Page 44 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD:

"Hey, Jake!"

Jake looked vaguely around the yard and his eyes hurt in the noon glare, but they picked out Bascom Wooten, sitting in the shade on top of a barrel of fish.

Jake slouched across toward Bascom, taking it easy because it hurt his head to walk.

"Hell," Bascom said, when Jake got close, "I heard you was dead."

Jake laughed hollowly.

"I mout as well be," he said, "Them Albany girls got my money and Buck Bannon's got my watch."

Bascom grinned and kicked his heels against the barrel.

"Fifty-four's on time," he said, cheerfully, "but you shore lost your watch."

Jake frowned and his head hurt some more.

"Aw," he said, "Buck wouldn't keep it. I was out o' town."

Bascom laughed and rocked the barrel, jarring the rims down so hard Jake could hear dull movement from the shifting contents.

"Buck's gone," Bascom said finally. "So is your watch."

Jake groaned and his hand yearned, fluttering toward his vest pocket.

"Wheeoo," he breathed, "watch gone, job gone."

Bascom came down off the barrel, then, and took Jake by the arm.

" 'F I didn't know how you feel," he said, shaking his head sorrowfully, "I'd keep it up. Buck's just gone home for a couple of days." (clippings from the October 9, 1908 Dothan Eagle and the October 27, 1953 Dothan Eagle) 

from the July 4, 1941 Phenix-Girard Journal 

The Dothan Eagle in 1931 reminisced about the importance of a "rubber-tired buggy" in turn-of-the-century courtship by asking who remembered when a "rubber-tired buggy" was "the acme of social triumphs" and "a team of matched horses to a rubber-tired buggy carried the same weight with girls as an 8-cylinder roadster carries today."