Strugr

The voice grated on: "I don't know what kind of man you are, Mister, but I know what kind of man I am. And I'm not the kind of man who lets the kind of man you are take advantage of a little girl whose daddy is the kind of a man I am. And I'm the kind who doesn't tolerate whatever kind you are speaking to my little girl in the street."

The hero gasped and stammered, "Ah... well, Ah..."

"Now you can gasp and stammer all you want to, Mister: but this is what I say. I don't know what kind of man you are: but you'll have to marry my little girl. You may be the scum of earth, for all I care: that may just be the kind of man you are: but I do care about my little girl-- that's the kind of man I am-- and I'll see her married to you before I let you or anybody else speak to her in the street. You got that, Mister?"

The hero smiled, and began to pardon himself out of the picture: "Ah see, sir, that Ah-"

"Well, that's settled. I'll go get the parson."

"But Daddy!" broke in an agitated voice, "Can't you see how unprincipled the man is? Standing on people in the street and forcing them to marry him! Ugh!" She whirled to face the hero: "I can't stand you! I wish you'd never been born!"

Her Daddy cleared his throat, a sound like the sudden shift of a ton of bricks. "We both do, Sweetheart. That's just the kind of man he is. But I don't care what kind of man he is, I won't let him take advantage of you. I'll make him marry you if it's the last thing he does; and I hope it is. That's just the kind of man I am. Because nobody speaks to my little girl in the street and gets away with it."

"But Daddy, I don't want to marry him!"

"I know, Sweetheart. He's a bad sort. But don't worry, He won't get away with it. I'll see to that. You'll be married before sundown."

The girl groaned.

Just then, the shadow of a tall, dark and handsome stranger fell ominously over the little group. The stranger alighted from his horse, tethering the animal to a tomato plant, and came towards them, running a sunburned hand through his tall, dark, and waving hair. The girl felt strangely drawn to him. Perhaps it was the magnet: he wore one on a string around his neck, and she carried a matching one in her purse. He came within easy talking distance, and stood still: sunburned hand in mid-hair.

He opened his mouth and evicted a rich, slow voice: "Why are you looking at me?"

They blinked. They suddenly felt at a loss for words. Why were they looking at this man? Perhaps it had something to do with the formative years of childhood... associations made in the cradle. Who can tell why we do what we do? They stood, open-mouthed, staring into the fathomless mysteries of the mouth of the other man. At last, our Hero's jaw creaked. He opened it a little wider, and tentatively uttered: "Ah... brothah Rip?"

The dark stranger turned on him a lazy eye. Then, slightly, the eye widened. "Snort, is that you?"