Part 14 (1/2)

Horace was as proud o' this song as though it was the first one ever sung. He used the same tune on it that blind men on corners use. I reckon that tune fits most any sort of a song; it's more like the ”Wearin' of the Green” than anything else but ten times sadder an'

more monotonous. He said he had once wrote a Greek song at college but it wasn't a patch on this one, and hadn't got him nothin' but a medal.

I used to know twelve or eighteen verses, but I've forgot most of it.

It was a hard one to remember because the verses wasn't of the same length. Sometimes a feller would have to stretch a word all out of shape to make it cover the wave o' the tune, an' sometimes you'd have to huddle the words all up into a bunch. Horace said that all high cla.s.s music was this way; but it made it lots more bother to learn than hymns.

The verse which pleased me the most was the forty-third. Horace himself said 'at this was about as good as any, though he liked the seventy-ninth one a shade better, himself. The forty-third one ran:

”A cow-boy does not live on milk, that's all a boy-cow'll drink; But the cow-ma loves the last the most, which seems a funny think, I do not care for milk in pans with yellow sc.u.m o'er-smeared.

I like to gather mine myself; and strain it through my beard.”

I never felt better over anything in my life than I did over returnin'

Horace in this condition. It was some risk to experiment with such a treatment as mine on a feller who regarded himself as an invalid; but here he was, comin' back solid an' hearty, with his shape shrunk down to normal, an' full o' jokes an' song.

Tillte Dutch had been one o' the braves in Spider's Injun party; so when we got in, about ten in the evenin', he lured the rest o' the pack out to the corral, an' we agreed not to make the details of our trip public. The ol' man wouldn't have made a whole lot o' fuss seein'

as it had turned out all right; but still, he was dead set on what he called courtesy to guests; and he might 'a' thought that we had played Horace a leetle mite strong. Barbie noticed the change in Horace and, o' course, she pumped most o' the story out o' me.

Horace himself was as game a little rooster as I ever saw. He follered me around like a dog after that, helpin' with my ch.o.r.es, an' ridin'

every chance he had. He got confidential, an' told me a lot about himself. He said that he hadn't never had any boyhood, that his mother was a rich widow, an' was ambitious to make a scholar out of him; that she had sent him to all kinds o' schools an' colleges an'

universities, and had had private tutors for him, and had jammed his head so full o' learnin' that the' wasn't room for his brain to beat; so it had just lain smotherin' amidst a reek of all kinds o' musty old facts. He said that he never had had time for exercise, and had never needed money; so he had just settled into a groove lined with books an' not leadin' anywhere at all. He said that since his mother's death he had been livin' like a regular recluse, thinkin' dead thoughts in dead languages, an' not takin' much interest in anything which had happened since the fall o' Rome; but now that he had learned for the first time what a world of enjoyment the' was in just feelin' real life poundin' through his veins, he intended to plunge about in a way to increase the quality, quant.i.ty, and circulation of his blood.

Ya couldn't help likin' a feller who took things the way he did-we all liked him. He told us to treat him just as if he was a fourteen-year-old boy, which we did, an' the' wasn't nothin' in the way of a joke that he wasn't up against before the summer was over; but he came back at us now an' again, good an' plenty.

Tank an' Spider tossin' up their jobs had left me with more work on my hands 'n I generally liked, so I had to stick purty close to the line until they went broke an' took on again. Then one day me an' Horace took a ride up into the hills. We had some lunch along and about noon we sat down in a gra.s.sy spot to eat it. We had just finished and had lighted our pipes for a little smoke when we heard Friar Tuck comin'

up the trail. I hadn't seen him for months, an' I was mighty glad to hear him again. He was fair shoutin', so I knew 'at things was right side up with him. He was singin' the one which begins: ”Oh, come, all ye faithful, joyful an' triumphant,” and he shook the echoes loose with it.

Horace turned to me with a surprised look on his face; ”Who's that?”

he sez.

”That's Friar Tuck,” sez I, ”an' if you've got any troubles tell 'em to him.”

”Well, wouldn't that beat ya!” exclaimed Horace, an' just then the Friar came onto our level with his hat off an' his head thrown back.

He was leadin' a spare hoss, an' seemed at peace with all the world.

When he spied me, he headed in our direction, an' as soon as he had finished the chorus, he called: ”h.e.l.lo, Happy! What are you hidin'

from up here?”

I jumped to my feet, an' Horace got to his feet, too, an' bowed an'

said: ”How do ya do, Mr. Carmichael?”

A quick change came over the Friar's face. It got cold an' haughty; and I was flabbergasted, because I had never seen it get that way before. ”How do you do,” he said, as cheery an' chummy as a hail-storm.

But he didn't need to go to the trouble o' freezin' himself solid; Horace was just as thin skinned as he was when it was necessary, an'

he slipped on a snuffer over his welcomin' smile full as gloomy as was the Friar's. I was disgusted: nothin' pesters me worse 'n to think a lot o' two people who can't bear each other. It leaves it so blame uncertain which one of us has poor taste.

Well, we had one o' those delightful conflabs about the weather an'