Friar Tuck

by Robert Alexander Wason

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A COMPLETE CURE

  Next mornin' we fed Horace all the milk he could hold, an' tried todrive the cow along with us; but her hoofs had been pared so thin thatit made her cross an' we had to give that projec' up.

  "How far are we from the ranch house?" asked Horace.

  "About sixty miles," sez Tank.

  "That's what I thought," sez he. "Now, I can't see any sense in all ofus hoofin' that distance. I'd go if I knew the way; but one of youcould go, an' the other stay with me an' the cow. Then the one whichwent could bring back food on the buckboard, and it would be as goodas if we all went."

  Now this was a fine scheme; but neither Tank nor I had thought of it.We had intended to follow our own windin' circle back every step o'the way; but when the milk set Horace's brain to pumpin', he fetchedup this idee which saved us all a lot o' bother.

  "I shall go myself," sez Tank; "weak as I am, I'll go myself."

  It was only about fifteen or twenty miles by the short cut, an' thiswould get him back to regular meals in short order; so he left me hisrope an' set out. Horace helped me with the cow that night, an' heproved purty able help. He was feelin' fine, an' the milk had filledhim out wonderful. He said he hadn't felt so rough 'n' ready fortwenty years; but Spider Kelley failed to arrive with my meal thatnight, and I went to bed feelin' purty well disgusted. Tank had methim before noon that day, an' he had gone in for a hoss; and they haddecided that it would be a good stunt to give me some o' my owntreatment.

  Next mornin' I felt as empty as a balloon; so after Horace had enjoyedhimself, I took a little o' the same, myself; but I didn't take itlike he did. I held my mouth open an' squirted it in, an' it wasmighty refreshin'.

  "Huh," sez Horace, "you're mightily stuck up. The calf's way is goodenough for me."

  "I got a split lip," I sez, half ashamed o' myself.

  They left us there three days to allow for the time it would havetaken Tank to walk if it had been as far as we claimed it was; andthen Tillte Dutch drove out the buckboard. He said 'at Spider an' Tankhad quit and gone into Boggs for a little recreation; but after I hadeaten my first meal out o' the grub he brought, I didn't bear 'em anyill will. The joke was on me as much as it was on Horace; but I'd 'a'gone through twice as much to test that theory, an' I'd had the fullworth o' my bother. Horace was a new man: he was full o' vim an' snap,an' he gave me credit for it an' became mighty friendly an'confidential.

  He stood up in the buckboard an' made a farewell speech to the cowwhich lasted ten minutes. He also apologized to the calf, an' told himthat when he got back East, he would raise his hat every time hepassed a milk wagon. He sure felt in high spirits, and made up aramblin' sort of a song which lasted all the way back to the house. Ithad the handiest tune ever invented and he got a lot o' fun out of it.It began:

  "Oh we walked a thousand miles without eatin' any food, An' then we met a cow an' calf, an' gee, but they looked good! Her eyes like ancient Juno's were so in-o-cent an' mild, We couldn't bear to take her life, we only robbed her child. She strove to save the lactual juice to feed her darling boy; So we had to fling her on her back to fill our souls with joy. Now Tank an' Happy were too proud to compete with a calf, So they sat them down an' dined on wind, while they weakly tried to laugh. I'm but a simple-minded cuss, not proud like one of these; So I filled myself so full of milk, I'm now a cottage cheese."

  Horace was as proud o' this song as though it was the first one eversung. He used the same tune on it that blind men on corners use. Ireckon 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 butit 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 samelength. Sometimes a feller would have to stretch a word all out ofshape to make it cover the wave o' the tune, an' sometimes you'd haveto huddle the words all up into a bunch. Horace said that all highclass music was this way; but it made it lots more bother to learnthan hymns.

  The verse which pleased me the most was the forty-third. Horacehimself said 'at this was about as good as any, though he liked theseventy-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 scum 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 atreatment as mine on a feller who regarded himself as an invalid; buthere he was, comin' back solid an' hearty, with his shape shrunk downto normal, an' full o' jokes an' song.

  Tillte Dutch had been one o' the braves in Spider's Injun party; sowhen we got in, about ten in the evenin', he lured the rest o' thepack out to the corral, an' we agreed not to make the details of ourtrip 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 hecalled courtesy to guests; and he might 'a' thought that we had playedHorace 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 folleredme around like a dog after that, helpin' with my chores, an' ridin'every chance he had. He got confidential, an' told me a lot abouthimself. He said that he hadn't never had any boyhood, that his motherwas a rich widow, an' was ambitious to make a scholar out of him; thatshe had sent him to all kinds o' schools an' colleges an'universities, and had had private tutors for him, and had jammed hishead 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 oldfacts. He said that he never had had time for exercise, and had neverneeded money; so he had just settled into a groove lined with booksan' not leadin' anywhere at all. He said that since his mother's deathhe had been livin' like a regular recluse, thinkin' dead thoughts indead languages, an' not takin' much interest in anything which hadhappened since the fall o' Rome; but now that he had learned for thefirst time what a world of enjoyment the' was in just feelin' reallife poundin' through his veins, he intended to plunge about in a wayto increase the quality, quantity, and circulation of his blood.

  Ya couldn't help likin' a feller who took things the way he did--weall liked him. He told us to treat him just as if he was afourteen-year-old boy, which we did, an' the' wasn't nothin' in theway 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 myhands 'n I generally liked, so I had to stick purty close to the lineuntil they went broke an' took on again. Then one day me an' Horacetook a ride up into the hills. We had some lunch along and about noonwe sat down in a grassy spot to eat it. We had just finished and hadlighted 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 tohear him again. He was fair shoutin', so I knew 'at things was rightside up with him. He was singin' the one which begins: "Oh, come, allye faithful, joyful an' triumphant," and he shook the echoes loosewith 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 'emto him."

  "Well, wouldn't that beat ya!" exclaimed Horace, an' just then theFriar 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 hadfinished the chorus, he called: "Hello, Happy! What are you hidin'from up here?"

  I jumped to my feet, an' Horace got to his fe
et, 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 waybefore. "How do you do," he said, as cheery an' chummy as ahail-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 wasthe Friar's. I was disgusted: nothin' pesters me worse 'n to think alot o' two people who can't bear each other. It leaves it so blameuncertain 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' refreshin' nights," an', "Imust be goin' now," an' "oh, what's the use o' goin' so soon"--and soon. Then Horace an' the Friar bowed an' the Friar rode away as silentan' dignified as a dog which has been sent back home.

  "Well," sez Horace, after we'd seated ourselves again, "I neverexpected to see that man out here. I wouldn't 'a' been more surprisedto have seen a blue fish with yaller goggles on, come swimmin' up thepass."

  "Oh, wouldn't ya?" sez I. "Well, that man ain't no more like a bluefish 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 saidanything 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' tochurch 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 excusefor not goin' to church wouldn't be enough intelligent to know when hewas hungry."

  "You must 'a' set up late last night to whet your sarcasm!" sezHorace, swellin' up a little. "Why don't you run along and hold up ascreen, 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 Horacewouldn't guess 'at he was the cuss I had tried it on.

  "A curate hasn't nothin' to do with doctorin'," sez Horace. "A curateis only the assistant of the regular preacher which is called arector. The curate does the hard work an' the rector gets the bigpay."

  "That's the way with all assistants," sez I; "so don't bother with anymore 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 myfoolishness, an' settled down to get the story out of him. Here I'dbeen wonderin' for years about Friar Tuck; an' all those weeks I hadbeen with Horace I had never once thought o' tryin' to see what hemight know.