes' she would get sort of remote and fidgety

about the eye, and try to change the subject. If I held her to it she would slide out and round

up Uncle Emsley with his pitcher of water and hip-pocket howitzer.

this morning.'

toward my upper left-hand shirt pocket until it got to my feet.

something like that.'

"'Married yesterday,' says Uncle Emsley, 'and gone to Waco and Niagara Falls on a wedding

tour. Why, didn't you see none of the signs all along? Jackson Bird has been courting

Willella ever since that day he took her out riding.'

"'Then,' says I, in a kind of yell, 'what was all this zizzaparoola he gives me about

pancakes? Tell me that.'

"When I said 'pancakes' Uncle Emsley sort of dodged and stepped back.

out. I believe you know. Talk up,' says I, 'or we'll mix a panful of batter right here.'

"'Talk pancakes,' says I, 'or be made into one. Does Miss Willella make 'em?'

down now, Jud--calm down. You've got excited, and that wound in your head is

contaminating your sense of intelligence. Try not to think about pancakes.'

"'Uncle Emsley,' says I, 'I'm not wounded in the head except so far as my natural cognitive

instincts run to runts. Jackson Bird told me he was calling on Miss Willella for the purpose

of finding out her system of producing pancakes, and he asked me to help him get the bill of

lading of the ingredients. I done so, with the results as you see. Have I been sodded down

with Johnson grass by a pink-eyed snoozer, or what?'

"'Slack up your grip in my dress shirt,' says Uncle Emsley, 'and I'll tell you. Yes, it looks

like Jackson Bird has gone and humbugged you some. The day after he went riding with

Willella he came back and told me and her to watch out for you whenever you got to talking

about pancakes. He said you was in camp once where they was cooking flapjacks, and one

of the contents of his sacks and cans. Toward the close of it he set before me the finished

also brought a lump of excellent butter and a bottle of golden syrup.

"Three years," said Jud. "They're living on the Mired Mule Ranch now. But I haven't seen

after a while. But the boys kept the racket up."

"Did you make these cakes by the famous recipe?" I asked.

"Didn't I tell you there wasn't no receipt?" said Jud. "The boys hollered pancakes till they

got pancake hungry, and I cut this recipe out of a newspaper. How does the truck taste?"

"They're delicious," I answered. "Why don't you have some, too, Jud?"

I was sure I heard a sigh.