Friar Tuck Part 14

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'

"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?"