第40章

How Prince Hat Got Help.

"Come yere, you boy Torn." It was the Old Cattleman addressing his black satellite."Stampede up to their rooms of mine an' fetch me my hat; the one with the snakeskin band.My head ain't feelin' none too well, owin' to the barkeep of this hostelry changin' my drinks, an'

that rattlesnake band oughter absorb them aches an' clar'fy my roominations a heap.Now, vamos!" he continued, as Tom seemed to hesitate, "the big Stetson with the snakeskin onto it.

"An' how be you stackin' up yours'ef?" observed the old gentleman, turning to me as his dark agent vanished in quest of head-bear.

"Which you shorely looks as worn an' weary as a calf jest branded.

It'll do you good to walk a lot; better come with me.I sort o'

orig'nates the notion that I'll go swarmin' about permiscus this mornin' for a hour or so, an cirk'late my blood, an' you-all is welcome to attach yourse'f to the scheme.Thar's nothin' like exercise, that a-way, as Grief Mudlow allows when he urges his wife to take in washin'.You've done heard of Grief Mudlow, the laziest maverick in Tennessee?"I gave my word that not so much as a rumor of the person Mudlow had reached me.My friend expressed surprise.It was now that the black boy Tom came up with the desired hat.Tom made his approach with a queer backward and forward shuffle, crooning to himself the while:

"Rain come wet me, sun come dry me.

Take keer, white man, don't come nigh me." "Stop that double-shufflin' an' wing dancin'," remonstrated the old gentleman severely, as he took the hat and fixed it on his head."I don't want no frivolities an' merry-makin's 'round me.Which you're always jumpin' an' dancin' like one of these yere snapjack bugs.I ain't aimin' at pompousness none, but thar's a sobriety goes with them years of mine which I proposes to maintain if I has to do it with a blacksnake whip.So you-all boy Tom, you look out a whole lot! I'm goin' to break you of them hurdy-gurdy tendencies, if I has to make you wear hobbles an' frale the duds off your back besides."Tom smiled toothfully, yet in confident fashion, as one who knows his master and is not afraid.

"So you never hears of Grief Mudlow?" he continued, as we strolled abroad on our walk."I reckons mebby you has, for they shore puts Grief into a book once, commemoratin' of his laziness.How lazy is he? Well, son, he could beat Mexicans an' let 'em deal.He's raised away off cast, over among the knobs of old Knox County, Grief is, an' he's that lazy he has to leave it on account of the hills.

"'She's too noomerous in them steeps an' deecliv'ties,' says Grief.

'What I needs is a landscape where the prevailin' feacher is the hor'zontal.I was shorely born with a yearnin' for the level ground.' An' so Grief moves his camp down on the river bottoms, where thar ain't no hills.

"He's that mis'rable idle an' shiftless, this yere Grief is, that once he starts huntin' an' then decides he won't.Grief lays down by the aige of the branch, with his moccasins towards the water.It starts in to rain, an' the storm prounces down on Grief like a mink:

on a settin' hen.One of his pards sees him across the branch an'

thinks he's asleep.So he shouts an' yells at him.

"'Whoopee, Grief!' he sings over to where Grief's layin' all quiled up same as a water-moccasin snake, an' the rain peltin' into him like etarnal wrath; 'wake up thar an' crawl for cover!'

"'I'm awake,' says Grief.

"'Well, why don't you get outen the rain?'

"'I'm all wet now an' the rain don't do no hurt,' says Grief.

"An' this yere lazy Grief Mudlow keeps on layin' thar.It ain't no time when the branch begins to raise; the water crawls up about Grief's feet.So his pard shouts at him some more:

"'Whoopee, you Grief ag'in!' he says.'If you don't pull your freight, the branch'll get you.It's done riz over the stock of your rifle.'

"'Water won't hurt the wood none,' says Grief.

"'You Grief over thar!' roars the other after awhile; 'your feet an'

laigs is half into the branch, an' the water's got up to the lock of your gun.'

"'Thar's no load in the gun,' says Grief, still a-layin', 'an'

besides she needs washin' out.As for them feet an' laigs, I never catches cold.'

"An' thar that ornery Grief reposes, too plumb lazy to move, while the branch creeps up about him.It's crope up so high, final, that his y'ears an' the back of his head is in it.All Grief does is sort o' lift his chin an' lay squar', to keep his nose out so's he can breathe.

An' he shorely beats the game; for the rain ceases, an' the branch don't rise no higher.This yere Grief lays thar ontil the branch runs down an' he's high an' dry ag'in, an' then the sun shines out an' dries his clothes.It's that same night when Grief has drug himse'f home to supper, he says to his wife, 'Thar's nothin' like exercise,' an' then counsels that lady over his corn pone an'

chitlins to take in washin' like I relates."We walked on in mute consideration of the extraordinary indolence of the worthless Mudlow.Our silence obtained for full ten minutes.

Then I proposed "courage" as a subject, and put a question.

"Thar's fifty kinds of courage," responded my companion, "an' a gent who's plumb weak an' craven, that a-way, onder certain circumstances, is as full of sand as the bed of the Arkansaw onder others.Thar's hoss-back courage an' thar's foot courage, thar's day courage an' night courage, thar's gun courage an' knife courage, an'

no end of courages besides.An' then thar's the courage of vanity.

More'n once, when I'm younger, I'm swept down by this last form of heroism, an' I even recalls how in a sperit of vainglory I rides a buffalo bull.I tells you, son, that while that frantic buffalo is squanderin' about the plains that time, an' me onto him, he feels a mighty sight like the ridge of all the yooniverse.How does it end?

It's too long a tale to tell walkin' an' without reecooperatifs;suffice it that it ends disastrous.I shall never ride no buffalo ag'in, leastwise without a saddle, onless its a speshul o'casion.