Fiddles 1909
By Francis Hopkinson Smith
14 Nov, 2020
Brief Extract: This is Marny’s story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time and a tack between his teeth.
“Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow’s head,” he burst out. “That’s where he belongs. I’d have given a t
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Brief Extract: This is Marny’s story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time and a tack between his teeth.
“Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow’s head,” he burst out. “That’s where he belongs. I’d have given a ten-acre if he could have drawn a bead on that elk himself. Fiddles behind a .44 Winchester and that old buck browsing to windward”—and he nodded at the elk’s head—“would have made the village Mayor sit up and think. What a picturesque liar you are, Fiddles”—here the point of the tack was pressed into the plaster with Marny’s fat thumb—“and what a good-for-nothing, breezy, lovable vagabond”—(Bang! Bang! Hammer at play now)—“you could be when you tried. There!”
Marny stepped back and took in the stuffed head and wide-branched antlers of the magnificent elk (five feet six from skull to tips) and the small, partly faded miniature of a young man in a student cap and high-collared coat. Less