Ike Harper’s Historical Holiday 13
We stops at the edge and hears old Judge
I squints at the bunch.
Steele proclaim:
“Welcome, Ike,” says Magpie.
“This here is authentic, I tell you. Ain’t
“You’re not!” says I.
I got the picture of it in my office? I sure have.
“Aw, Ike, we needed another oarsman,
While I’ve got a lot of respect for Custer and
and you’re from Piperock.”
Lincoln, it ain’t noways historically correct
“Originally
from
Missouri,” says I.
that they’re to blame. Therefore it remains for
“What are you sheep-herders trying to pull off
the city of Piperock to hand honor where
over here anyway?”
honor is due. I asks everybody to watch the
“Washington is going to cross the
great spectacle—the spectacle from which Delaware,” states Magpie.
Fourth of July owes its being.”
“All right,” says I. “Let him cross it. It
“Get on, Ike.”
ain’t my river.”
I turns and here is Pete Gonyer on a
“I reckon we better start, boys,” says
bronc. He’s got one foot out of the stirrup, so I Magpie. “Come in, Ike.”
can get up, and like a darn fool I done it. I
“Not me! Never and not any!”
didn’t know where we were going, but I do
“You helped Curlew, Ike,” he reminds
know that we went there.
me chiding-like.
Pete must ’a’ picked a bronc what
“Yes, and take a look at me! I won’t
never carried double, ’cause it whirled around
help nobody no more. I won’t even help
that multitude and we hit the water fifteen feet myself. You can all go plumb to thunder!”
from the shore.
I don’t know anything about boats. I
Man, I’d say that bronc could hop high
might paddle my own canoe if I had one, but I
and handsome, and them Pokyhontas clothes
don’t know how to row. Buck can’t row, and
bellied out behind like a balloon.
neither can Tellurium or Pete.
Pete herded that animal straight for the
In the front end of the boat stands
bank and as soon as it got its feet on solid
Magpie, with one foot histed up on the end,
ground we changed ends so fast that I grabs
and his hand still searching inside his shirt.
Pete around the neck and my feet stood That fedora sets almost on his forehead. The straight out. I made one complete turn, let
multitude lets out a whoop as we emerges and
loose, and when I hit the grass I glided about
hits the current, which is fairly fast.
twenty feet on the seat of the pants I didn’t
“Swing her up-stream!” yelps Magpie.
have on—being as that costume consisted of
I hears a couple of shots ahead of us,
hip-length leggin’s which wouldn’t go over
so I drops my oar and ducks. I reckon that
my pants and a sort of a dress.
Buck took the same precaution, ’cause the
I got up sore. There is Magpie, boat starts whirling, being as all the motive
“Tellurium” Woods, “Buck” Masterson and
power is on one side.
Pete looking at me. Tellurium and Buck are in
I peeks over the edge and here comes
their shirt-sleeves, with their pants rolled up, old Judge Steele hopping across the rocks like
but Magpie is dressed in that same costume he
a rabbit, and right behind him comes
put on that night in our cabin. That fedora hat Hassayampa. The judge hits the edge of the
don’t fit sideways, so he ties it under his chin bank, hops high into the air and comes right
with a string. I looked down back of that
down among us.
canvas, and I seen a boat. Honest to grandma,
I seen Hassayampa stub his toe at the
that was the first boat I ever seen in Yaller
brink and he lands in the water.
Rock County. I caresses myself a few and then
“Pull for the shore!” yelps Magpie and
Adventure
14
just then the crowd splits.
on and I sure took a ride down the river. I
remember I made a noise like a hardware store
I LOOKS up and for the first and last time in
every time I hit a rock. After what seemed an
my life my eyes feast upon the Paradise hour I feels terry firma under my carcass. I Mounted Band.
looks up in time to see that I’ve got hold of—a They rides right up to our landing bronc’s tail —and then comes one awful place and spreads out about five feet apart.
clank.
The crowd has forgotten us. Here is something
It is sundown when I awake. I’m sore
new. They crowds around and gawps up at the
in every joint and I feels that all of my bones musicians. I seen “Coyote” Calkins slide out
have been busted and are sticking out of my
his slip-horn, place it to his lips, wiggle it a skin. My collar-bone is sticking me in the chin couple of times and then music cometh from
and every time I move it grates on the gravel.
the four of them at once. Just once.
After a while I gets nerve enough to
Ta-a-a-a, ra-a-a-a-a, dum!
open my eyes. Sitting there on that gravel bar
The feller who said that music hath
beside me is Judge Steele, Old Testament and
charms to sooth the savage beast never tried to Hassayampa. They hears me rattle to a sitting
play a horn from the deck of a half-broke
position and they stares at me sort of
bronc. Our boat just drifted to the bank below
pessimistic-like.
them as the music broke forth, and we never
I nods at them and nearly unjoints my
had a chance to back up.
remaining bones in trying to get loose from
The crowd never had any chance to go
the hoarse-voiced horn which encircles my
back either. The bank was about three feet
frame.
high at that spot, and St. Patrick never made a
“We’ll open with a pup-prayer,” states
cleaner job of them Irish snakes than those
Old Testament hoarse-like.
four broncs of the merry-makers. I seen Rain-
“Speech,” argues the judge, in a
in-the-Face hop high to get away from Three
faraway voice.
Stars’ roan, but the bronc beat him to it, and
“You let our preacher alone!” wails
Rain-in-the-Face got kicked half-way across
Hassayampa in a croaking whisper. “Doggone
the Delaware.
you, judge, I’ll run you ragged again. I’m
It ain’t human nature to run up-hill to
getting peeved.”
get out of trouble, so they all follers the lines I’m peeved, too. I got up on my feet
of least resistance, which in this case led to
and crowned Hassayampa with that horn. He
water, and Washington wasn’t the only one to
sort of shudders deeper into the sand and
cross the river.
murmurs—
I seen Coyote’s bronc hurdle some of
<
br /> “Hurrah
for
Custer!”
the crowd and go into the air right over our
Then I tried to get back on the other
craft, and believe me I didn’t wait for the
side of the river. I’m bow-legged enough to let crash. Ike Harper ain’t no mermaid, but he
most of the river through, but I must ’a’
sure did take to the water. I got my eyes and
slipped on a rock, ‘
ears full of the unaccustomed fluid and then
’cause I soon found that I’m drifting. I never
something seems to come down and crown
knew before that I could swim. Man, I tried to
me.
stop. I knowed that a few thousand miles away
A weight seems to press down upon
this river reaches the ocean, and I don’t like
my mind and, like all drowning men, I grasps
oceans.
at a straw—and got a handful of hair. I hung
Every time I got my feet on a rock the water
Ike Harper’s Historical Holiday 15
comes along and turns me a flip-flop and I
high hat.
drifts regardless. The last time I went under I
“Will you decide to the best of your
got mad and said to myself—
ability, Ike?” asks Magpie, wringing water out
“Well, stay under then!”
of his mustache, “Without fear or favor will
Just about then I feels myself bump
you speak from your heart?”
into something and I gets hauled high and dry.
“I’ll speak but I won’t act,” says I.
I spat out a gallon of alkali water and looks
“Ask me what thou wilt.”
around.
“The question is this, Ike: Paradise
I’m in the boat. There sets Magpie,
says Lincoln, Curlew says Custer and
Mike Pelly and Sad Samuels, and I ain’t got
Piperock says Washington is the party
nothing on them for looks. The boat is half-
responsible for this glorious day and date.
full of water, and they’re setting in it like a Being a disinterested party we asks your
bunch of hell-divers. They looks me over and
opinion. Who do you think started it?”
then Magpie says:
I looks around at them bedraggled
“We might let him decide. He never
idiots and then at the water.
had an opinion in his life, but this is a mooted
“I ain’t no history hound,” says I, “but
question.”
if you leave it to me I’d cast my vote for
“Kinda mooted,” nods Sad, woeful-
Jonah. We’ve whale of a time to-day.”
like, “kinda mooted.”
“Which is common sense and beats
“Kinda——!” whines Mike and I history,” states Magpie and we all shook notices that he’s still wearing the brim of that hands.
Pulp - Adventure.20.01.18.Ike Harpers Historical Holiday - W. C. Tuttle (pdf) Page 4
