Part 10 (1/2)
Of course, there's lots of things will damage you worse than b.u.t.ting a stout gentleman; at the same time I went at him quick, and stopped quicker. This world was all a dizzy show, till the crowd came up, Jim, on his Pedro, leading. They were all there: all the revolutionists, all the women with babies, and all the dogs, down to the last pup. I couldn't have had a bigger audience if I'd done something to be proud of.
Some of 'em held on to the fat gentleman, who was yearning to draw my heart's blood with the green umbrella. Some of 'em stood and admired Archie, who was smacking his lips over some gra.s.s that grew on the side, and looked about as vicious as Mary and her little lamb; some of 'em come to help me--all conversed freely.
”Now, darn your b.u.t.tons!” says Jim, ”you might have been killed! Hadn't been for Senor Martinez there, you would 'a' been. Didn't I tell you not to try it again--didn't I?”
It was quite true he had told me that very thing. At the same time, one of the least consoling things in this world, when a man's made a fool of himself, is to have somebody come up and tell him he prophesied it.
You'd like to think it just happened that way. It breaks your heart to feel it's like twice two.
I sat up and looked at Jim. ”You told me all that,” says I, ”but what's the matter with letting virtue be its own reward?”
Jim laughed and said he guessed I was not quite done yet. Then he introduced me to Mr. Martinez as the grateful result of a well-lined stomach applied at the proper time.
Martinez sheathed the green umbrella and extended the hand of friends.h.i.+p, like the Spanish gentleman he was.
”Ah me!” says he, ”but you ride with furiosity! And,” he adds thoughtfully, ”your head is of a firmness.” He waved his hand so the diamonds glittered like a shower. ”A treefle--a leetle, leetle treeful,”
by which he meant trifle. ”Now,” says he, as if we'd finished some important business, ”shall we resuscitate?”
Jim said we would, so the whole crowd moved to where Santiago Christobal Colon O'Sullivan gave you things that lightened the shadows for the time being, and proceeded to resuscitate.
Inside, Mr. Martinez the Stout told the whole story between drinks. He was the horse, or me, or himself, or the consequences, as occasion required. I'd have gone through more than that to see Mr. Martinez gallop the length of the saloon, making it clear to us how Archie acted.
And when he was me, darned if he didn't manage to look like me, and when he was Archie he seemed to thin out and grow bony hip-joints immediately; Archie'd nickered at sight of him. How in blazes a three-hundred-pound Spanish gentleman contrived to resemble a thin, red-headed six-foot-two New England kid and a bow-necked, cat-hammed mustang is an art beyond me. He did it; let it go at that.
Outside, the men went over it all. The women dropped their babies in the street, so they could have their hands free to talk. I think even the dogs took a shy at the story. Never were folks so interested. And, strange to Yankee eyes, not a soul laughed.
I learned then the reason why the Spanish-American incorporated the revolution in his const.i.tution. It's because of the scarcity of theaters. If there was a theater for every ten inhabitants, and plays written where everybody was a king, peace would settle on Spanish America like a green sc.u.m on a frog-pond.
Howsomever, I ain't going to jeer at those people. I got to like 'em, and, as far as that goes, we have little fool ways of our own that we notice when we get far enough away from home to see straight.
I didn't ride Archie out of Aspinwall. I went to a hotel, slept strictly on one side, and sc.r.a.pped it out with the little natives of the Isthmus until morning.
Curious, how things go. After this first experience I shouldn't have said that riding a horse would grow on me until being without one made me feel as if I'd lost the use of my legs. Water is all right. I like boats--I like about everything--but still, I think the Almighty never did better by man than when he put him on a horse. A good horse, open country--miles of it, without a stick or hole--a warm sun and a cool wind--can you beat it? I can't.
IX
ENTER BROTHER BELKNAP
I can slide over my first month's work quick. At least half of us have been boys once, and a good share of that half have run into the stiff proposition when they were boys. I carried on my back most of the trouble in that part of the country--they were a careless people. Jim give me my head and let me b.u.mp it into mistakes. ”Find out” was his motto. ”Don't ask the boss,” and I found out, perspiring freely the while. I had to hire men and fire 'em, wrastle with the Spanish language, keep books, keep my temper, learn what a day's work meant, learn to handle a team, get the boys to pull together, and last, but not least, try to get the best of that cussed horse, Archie.
I can't tell which was the worst. I know this, though: while my sympathies are with the hired man, yet that season of getting along with him taught me that the boss's job isn't one long, sugar-coated dream, neither. If the hired man knew more, he'd have less wrongs, and also, if he knew more, he wouldn't be a hired man. What that proves, I pa.s.s.
Keeping books wore down my proud spirit, too. I do hate a puttering job.
It was all there, anyhow. Jim pulled at his mustache and wrinkled his manly brow when he first snagged on my bookkeeping. ”What the devil is this item?” he'd say. ”'_Francis Lopez borrowed a dollar on his pay; says his mother's sick. That's a lie, I bet._' You mustn't let the boys have money that way, Bill, and never mind putting your thoughts in the cash-book--save 'em for your diary.”
I got the hang of it after a while, and one grand day my cash balanced.
That was a moment to remember. I don't recall that it ever happened again. The store made most of my trouble. We handled all kinds of truck, from kerosene oil to a jews'-harp, through rough clothes and the hardware department. My helper was the lunkheadest critter G.o.d ever trusted outdoors. You'd scarcely believe one man's head could be so foolish. At the same time the poor devil was kind and polite, and he needed the job so bad, I couldn't fire him. But he took some of the color out of my hair, all right. He was a Mexican who talked English, so he was useful that way, anyhow. But Man! What the stuff cost was marked in letters--”Was.h.i.+ngton” was our cost-mark word. If the thing cost a dollar fifty, it was marked WIN, then you tacked on the profit. Well, poor Pedro used to forget all about the father of his country, if there came a rush, and as he didn't have any natural common sense, you could expect him to sell a barrel of kerosene for two bits and charge eight dollars for a paper of needles. Whenever I heard wild cries of astonishment and saw the arms a-flying, I could be sure that Pedro had lost track of American history. He'd make a statue of William Penn get up and cuss, that feller. I tried everything--wrote out the prices, gave him lists, put pictures of our George all over the store, swore at him till I was purple and him weeping in his pocket-handkerchief, calling the saints to witness how the memory of the G-r-r-eat Ouash-eeng-tong would never depart from his mind again, and in three minutes he'd sell a twenty-five dollar Stetson hat for eighty-seven cents. It took a good deal of my time rus.h.i.+ng around the country getting those sales back.
Then, when the confinement of the store told too much on my nerves and the gangs had all been looked up, I went to the corral and took a fall out of Archibald. Or, more properly speaking, I took a fall off Archibald. That horse was a complete education in the art of riding. I never since have struck anything, bronco, cayuse, or American horse, that didn't seem like an amateur 'longside of him. He'd pitch for a half hour in a s.p.a.ce no bigger than a dining-room table; then he'd run and buck for another half hour. If you stuck so much out, he'd kick your feet out of the stirrups, stick his ears in the ground, and throw a somersault. No man living could think up more schemes than that mustang, and you might as well try to tire a steam-engine. At the end of the first hour Archie was simply nice and limber; the second hour saw him getting into the spirit of it; by the third hour he was warmed up and working like a charm. I'm guessing the third hour. Two was my limit.