“They’re just hoping to get lucky,” Augustus said. “If my dern leg was better I’d sneak over to the other side of the creek and whittle down the odds a little more.” The shower of arrows soon stopped, but the two men stayed in the cave, taking no chances.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Po Campo considered the question. Deets was sitting near him. He loved to watch the old man whittle. It seemed miraculous to Deets that Po could take a plain chunk of wood and make it into a little woman figure. He watched to see if he could figure out how it happened, but so far he had not been able to. Po Campo kept turning the wood in his hand, the shavings dropping in his lap, and then finally it would be done.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

In less than half an hour it seemed that every single person in Fort Smith found out that July Johnson’s wife had run off on a whiskey barge. It seemed the Johnson family provided almost all the excitement in the town, the last excitement having been Benny’s death. Such a stream of people came up to question Roscoe about the disappearance that he was forced to give up all thought of whittling, just at a time when having a stick to whittle on might have settled his nerves.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Roscoe held his peace. He could tell July was in a touchy mood—and who could blame him, with a wife like Elmira and a sister-in-law like Peach. He enjoyed his whittling but of course he was not going to whittle down any houses. July often exaggerated when he was in a bad mood.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I guess if I leave you’ll whittle up the whole dern town before I get back,” he said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Roscoe loved to whittle better than any man July had ever known. If he was sitting down, which was usually the case, he was seldom without a whittling stick in his hands. He never whittled them into anything, just whittled them away, and the habit had come to irritate July.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

AUGUSTUS WAS on the front porch, biding his time, when Wilbarger rode up. Biding his time seemed to him the friendly thing to do, inasmuch as Jake Spoon had ridden a long way and had likely been scared to seek out womankind during his trip. Jake was one of those men who seemed to stay in rut the year round, a great source of annoyance to Call, who was never visibly in rut. Augustus was subject to it, but, as he often said, he wasn’t going to let it drive him like a mute—a low joke that still went over the heads of most of the people who heard it. He enjoyed a root, as he called it, but if conditions weren’t favorable, could make do with whiskey for lengthy spells. It was clear that with Jake just back, conditions wouldn’t be too favorable that afternoon, so he repaired to his jug with the neighborly intention of giving Jake an hour or two to whittle down his need before he followed along and tried to interest him in a card game.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇