The Last Laugh

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"Anybody can win . . . unless there happens to be a second entry."
George Ade

"There may come a time when the lion and the lamb lie down together, but I'm betting on the lion. "
Josh Billings

Well sir, what with the out-of-doors bein' so cold hereabouts thet the wind splits a lip ev'ry time it starts in whistlin', folks in Plumtree Crossin' have pretty much stayed holed up of late. An'-seein' as how winter figures to set a spell afore takin' its leave-lots of people have been turnin' to indoor entertainments to make the hours (an' days) pass a tad faster.

O'course, some folks seem to be able to amuse theyselves by jist flickin' on their telly-vision sets (an' half of them people git so danged caught up in whatever they're watchin' thet they'd be hard pressed to know what season it were, ennyway). The ol' coots over to the Gen'ral Store ain't partic'larly partial to the boob tube, howev'r, an' it weren't long into the first big blizzard till them fellers hit on the notion of havin' a checkers tournyment!

The boys wasn't content to lay out enny little one-afternoon's-fun-an'-thank-you-kindly competition, neither. No sir, the cold an' snow were a sure bet to be around fer a spell, an' the ol' loafers planned to use up as much of the inhospitable season as possible . . . by organizin' a real granddaddy of a match. They set theyselves up a no-foolin' double elimination tournyment . . . with one of them "who beat who" wall chartsmade up of little name boxes an' connectin' lines-what appeared to be nigh as tall as last year's town-square Christmas tree!

Now as you kin well imagine, the competition didn't attract enny big city sportscasters er nothin' (Cleedy McCannon did claim he'd seen thet Howard Cosell feller in town, but most folks figured Cleedy'd actually jist caught a glimpse of the last part of Lafe Higgins's horse as thet critter were disappearin' 'round a corner). The fact is thet, at the beginnin' of the tournyment, nobody but the players theyselves gave more'n a hoot in hell jist what were goin' on!

As the days went by, howev'r-an' stories about the ongoin' games begun to git spread around-folks started to show an interest. An', by the time it'd become clear thet the whole shootin' match were gonna come down to a toe-to-toe battle betwixt Ott Bartlett an' Newt Blanchard (two of the stubbornest an' orn'riest cusses ennyone ev'r laid eyes on), why, they wasn't a man er woman in Barren County who wasn't ripe fer wagerin' on the outcome.

The back room of the Gen'ral Store was cleaned out fer the match . . . an' Sadie McCannon chiseled a passel of lawn chairs free from the snow to accommodate the audience. They was a real carnyval mood to the gatherin', too. Cleedy McCannon had set hisself up with a nail-keg table an' was coordinatin' the crowd's last-minute wagers . . . an', whilst Purvis Jacobs weren't perzackly vendin' his jugs of corn-squeezed handicapper, he sure was passin' 'em out an' acceptin' a fair number of long-term loans in return!

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