Part 14 (2/2)
”how hot it was daytimes, but so cool an' refres.h.i.+n' nights,” an', ”I must be goin' now,” an' ”oh, what's the use o' goin' so soon”-and so on. Then Horace an' the Friar bowed an' the Friar rode away as silent an' dignified as a dog which has been sent back home.
”Well,” sez Horace, after we'd seated ourselves again, ”I never expected to see that man out here. I wouldn't 'a' been more surprised to have seen a blue fish with yaller goggles on, come swimmin' up the pa.s.s.”
”Oh, wouldn't ya?” sez I. ”Well, that man ain't no more like a blue fish with goggles on than you are. He's ace high anywhere you put him, an' don't you forget that.”
”You needn't arch up your back about it,” he sez. ”I haven't said anything again' him. I gave up goin' to church on his account.”
”That's nothin' to brag about,” sez I. ”A man'll give up goin' to church simply because they hold it on Sunday, which is the one day o'
the week when he feels most like stackin' up his feet on top o'
somethin' an' smokin' a pipe. A man who couldn't plan out an excuse for not goin' to church wouldn't be enough intelligent to know when he was hungry.”
”You must 'a' set up late last night to whet your sarcasm!” sez Horace, swellin' up a little. ”Why don't you run along and hold up a screen, so 'at folks can't look at your parson.”
”How'd you happen to quit church on his account?” sez I.
”He was only a curate, when I first knew him,” sez Horace.
”He's a curate yet,” sez I. ”I tried one of his cures myself, lately; an' it worked like a charm.” I turned my head away so 'at Horace wouldn't guess 'at he was the cuss I had tried it on.
”A curate hasn't nothin' to do with doctorin',” sez Horace. ”A curate is only the a.s.sistant of the regular preacher which is called a rector. The curate does the hard work an' the rector gets the big pay.”
”That's the way with all a.s.sistants,” sez I; ”so don't bother with any more details. Why did you quit goin' to church?”
”I quit because he quit,” sez Horace.
”What did he quit for,” sez I; ”just to bust up the church by drawin'
your patronage away from it?”
”He quit on account of a girl,” sez Horace; an' then I stopped my foolishness, an' settled down to get the story out of him. Here I'd been wonderin' for years about Friar Tuck; an' all those weeks I had been with Horace I had never once thought o' tryin' to see what he might know.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AN UNEXPECTED CACHE
Humans is the most disappointin' of all the animals: when a mule opens his mouth, you know what sort of a noise is about to happen, an' can brace yourself accordin'; an' the same is true o' screech-owls, an'
guinea-hens an' such; but no one can prepare for what is to come forth when a human opens his mouth. You meet up with a professor what knows all about the stars an' the waterlines in the hills an' the petrified fishes, an' such; but his method o' bein' friendly an' agreeable is to sing comic songs like a squeaky saw, an' dance jigs as graceful as a store box; while the fellow what can sing an' dance is forever tryin'
to lecture about stuff he is densely ignorant of.
The other animals is willin' to do what they can do, an' they take pride in seein' how well they can do it; but not so a human. He only takes pride in tryin' to do the things he can't do. A hog don't try to fly, nor a b.u.t.terfly don't try to play the cornet, nor a cow don't set an' fret because she can't climb trees like a squirrel; but not so with man: he has to try everything 'at anything else ever tried, an'
he don't care what it costs nor who gets killed in the attempt.
Sometimes you hear a wise guy say: ”No, no that's contrary to human nature.” This is so simple minded it allus makes me silent. Human nature is so blame contrary, itself, that nothin' else could possibly be contrary to it. To think of Horace knowin' about the Friar, an' yet d.o.g.g.i.n' me all over the map with that song of his, was enough to make me shake him; but I didn't. I wanted the story, so I pumped him for it, patient an' persistent.
”I never was very religious,” began Horace. Most people begin stories about other people, by tellin' you a lot about themselves, so I had my resignation braced for this. ”I allus liked the Greek religion better 'n airy other,” he went on. ”It was a fine, free, joyous religion, founded on Art an' music, an' symmetry-”
I was willin' to stand for his own biography; but after waitin' this long for a clue to the Friar's past, I wasn't resigned to hearin' a joint debate on the different religions; so I interrupted, by askin'
if him believin' in the Greek religion was what had made Friar Tuck throw up his job.
”No, you chump,”-me an' Horace was such good friends by this time that we didn't have any regard for one another's feelin's. ”No, you chump,” he sez, ”I told you he quit on account of a girl. I don't look like a girl, do I?”
<script>