Free Uncle Sagamore and His Girls by Charles Williams

out in the open—?”
    The Sheriff quit grinning. “Wait a minute, Booger,” he says. He leaned against one of the posts that held up the roof, and mopped his face again. “You’re a young man, and you ain’t had twelve years of him like I have.”
    I couldn’t figure what they was talking about. “What seems to be the matter, Sheriff?” I asked.
    They didn’t pay any mind. “Why, hell,” Booger says. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face, Sheriff—”
    The Sheriff sighed. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about. With Sagamore Noonan, any time something’s as plain as the nose on your face you better look again, because you’re apt to find your nose is growin’ out of your left elbow. I can begin to smell this already. All this stuff’s out in plain view, and he bought that sugar from a man he knowed damn well would tell me about it.”
    Booger looked kind of puzzled. “What you mean?”
    The Sheriff found a box and sat down. “You just don’t know what it can do to you after a while,” he says. “I mean, lyin’ awake at night wonderin’ what the hell he’s going to do next—”
    Booger nodded. “Yeah. Come to think of it, what you suppose this hawg wire is for?”
    Before the Sheriff could answer, a man come down the hill in a wagon. It was Mr. Jimerson, that lives out on the sand road between here and the highway. He had on a big floppy straw hat, and he looked kind of tired and dejected, like he always does. He stopped the mules in front of the shed, and they let their ears droop and went to sleep in the hot sun while he climbed down over the front wheel.
    “Mornin’, Shurf,” he says. He looked at all the stuff under the shed like it didn’t make any difference to him, and then walked over and stood up one of the rolls of hog fencing.
    “Now what you doin’ over here, Marvin?” the Sheriff asked.
    Mr. Jimerson took out his tobacco and bit off a chew. He studied about it for a minute, and then he says, “He hawr’d me to build him a hawg-pen.”
    “A hawg-pen?” the Sheriff asked. “Why, he ain’t got no hawgs.”
    Mr. Jimerson spit, and shook his head. “Nope. Not fur as I know.” He kind of slouched around to the front of the barn and opened the door. He stepped in. We heard him scratching around in the hay. In a minute he come out.
    “What was you looking for in there?” the Sheriff asked.
    “Two-by-fours,” Mr. Jimerson says.
    The Sheriff stared at him. “What?”
    “He wants me to build him a shed too,” Mr. Jimerson says. “He said I’d find the two-by-fours hid under the hay inside the barn. I was jest checkin’ to be sure they was there.”
    The Sheriff sighed, and sat looking down at the ground. “You see what I mean, Booger?” he says, sort of hopeless. “He ain’t got no hawgs, so he’s havin’ a hawg-pen built. And ever’thing you need to make moonshine is lyin’ right out here in the open where anybody can see it, but something perfectly harmless like two-by-four lumber is hid under the hay so people won’t know about it.”

SIX
    A LL OF A SUDDEN he got red in the face and he jumped up and caught Mr. Jimerson by the front of his overalls. “Marvin Jimerson,” he yelled. “You tell me what the hell’s goin’ on here! What’s Sagamore Noonan up to this time—?”
    Mr. Jimerson just looked at him and waited till he run out of breath. “Shucks, Shurf,” he says, kind of dejected, “you ort to know it ain’t no use askin’ anybody what Sagamore Noonan’s up to.”
    The Sheriff got hold of hisself then. “I’m sorry, Marvin,” he says. He patted Mr. Jimerson on the shoulder. “My nerves is jest shot to hell. Of course you don’t know what he’s doin’. If you could figure that out, you’d be as crooked as he is.”
    “Sheriff,” I said, “I think I know why the two-by-fours are hid under the hay. It’s so Uncle Finley won’t find ’em and nail ’em in the ark.”
    Mr. Jimerson nodded. “That’s right, Shurf. Any lumber