THE OLD COWBOY Part Thirteen 
(continued)


He leaned forward and pointed up with his cane, "Grandboy, you bring an umbrella for 'Tanner' number two and you? That sun were warm on my face, so's I pulled my hat down. Next thing I know, you're here already and it's cloudin' up ta rain!"

"Ol' Tanner and me's rode in the rain before... Grandpa..., Grandma was a pretty woman, wasn't she?"

"She were a looker alright. She'd won any beauty contest, if she'd entered, but the gals didn't do such things in them days." Grandpa strolled over and sat back in the rocker, drew a deep breath, and let it out real slow. I could see it pained him some, thinking of Grandma.

"Grandboy, you're twelve now and old enough to understand what I'm 'bout to tell ya." Just as the words slipped off his tongue and out of his mouth, the lightning lit up the heavy dark clouds right over our heads like a warning from Gods right hand not to reveal this 'secret'. I had just sat down and bounded, not only up, but up and standing on the bench nest to Grandpa's rocker. Grandpa thought me funny enough he started laughing out loud. Soon after I joined in, and sat back down.

Grandpa spat and the lightning flashed, and the thunder was loud, and it began a downpour. "Grandboy, you'll do fine with the gals, they mostly want to be held, but not too tight. They want to be laughed with, not at. They need to know you care 'bout them as much as yourself. And don't let it slip by without notice when they get fixed up real special like.

Gals these days, got washin' machines an' 'Frigid Aires', but they still work plenty hard enough. I hear ol' Harvy readin' the news, since they bombed 'Pearl Harbor', there's a lot of gals goin' down to fill in for their husbands. They're bein' welders and mechanics, mostly whatever is needed, what with our boys all gallopin' off to fight."

"Anyway," he spat again, "I remember your Grandma that first fall in Albuquerque. She had me. . .