Stories of a Western Town

Mrs. Lieders wiped her eyes, saying: "Oh, yes, Danke schon, I aint afraid 'cause I tied him with the rope, righd good, so he don't got no chance to move. He was make faces at me all the time I tied him." At the remembrance, the tears welled anew.

Mrs. Olsen, a little bright tinted woman with a nose too small for her big blue eyes and chubby cheeks, quivered with indignant sympathy.

"Well, I did nefer hear of sooch a mean acting man!" seemed to her the most natural expression; but the wife fired, at once.

"No, he is not a mean man," she cried, "no, Freda Olsen, he is not a mean man at all! There aint nowhere a better man than my man; and Carl Olsen, he knows that. Kurt, he always buys a whole ham and a whole barrel of flour, and never less than a dollar of sugar at a time! And he never gits drunk nor he never gives me any bad talk. It was only he got this wanting to kill himself on him, sometimes."

"Well, I guess I'll go put on my things," said