Friar Tuck Part 31

We had hard work thawin' out the clay for c.h.i.n.kin', an' we didn't get the cabin as tight as we'd 'a' liked; but we had plenty o' wood, so it didn't much matter as far as warmth was concerned; but we had the blamedest time with a pack-rat I ever did have.

I don't know whether pack-rats an' trade-rats is the same varmints or not; but neither one of 'em has a grain o' sense, though some tries to stick up for the trade-rats on account o' their tryin' to be honest. A pack-rat is about three times as big as a barn rat, an' fifteen times as energetic. His main delight is to move things. Horace said 'at he was convinced they were the souls o' furniture-movers who had died without repentin' of all the piano-lamps an' chiny-ware they had broke. A pack-rat don't care a peg whether he can use an article or not; all he asks is the privilege of totin' it about somewhere.

We weren't at all sure 'at we wouldn't be routed out in the night; so when we went to sleep, we'd stack our boots an' hats where we could find 'em easy. Sometimes the pack-rat would toil so industrious 'at he'd wake us up an' we'd try to hive him; but most o' the time he'd work sly, an' then next mornin' we'd find our boots all in a heap on the table, or in the corner under the bunk or somewhere clear outside the shack; until we was tempted to move the shack back where it was, there not bein' any pack-rats up there.

Then either the pack-rat reformed into a trade-rat, or else he sold out his claim to a trade-rat. Anyway, four nights after we'd been settled, we began to get trades for our stuff.

Horace was sleepin' this whole night with us, an' next mornin' he wakened before light an' started to dress so as to relieve the Friar.

He had put his boots on the floor under the head o' his bunk, an' when he reached down for 'em he found one potato an' the hide of a rabbit.

The rabbit hide had been tossed out two days before, an' it had froze stiff an' had a most ungainly feel at that hour o' the mornin'. Horace scrooged back into bed an' pulled all the covers off Tank whom he was sleepin' with. When Tank awoke, he found Horace sittin' up in the bunk with the covers wound around him, yellin' for some one to strike a light.

We all struck matches an' finally got a candle lit. When Horace saw what it was, he was hos-tile for true, thinkin' it was a joke one o'

the boys had put up. We had had a hard time convincin' him o' the ways o' pack-rats, an' now when we sprung trade-rats on him, he thought we were liars without mercy; but when the Friar came out to learn what the riot was, an' told Horace it was all so about trade-rats, he had to give in.

"Well, they've got a heap o' nerve," sez he, from the center o' the beddin' which was still wound around him, "to lug off a good pair o'

high-heeled ridin' boots, an' leave an old potato an' the shuck of a rabbit in place of 'em!"

After this Horace took a tarp into Badger's room an' bedded himself down in a corner, which was all around the most handy thing he could do; but the rest of us had a regular pest of a time with that rat. We couldn't find out where the deuce he got in; but he distributed our belongin's constant, an' generally brought us some of Olaf's grub-stuff in exchange. We couldn't trap him nor bluff him, an' it generally took a good hour mornin's, to round up our wearin' apparel.

One night we kept the fire goin' an' changed watchers every two hours.

Ol' Tank was on guard from two to four, an' he woke us up by takin' a shot. We found him on his back in the middle o' the floor, an' he claimed he had been settin' in a chair an' had seen the rat walkin'

along the lower side o' the ridgepole with one o' Tillte Dutch's boots in his mouth. Dutch had the spreadin'est feet in the outfit, an' we couldn't believe 'at a trade-rat could possibly tote it, hangin' down from the ridgepole; but Tank showed us a lot o' scratches along the ridgepole, an' a bruise on his chin where the boot had hit him when the rat dropped it. The' was also a hole in the boot where his bullet had gone, but this didn't prove anything. Still, Tank stuck to his story, so we had to apologize for accusin' him of lettin' his good eye sleep while he kept watch with his free one.

We stuffed burlap into the hole about the ridgepole, an' that night bein' Christmas eve, we all gathered in and held festivities. We danced an' told tales an' sang until a late hour. None of us were instrument musicians; but we clapped our hands an' patted with our feet, an' Kit took turns dancin' with us, till it was most like a regular party. Mexican Slim bet that he could do a Spanish dance as long as Horace could sing different verses of his song; but we suppressed it at the ninety-first verse. Tank wanted to let him finish, in the hope it might kill the trade-rat; but we couldn't stand any more, ourselves.

Then the Friar taught us a song called, "We three Kings of Orient are"; an' we disbursed for the night. It was a gorgeous night, an' me an' the Friar took a little walk under the stars. One of 'em rested just above the glisteny peak up back o' the rim, an' he sang soft an'

low, the "Star of beauty, star of night" part o' this song. He allus lifted me off the earth when he sang this way. Then he sez to me: "After all, Happy, life pays big dividends, if we just live it hard enough"; an' he gave a little sigh an' went in to tend to Badger-face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THE TRADE-RAT'S CHRISTMAS-GIFT

Trade-rats haven't as much idee of real music as coyotes have.

Ninety-one verses of that infernal cow-song, sung in Horace's nose-tenor, was enough to drive bed-bugs out of a lumber-camp; but that night the trade-rat worked harder than ever. We had hid our stuff an' fastened it down, an' used every sort of legitimate means to circ.u.mvent the cuss; but he beat us to it every time, an' switched our stuff around scandalous.

"Merry Christmas!" yelled Spider Kelley, holdin' up a rusty sardine can.

The trade-rat had remembered us all in some the same way, but we recalled what day it was an' took it in good part; until, all of a sudden, ol' Tank gave a whoop, an' held up a brown buck-skin bag. We crowded around an' wanted him to open it up an' see what was inside; but he said it most probably belonged to Olaf or Kit or the Friar; so we toted it into the cabin an' asked the one who could identify it to step out an' claim his diamonds.

Then we had a surprise-not one o' the bunch could identify the bag!

We stood around an' looked at the bag for as much as five minutes, tryin' to figure out how the deuce even a trade-rat could spring stuff on us none of us had ever seen before.

"This is a real trade, sure enough," sez Horace.

"I tell ya what this is," sez I. "This is a Christmas-gift for the Friar. Go on an' open it, Friar."

The' was some soft, Injun-tanned fawn-skin inside, wrappin' up a couple o' papers, an' two photographs, and an old faded letter. "I don't think we have the right to look at these," sez the Friar.

"How'll we ever find out who they belong to, then?" asked Horace.

"Look at the letter anyway."

It was in a blank envelope, an' it began, "My dear son," and ended, "Your lovin' mother." The letter was just the same as all mothers write to their sons, I reckon: full of heartache, an' tenderness, an'

good advice, an' scoldin'; but nothin' to identify n.o.body by; so we said 'at the Friar should read the papers. One of 'em was an honorable discharge from the army; but all the names an' dates an' localities had been crossed out. It was what they call an "Excellent" discharge, which is the best they give, an' you could tell by the thumb print 'at this part had been read the most by whoever had treasured it.

The other paper was simply a clippin' from a newspaper. It was a column of items tellin' about Dovey wis.h.i.+n' to see Tan Shoes at the same place next Sunday, an' such things. The Friar said 'at this was the personal column, an' he sure labeled it; 'cause if a feller chose to guess any, some o' those items was personal enough to make a bar-tender blush; but they didn't convey any news to us as to where the trade-rat had procured the buck-skin bag.

The photographs were wrapped in tissue paper an' then tied together with pink string, face to each. The Friar balked a little at openin'

'em up; but we deviled him into it. The first he opened was a cheap, faded little one of an old lady. She had a sad, patient face, an'

white hair. Horace was standin' on a chair, lookin' over the Friar's shoulder, an' he piped out that the photograph had been took in New York, an' asked if we knew any one who lived there, which most of us did; but not the subject of the photograph.

Then the Friar opened the other one. He took one look at it, an' then his face turned gray. "This one was took in Rome," sez Horace. "Does any one here have a list o' friends livin' in Rome, Italy?"

He hadn't looked at the face on the photograph, nor at the Friar's face; but when we didn't answer, he looked up, saw that we had sobered in sympathy with the Friar, an' then he looked at the face on the photograph an' got down off the chair. The face was of a beautiful lady in a low-necked, short-sleeved dress. Not as low nor as short as some dresses I've seen in pictures, but still a purty generous outlook.

The Friar's hands shook some; but he gradually got a grip on himself, an' purty soon, he sez in a steady voice: "This is a picture of Signorina Morrissena. Does any one here know of her?"

Well, of course none of us had ever heard of her; so the Friar wrapped up the package again an' put it back into the buck-skin bag. We had expected to have some high jinks that day, an' Kit had baked a lot o'

vinegar pies for dinner, we had plenty o' fresh deer-meat, an' we had agreed to let the Friar hold a regular preachin' first; but when we saw how the picture had shook him up we drifted back to our own shack an' sat talkin' about where the deuce that blame trade-rat could possibly have got a holt o' the buck-skin bag. I was purty sure that it was a picture o' the Friar's girl, the extra trimmin's on the name not bein' much in the way of a disguise, an' as soon as I got a chance to see Horace I questioned him, an' he said it was the girl, all right; but that she had developed a lot.

The Friar had taken a hoss an' gone up into the mountains, an' had left word that he didn't want any dinner. We were as full o' sympathy with him as we could stand, but not in the mood to sidestep such a meal as Kit had framed up; so we ate till after three in the afternoon. We didn't want to do anything to fret him a speck; so we hardly knew what to do. Generally it tickled him to have us ask him to preach to us; but we couldn't tell how he'd feel about it now, and we were still discussin' it about the fire when the Friar came back.

He looked mighty weary, an' we knew he had been drivin' himself purty hard, although it wasn't just tiredness which showed in his face.

Still, the' was a sort of peace there, too; so after he'd warmed himself a while, ol' Tank asked him if he wouldn't like to preach to us a bit.

The Friar once said that back East some folks used good manners as clothin' for their souls, but that out our way good-heartedness was the clothin', an' good manners nothin' more than a silver band around the hat. "And some o' the bands are mighty narrow, Friar," I added to draw him out. "Yes," sez he, "but the hats are mighty broad."

You just couldn't floor the Friar in a case like this. He knew 'at the politeness an' the good-heartedness in Tank's request was divided off about the same as the band an' the hat; and that all we wanted was to ease off the Friar's mind an' let him feel contented; so he heaved a sigh and shook his head at Tank.

When a blacksmith goes out into company, folks don't pester him with questions as to why tempered steel wasn't stored up in handy caves, instead of havin' nothin' but rough ore hid away in the cellar of a mountain; and a carpenter is not held responsible because a sharp saw cuts better 'n a dull one; but it seems about next to impossible for a human bein' to pa.s.s up a parson without insultin' him a little about the ways o' Providence, and askin' him a lot o' questions which would moult feathers out o' the ruggedest angel in the bunch.

We could all see 'at the Friar had been havin' a rough day of it; so Tank began by askin' him questions simply to toll him away from himself; but soon he was shootin' questions into the Friar as rough shod as though they was both strangers to each other.

"You say it was sheep-herders what saw the angels that night the Lord was born," sez Tank. "How come the' wasn't any cow-punchers saw 'em?"

Tank had about the deep-rootedest prejudice again' sheep-herders I ever saw.

"The' wasn't any cow-punchers in that land," sez the Friar. "It was a hilly land an'-"

"Well I'd like to know," broke in ol' Tank, "why the Lord picked out such a place as that, when he had the whole world to choose from."

O' course the Friar tried his best to smooth this out; but by the time he was through, Tank had got tangled up with another perdicament.

"Then, there was ol' Faro's dream," he said, "the one about the seven lean cows eatin' the seven fat ones. I've punched cows all my life, and I saw 'em so thin once, when the snow got crusted an' the chinook got switched off for a month, that the spikes on their backbones punched holes through their hides; but they'd as soon thought o'

flyin' up an' grazin' on clouds, as to turn in an' eat one another."

By the time the Friar had got through explainin' the difference between dreams and written history, Tank was ready with another query.