Sunday, October 16, 2011

The Brothers Simms, by E.D. "Shinbone" Smith, Bomar Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory or "IT"


They used to be these two bachelor brothers that lived and farmed down in Addington Bend, east of Thackerville named Simms. They lived in a little old shotgun house with two rooms and a shed for a kitchen. Their given names was Larry and Clary. They wasn't much different from the rest of us in them pore days, except they was bachelors and they lived with each other.

Now by the end of the wintertime, they had spent a lot of idle time around the tin stove in the front room of that house and they would git on on another's nerves a considerable amount. Then they would begin to argue and fuss. They would argue and fuss almost about anythang, as they waited for the spring plowing to come.

Since they divided time cooking for one another, one of the thangs they argued about was each other's cooking. This would go on for days. One morning Clary said something belittling about Larry's biscuits and the ruckus began. Clary allowed that Larry's biscuits were so bad that the dogs wouldn't eat them.

"Well," says Larry, "let's jist put that proposition to the test." And picking up two of the items in question, went out on the porch and called old Blue up. He pitched the biscuits in the hound's direction, and, after sniffing them, Blue quaffed them down, but with some difficulty. Then, the way dogs sometimes do, he promptly licked himself.

"See there," says Larry, "he et 'em!"

Yessir! He shore did! But he had to lick his ass jist to git the taste outa his mouth!"