“Muley, when did you steal sheep?”
_Crash!_
* * * * *
I opens the door and right into us walks Scenery Sims. Over his right
ear is hanging a hunk of Jay Bird’s pottery tobacco-jar, and in his eyes
is a most curious look. He circles the kitchen, hits the back door the
second time around, walks right out of the door, and to our ears comes
sad and low—
“Swing low, Sweet Chariot, comin’ fer to carry me ho-o-o-o-me.”
“My gosh!” grunts Chuck. “He fell into the woodshed!”
“I’m goin’ out,” proclaims Magpie. “I need air,” and he staggers out of
the door.
“You have no sense of shame,” we hears the doctor say. “You most likely
killed the officer.”
“I hope so,” says Muley. “The —— fool said I stole sheep. Who told him I
stole sheep?”
“I did, because I thought he ought to know it.”
“Who in the —— are you?” gasps Muley.
“I—I am your uncle. This lady is your father’s sister.”
“And—and I st-stole sheep?” gasps Muley.
“And deranged your poor father’s mind,” adds the doctor.
“Oh!” grunts Muley. “Oh, very well. I’m—who am I?”
“Mister Jones’ son.”
“Oh—sure,” says Muley awed-like. “Paw’s name is Jones and I stole sheep.
I—I give you good afternoon.”
We hears Muley walk out on to the porch, and then comes a crash.
Chuck runs to the window, and then turns with the tears running off his
nose.
“Muley walked right off the railing,” he chokes, “My ——, what next?”
The doctor steps out of the door and looks at us.
“My man, will you please bring the car to the door? We are leaving at
once.”
Chuck nods—he can’t speak—and we single-files out of the door.
Magpie is setting on a saw-buck in the yard.
“They’ve decided to go,” says Chuck hoarse-like. “I’m going to hitch up
the team.”
“Thank ——,” says Magpie, pious-like. “I’ll help you. No, I won’t either.
I’m going to get a decision from the doctor before he leaves. He’s just
as crazy as I am; do yuh know it?”
“I reckon everybody is a little crazy,” says Chuck.
“Except me and you,” says I, “and I’m beginning to suspicion us.”
We hitched up that ornery team of roans and tied them to the corner post
of the porch. Then we went inside.
The doctor and his family are ready to go, I reckon, but Magpie sort of
stands blocking the door.
“It is really no concern of mine,” says the doctor. “It is a case for an
alienist.”
“I don’t give a dang,” says Magpie. “You’re going to examine me right
now.”
“But, my dear fellow, I am not qualified to judge. To outward
appearances you are mentally deficient, and I might say, ‘I think you
are deranged,’ but I can not make a definite statement.”
“I won’t marry the woman,” says Magpie. “She can sue and be danged, but
I won’t marry her. Now you examine me, will yuh? You’re a doctor, ain’t
yuh?”
“But not an M.D., my dear man. I am a doctor of divinity.”
“Divinity?” says Magpie. “Divinity? What kind of a disease is that?”
Before the doctor can answer Magpie’s question there comes a racket on
the porch, and Jay Bird Whittaker’s voice is raised in anger:
“Gol dingle-danged if you do! Get to —— out of here with that thing.”
“Aw-w-w-w-w!” wails a voice. “Gotta take it in where it’s light, ain’t
I? You got to see him to appreciate him, Jay Bird.”
“Not in my house,” yells Jay Bird. “Get out!”
The door jerks open and there stands Jay Bird in the doorway.
He stares at us for a while, and then Magpie says:
“It didn’t work, Jay Bird. This _hombre_ is a doctor of divinity.”
Jay Bird stares at Magpie and then all around the room.
“I done my dangdest,” says Magpie. “I’ve been crazier for you than I’ve
ever been for anybody, Jay Bird, and I hope you appreciate it.”
Jay Bird scratches his chin and looks blank-like, and just then Mighty
Jones crowds in beside him, hanging on to a rope.
“I could only bring one,” says Mighty, taking off his hat. “But he’s——”
_Zowie!_
Between Jay Bird’s legs comes a streak of gray, and lands right in our
midst.
I seen Jay Bird’s right leg go skyward, when that rope tightened, and he
lands on the back of his neck. That streak of gray wasn’t house-broke,
and it likely got stage-fright.
It hit Magpie below the knees and he played a billiard off the doctor.
Me and the gray streak got the same idea at the same time, I reckon. I
meant to catch it and it meant to catch me.
I reckon I meant well, but the gray streak beat me to it. I landed with
my arms around mama’s waist, and like a danged fool I hung on long
enough to make her lose her balance. I hit my head on the floor, the
same of which acted as an anesthetic and I didn’t feel the pain of
having three hundred pounds on my carcass.
I don’t know how long afterward I regained the sense of seeing, taste
and smell. I sat up and looked around. Magpie is behind the sofy,
peeking over the back, and on the floor with his back against the sofy
is Jay Bird.
Mama and Violet are backed into a corner, hanging on to each other.
Standing on a chair in a prayerful attitude stands the doctor, while in
the middle of the floor sets Mighty, hanging on to the horns of that
danged gray goat. Everything is very still for a moment after I arrives
on earth again, and then Mighty croaks—
“I’m willin’ to admit that I lied—willin’ as ——; do yuh hear me? I could
have brought the whole herd, but I thought you could tell something
about the stock if I just brought a sample. This is a cross between a
angory and a mountain goat.”
The doctor still rolls his eyes to the ceiling and don’t say a word.
“Gosh dang it, make up your mind,” wails Mighty. “This animile ain’t no
statoo. Do yuh buy or don’t yuh? Whoa, you —— fool!”
I sees Jay Bird twist his neck and look at Magpie, and then he wets his
lips. Magpie does look funny with his shirt on backward.
“——!” gasps Jay Bird. “You’ve either got a flexible neck, Magpie, or you
ain’t going to be worth much after tonight.”
“I done my best,” says Magpie. “Nobody could ’a’ done more for you than
I have, Jay Bird.”
“Everybody’s crazy,” croaks mama. “Everybody.”
“Amen,” says the doctor.
Just then we hears a lot of racket out in front, and the door opens and
Ike Harper steps inside. He looks around the room foolish-like.
“What’s the idea of the goat?” he asks. “Goats don’t figure in
honeymoons, do they?”
Then he sees Magpie. He steps closer and looks at him. Magpie stares at
Ike and tries to grin, but it looks painful.
“Holee sufferin’ sunfish!” whispers Ike. “Magpie, you’re badly twisted.
Where is the bride?”
“Bride?” croaks Magpie. “Bride?”
“Lemme loose, daw-w-w-gone yuh!” squeaks a voice in the kitchen. “Fanny,
you aboriginal scavenger, let go!”
“Here she comes,” says Chuck, and into the room comes Potlatch Fanny,
and she’s got Scenery Sims by the back of the neck.
“Whew!”