True Grit by Charles Portis Page A

pack of dogs named Alec or a preacher. She was a pretty girl in easy circumstances who did not have to cook or work at anything and she could have either one she wanted. She made trouble for herself because she would never say what she meant but only blush and talk around it. She kept everybody in a stir wondering what she was driving at. That was what held your interest. Grandma Turner and I both enjoyed it. I had to read the humorous parts twice. Bess married one of the two beaus and he turned out to be mean and thoughtless. I forget which one it was.

    On the evening of the second day I felt a little better and I got up and went to supper. The drummer was gone with his midget calculators and there were four or five other vacancies at the table as well.

    Toward the end of the meal a stranger came in wearing two revolvers and made known that he was seeking room and board. He was a nice-looking man around thirty years of age with a "cowlick" at the crown of his head. He needed a bath and a shave but you could tell that was not his usual condition. He looked to be a man of good family. He had pale-blue eyes and auburn hair. He was wearing a long corduroy coat. His manner was stuck-up and he had a smug grin that made you nervous when he turned it on you.

    He forgot to take off his spurs before sitting down at the table and Mrs. Floyd chided him, saying she did not want her chair legs scratched up any more than they were, which was considerable. He apologized and complied with her wish. The spurs were the Mexican kind with big rowels. He put them up on the table by his plate. Then he remembered his revolvers and he unbuckled the gun belt and hung it on the back of his chair. This was a fancy rig. The belt was thick and wide and bedecked with cartridges and the handles on his pistols were white. It was like something you might see today in a "Wild West" show.

    His grin and his confident manner cowed everybody at the table but me and they stopped talking and made a to-do about passing him things, like he was somebody. I must own too that he made me worry a little about my straggly hair and red nose.

    While he was helping himself to the food he grinned at me across the table and said, "Hidy."

    I nodded and said nothing.

    "What is your name?" said he.

    "Pudding and tame," said I.

    He said, "I will take a guess and say it is Mattie Ross."

    "How do you know that?"

    "My name is LaBoeuf," he said. He called it LaBeef but spelled it something like LaBoeuf. "I saw your mother just two days ago. She is worried about you."

    "What was your business with her, Mr. LaBoeuf?"

    "I will disclose that after I eat. I would like to have a confidential conversation with you."

    "Is she all right? Is anything wrong?"

    "No, she is fine. There is nothing wrong. I am looking for someone. We will talk about it after supper. I am very hungry."

    Mrs. Floyd said, "If it is something touching on her father's death we know all about that. He was murdered in front of this very house. There is still blood on my porch where they carried his body."

    The man LaBoeuf said, "It is about something else."

    Mrs. Floyd described the shooting again and tried to draw him out on his business but he only smiled and went on eating and would not be drawn.

    After supper we went to the parlor, to a corner away from the other borders, and LaBoeuf set up two chairs there facing the wall. When we were seated in this curious arrangement he took a small photograph from his corduroy coat and showed it to me. The picture was wrinkled and dim. I studied it. The face of the man was younger and there was no black mark but there was no question but it was the likeness of Tom Chaney. I told LaBoeuf as much.

    He said, "Your mother has also identified him. Now I will give you some news. His real name is Theron Chelmsford. He shot and killed a state senator named Bibbs down in Waco, Texas, and I have been on his trail the best part of four months. He dallied in Monroe,