A Long Way From Chicago Read Online Free PDF

ladies held their skirts high. We burst into the kitchen, and it seemed that nobody had moved a muscle in there. The butt of the shotgun was still buried in Grandma’s shoulder, and she was squinting down the barrels. The Cowgill boys looked like they were on the chain gang already.
    I got my first real look at their maw and paw. She was kind of a faded lady, and he had a milder look than his bruiser boys. They were all a lot taller than he was.
    “Now, now,” Mr. Cowgill said, “what have we here?”
    “What we have here,” Grandma said, “is breaking-and-entering. Burglary and pilfering. Reform school for the youngest one, the penitentiary for the overgrown ones. Unless my trigger finger gives way to temptation. They wanted this shotgun, and they’re liable to get it, right between the eyes.”
    The ceiling light glinted wickedly off her spectacles. “And they tore down Effie Wilcox’s specialty house. Tell it, Effie. You knew at the time who the culprits was whokicked your privy to kingdom come.”
    Mrs. Wilcox whimpered.
    “Now, now, Mrs. Dowdel,” Mr. Cowgill said. “This is nothing more than a misunderstanding. My boys aren’t broke out with brains, you know. I have an idea they just wandered into the wrong house.”
    “Oh, they wandered into the wrong house all right,” Grandma said. “And they’d already blowed up the wrong mailbox.”
    “Mrs. Dowdel, Mrs. Dowdel, compose your soul in patience,” Mr. Cowgill said. “And put up that shotgun. It don’t look ladylike.”
    I was tempted to cover my ears, because that alone was enough to make Grandma squeeze off a round. “You know yourself, Mrs. Dowdel, boys will be boys. They’s high-spirited. They’ll settle down in time and all be good Christian men. Their maw and I have set them a good example.”
    I thought Mr. Cowgill was going way out on a limb. But strangely, Grandma lowered the shotgun. “Well, you know best, being their paw,” she said calmly. She stood the shotgun against the wall and folded her arms before her. “But get them out of my kitchen, and you owe me for the screen wire they cut to get in. And I’ll want me a new mailbox. A good galvanized iron one, even if it runs you three dollars.”
    Mr. Cowgill paled at that, but said, “There now. I knew you’d see sense, Mrs. Dowdel. Boys go through these phases. Come along, boys.” He patted his biggest bruiser’s shoulder, and all four of them were trying hard not to smirk. Mrs. Cowgill left first, supported by Mrs.Wilcox. Then the bruisers and Ernie trooped out. Their paw was just at the door when Grandma said, “Not so fast, Cowgill.”
    He turned, unwilling, back.
    “I’ll be interested in your explanation for that.” She pointed to the milk bottle that nobody had noticed, though it stood on the kitchen table.
    The milk in it was more pink than white now. But you could see the mouse inside. In fact, it had swelled up some.
    “What the—”
    “You can say that again,” Grandma remarked.
    Sweat popped out on Mr. Cowgill’s brow. “Mrs. Dowdel, you don’t mean to tell me—”
    “I don’t mean to tell you a thing. There stands the evidence.”
    “Mrs. Dowdel, it can’t be. We’re strictly sanitary. We strain our milk.” Sweat ran in rivers off his pate.
    “I don’t doubt it,” she said. “After all, you’ve got to keep your good name in a town like this.”
    “Then how—”
    “A bunch of worthless boys who’d ransack the town every night is apt to drop a mouse in the milk just before delivering to my door. Your big ones is perfectly capable of putting Ernie up to it. He’s simple. After all, they blew up my mailbox, and Effie Wilcox has to use my privy. Thugs like yours who prey on two old helpless widow women such as Effie and myself is liable to get up to anything. Many more mice in the milk, and your customers will start keeping their own cows again.”
    Mr. Cowgill shrank. His dry mouth worked wordlessly, and there was fear in his eyes, naked