第51章

Whatever I'm doin' in that carnage is a conundrum that's never been solved.I had hardly shed my milk teeth, an' was only 'leven hands high at the time.An' I ain't so strong physical, but I feels the weight of my spurs when I walks.As I looks back to it, I must have been about as valyooable an aid to the gov'ment, as the fifth kyard in a poker hand when four of a kind is held.The most partial an'

besotted of critics would have conceded that if I'd been left out entire, that war couldn't have suffered material charges in its results.However, to get for'ard, for I sees that Nellie's patience begins to mill an' show symptoms of comin' stampede.

"'It's at the close of hostil'ties,' goes on Enright, 'an' the company I'm with is layin' up in the hills about forty miles back from Vera Cruz, dodgin' yellow fever.We was cavalry, what the folks in Tennessee calls a "critter company," an', hailin' mostly from that meetropolis or its vicinity, we was known to ourse'fs at least as the "Pine Knot Cavaliers." Thar's a little Mexican village where we be that's called the "Plaza Perdita." An' so we lays thar at the Plaza Perdita, waitin' for orders an' transportation to take us back to the States.

"'Which most likely we're planted at this village about a month, an'

the Mexicans is beginnin' to get used to us, an' we on our parts is playin' monte, an' eatin' frijoles, an' accommodatin' ourse'fs to the simple life of the place.Onct a week the chaplain preaches to us.He holds that Mexico is a pagan land, an', entertainin' this idee, he certainly does make onusual efforts to keep our morals close-herded, an' our souls bunched an' banded up in the Christian faith, as expressed by the Baptis' church.Candor, however, compels me to say that this yere pulpit person can't be deescribed as a heavy winner on the play.' "'Was you-all so awful bad?' asks Faro Nell.

"'No,' replies Enright, 'we ain't so bad none, but our conduct is a heap onhampered, which is the same thing to the chaplain.He gives it out emphatic, after bein' with the Pine Knot Cavaliers over a year, that he plumb despairs of us becomin' christians.'

"'Whatever does he lay down on you-all like that for?' says Faro Nell.'Couldn't a soldier be a christian, Daddy Enright?'

"'Why, I reckons he might,' says Enright, he'pin' himse'f to a drink; 'a soldier could he a christian, Nellie, but after all it ain't necessary.

"'Still, we-all likes the chaplain because them ministrations of his is entertainin', an', for that matter, he likes us a lot, an' in more reelaxed moments allows we ain't so plumb crim'nal--merely loose like on p'ints of doctrine.'

"'Baptis' folks is shore strong on doctrines,' says Tutt, coincidin'

in with Enright.'I knows that myse'f.Doctrine is their long suit.

They'll go to any len'ths for doctrines, you hear me! I remembers once ridin' into a hamlet back in the Kaintucky mountains.Thar ain't one hundred people in the village, corral count.An' yet Inotes two church edifices.

"You-all is plenty opulent on sanctooaries," I says to the barkeep at the tavern where I camps for the night."It's surprisin', too, when you considers the size of the herd.What be the two deenom'nations that worships at them structures?""'"Both Baptis'," says the barkeep.

"'"Whyever, since they're ridin' the same range an' runnin' the same brand," I says, "don't they combine like cattle folks an' work their round-ups together?""'"They splits on doctrine," says the barkeep; "you couldn't get 'em together with a gun.They disagrees on Adam.That outfit in the valley holds that Adam was all right when he started, but later he struck something an' glanced off; them up on the hill contends that Adam was a hoss-thief from the jump.An' thar you be! You couldn't reeconcile 'em between now an'the crack of doom.Doctrines to a Baptis' that a-way is the entire check-rack.""'To ag'in pick up said narratif,' says Enright, when Tutt subsides, 'at the p'int where Dave comes spraddlin' in with them onasked reminiscences, I may say that a first source of pleasure to us, if not of profit, while we stays at the Plaza Perdita, is a passel of Mexicanos with a burro train that brings us our pulque from some'ers back further into the hills.'""What's pulque?" I interjected.

It was plain that my old gentleman of cows as little liked my interruption as Enright liked that of the volatile Tutt.He hid his irritation, however, under an iron politeness and explained.

"Pulque is a disapp'intin' form of beverage, wharof it takes a bar'l to get a gent drunk," he observed.And then, with some severity: "It ain't for me to pull no gun of criticism, but I'm amazed that a party of your attainments, son, is ignorant of pulque.It's, as Isays, a drink, an' it tastes like glucose an' looks like yeast.It comes from a plant, what the Mexicans calls 'maguey,' an' Peets calls a 'aloe.' The pulque gatherers scoops out the blossom of the maguey while it's a bud.They leaves the place hollow; what wood-choppers back in Tennessee, when I'm a colt, deescribes as 'bucketin' the stump.' This yere hollow fills up with oozin' sap, an' the Mexican dips out two gallons a day an keeps it up for a month.That's straight, sixty gallons from one maguey before ever it quits an' refooses to further turn the game.That's pulque, an' when them Greasers gathers it, they puts it into a pigskin-skinned complete, the pig is; them pulduc receptacles is made of the entire bark of the anamile.When the pulque's inside, they packs it, back down an' hung by all four laigs to the saddle, a pigskin on each side of the burro.It's gathered the evenin' previous, an' brought into camp in the night so as to keep it cool.

"When I'm a child, an' before ever I connects myse'f with the cow trade, if thar's a weddin', we-all has what the folks calls a 'infare,' an' I can remember a old lady from the No'th who contreebutes to these yere festivals a drink she calls 'sprooce beer.' An' pulque, before it takes to frettin' an' fermentin'