“How Mr. Hickok Came to Cheyenne” by Alfred Henry Lewis

 

“Be you, Mr. Hickock?” he asked.

“Yes, my,” boy replied Mr. Hickock blandly. Mr. Hickok was tolerant of youth.

“Mr. Wild Bill Hickock?”

Mr. Hickock frowned; he disliked the ferocious prefix. It had been granted him, by certain romanticists with a bent to be fantastic, for deeds of erratic daring done long before. It was a step in titles the more strange, perhaps, since Mr. Hickok was not baptized William but James.

This story is a mini-marvel buried in the pages of an old issue of The Saturday Evening Post. The author, of Wolfville, in a scant few pages traces the life of the titled one in gorgeous idiosyncratic prose that grabs significant events in short wry bursts and sketches a character, a life with seeming effortlessness.

I recall Wolfville being so dialect-rife it was painful for this reader to get through but this short piece more than demonstrates the great skill of Mr. Lewis.

Easy A+ offering here, my friends. Gorgeous.