Humans is the most disappointin’ of all the animals: when a mule opens
his mouth, you know what sort of a noise is about to happen, an’ can
brace yourself accordin’; an’ the same is true o’ screech-owls, an’
guinea-hens an’ such; but no one can prepare for what is to come forth
when a human opens his mouth. You meet up with a professor what knows
all about the stars an’ the waterlines in the hills an’ the petrified
fishes, an’ such; but his method o’ bein’ friendly an’ agreeable is to
sing comic songs like a squeaky saw, an’ dance jigs as graceful as a
store box; while the fellow what can sing an’ dance is forever tryin’
to lecture about stuff he is densely ignorant of.
The other animals is willin’ to do what they can do, an’ they take
pride in seein’ how well they can do it; but not so a human. He only
takes pride in tryin’ to do the things he can’t do. A hog don’t try to
fly, nor a butterfly don’t try to play the cornet, nor a cow don’t set
an’ fret because she can’t climb trees like a squirrel; but not so
with man: he has to try everything ’at anything else ever tried, an’
he don’t care what it costs nor who gets killed in the attempt.
Sometimes you hear a wise guy say: “No, no that’s contrary to human
nature.” This is so simple minded it allus makes me silent. Human
nature is so blame contrary, itself, that nothin’ else could possibly
be contrary to it. To think of Horace knowin’ about the Friar, an’ yet
doggin’ me all over the map with that song of his, was enough to make
me shake him; but I didn’t. I wanted the story, so I pumped him for
it, patient an’ persistent.
“I never was very religious,” began Horace. Most people begin stories
about other people, by tellin’ you a lot about themselves, so I had my
resignation braced for this. “I allus liked the Greek religion better
’n airy other,” he went on. “It was a fine, free, joyous religion,
founded on Art an’ music, an’ symmetry—”
I was willin’ to stand for his own biography; but after waitin’ this
long for a clue to the Friar’s past, I wasn’t resigned to hearin’ a
joint debate on the different religions; so I interrupted, by askin’
if him believin’ in the Greek religion was what had made Friar Tuck
throw up his job.
“No, you chump,”—me an’ Horace was such good friends by this time
that we didn’t have any regard for one another’s feelin’s. “No, you
chump,” he sez, “I told you he quit on account of a girl. I don’t look
like a girl, do I?”
“Well,” sez I, studying him sober, “those side-burns look as if they
might ’a’ been bangs which had lost their holt in front an’ slipped
down to your lip; but aside from this you don’t resemble a girl enough
to drive a man out o’ church.”