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 eat supper every evening with that cow jerry. There was a guy that would have to hit the grit; he'd make that plain to the old lady. He wasn't goin' to stand for that Texas guy, moonin' around there like a soft egg; and that was a cinch.

Pap sat up with a jerk, his ear to the window screen. Sounded like somebody shooting up in the direction of the square. There! three more, as quick—. People were running; there were more shots, so fast and so many Pap could not count them. He was gasping with excitement when he kicked the hassock aside. Where in the hu-hu-hell was that overshoe!

Pap went hobbling to the front door, walking on his heel. Mrs. Cowgill had heard the shooting, and the commotion of running feet on the plank sidewalks. Goosie had heard it; Louise had heard. They came crowding to the door, Mrs. Cowgill putting her head out cautiously, her neck stretched to prodigious length, her arm blocking the door to prevent Goosie rushing out into no telling what danger.

But there was no danger near her hand. Mrs. Cowgill went to the porch, where Pap had gone already. Goosie and Louise followed; some who came running from the direction of the depot stopped there, all of them straining to see what was going on up the street where the public square cut it across with a line of, maple trees.

Nothing was to be seen but the outpouring of people, overflowing the sidewalks now, rushing toward the square. The shooting had stopped. Now there was a