Tinhorn's Daughter by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Galaxy Press, L.L.C.
Published: 2014-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

When Gilhooly Was in Flower

Chapter One

JIGSAW GILHOOLY was a thousand miles deep in thought, which fact was not particularly endearing him to Mary Ann Marlow. He sat on her front porch, looked off into the purple expanses and gnawed upon a wheat straw. He looked idiotic when he sat like that, thought Mary Ann. His eyes got out of focus, and he was limp enough normally, but now …

Apparently he was a sober-faced, gangling walking stick of a puncher without any sense of humor. But Gilhooly had ideas. He had big ideas. And right now he was wondering just how to get around to fixing life so that he could ask Mary Ann to be his forevermore.

It all required considerable logic and when it came to mathematical reasoning, Jigsaw Gilhooly was aces up, though sometimes the least bit slow.

Disgustedly, Mary Ann, who taught school to the three kids in Gunpowder Gulch, picked up her copy of Ivanhoe and tried to read to get her mind off the way Gilhooly looked when he was jigsawing. Most of the men in the Painted Buttes country had told her she was beautiful. She believed them, a little, and therefore it grieved her that Gilhooly paid such scant attention. Most of the men in the Painted Buttes country had told her that she was a fool for seeing anything in Jigsaw Gilhooly as he had neither looks nor fortune nor reputation, and blonde little Mary Ann was beginning to believe them, a little.

Gilhooly sat and chewed his straw and focused his eyes on the back of his head, thus circumnavigating the globe with a blink.

His problem was somewhat complex. He had three hundred acres of his own and a square mile of range rented. He had forty head of cattle. He had a house which could stand both straightening and improvement. Several gentlemen had lately offered him a fancy price and he thought maybe he ought to sell and get another place before he asked Mary Ann.

And that was not all. These gentlemen were sheepmen. If sheep got a foothold on the Painted Buttes range, there wouldn’t be any stopping them.

Now it was either asking Mary Ann to marry on two dollars and staying loyal to his kind or it was asking Mary Ann to marry on fifteen hundred dollars and going in debt for a place good enough for her.

So the problem shifted back and forth and so did the straw and Gilhooly kept his eyes on the back of his head via China.

“Stop it!”

Gilhooly looked at her in astonishment.

“Stop looking like a shorthorn!” said Mary Ann. “Jigs Gilhooly, sometimes I think you are a fool and at other times I am certain of it.”

“Ma’am?” said the startled Gilhooly.

“Why don’t you be a man?” demanded Mary Ann, blue eyes flashing. “Why do you have to sit and moon about some crazy problem when you rode fifteen miles to see me?”

“That’s right,” said Gilhooly.

“What’s right?” said Mary Ann.

“I did ride fifteen miles to see you,” said Gilhooly.

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