Trade-rats haven’t as much idee of real music as coyotes have.
Ninety-one verses of that infernal cow-song, sung in Horace’s
nose-tenor, was enough to drive bed-bugs out of a lumber-camp; but
that night the trade-rat worked harder than ever. We had hid our stuff
an’ fastened it down, an’ used every sort of legitimate means to
circumvent the cuss; but he beat us to it every time, an’ switched our
stuff around scandalous.
“Merry Christmas!” yelled Spider Kelley, holdin’ up a rusty sardine
can.
The trade-rat had remembered us all in some the same way, but we
recalled what day it was an’ took it in good part; until, all of a
sudden, ol’ Tank gave a whoop, an’ held up a brown buck-skin bag. We
crowded around an’ wanted him to open it up an’ see what was inside;
but he said it most probably belonged to Olaf or Kit or the Friar; so
we toted it into the cabin an’ asked the one who could identify it to
step out an’ claim his diamonds.
Then we had a surprise—not one o’ the bunch could identify the bag!
We stood around an’ looked at the bag for as much as five minutes,
tryin’ to figure out how the deuce even a trade-rat could spring stuff
on us none of us had ever seen before.
“This is a real trade, sure enough,” sez Horace.
“I tell ya what this is,” sez I. “This is a Christmas-gift for the
Friar. Go on an’ open it, Friar.”
The’ was some soft, Injun-tanned fawn-skin inside, wrappin’ up a
couple o’ papers, an’ two photographs, and an old faded letter. “I
don’t think we have the right to look at these,” sez the Friar.
“How’ll we ever find out who they belong to, then?” asked Horace.
“Look at the letter anyway.”
It was in a blank envelope, an’ it began, “My dear son,” and ended,
“Your lovin’ mother.” The letter was just the same as all mothers
write to their sons, I reckon: full of heartache, an’ tenderness, an’
good advice, an’ scoldin’; but nothin’ to identify nobody by; so we
said ’at the Friar should read the papers. One of ’em was an honorable
discharge from the army; but all the names an’ dates an’ localities
had been crossed out. It was what they call an “Excellent” discharge,
which is the best they give, an’ you could tell by the thumb print ’at
this part had been read the most by whoever had treasured it.
The other paper was simply a clippin’ from a newspaper. It was a
column of items tellin’ about Dovey wishin’ to see Tan Shoes at the
same place next Sunday, an’ such things. The Friar said ’at this was
the personal column, an’ he sure labeled it; ’cause if a feller chose
to guess any, some o’ those items was personal enough to make a
bar-tender blush; but they didn’t convey any news to us as to where
the trade-rat had procured the buck-skin bag.
The photographs were wrapped in tissue paper an’ then tied together
with pink string, face to each. The Friar balked a little at openin’
’em up; but we deviled him into it. The first he opened was a cheap,
faded little one of an old lady. She had a sad, patient face, an’
white hair. Horace was standin’ on a chair, lookin’ over the Friar’s
shoulder, an’ he piped out that the photograph had been took in New
York, an’ asked if we knew any one who lived there, which most of us
did; but not the subject of the photograph.
Then the Friar opened the other one. He took one look at it, an’ then
his face turned gray. “This one was took in Rome,” sez Horace. “Does
any one here have a list o’ friends livin’ in Rome, Italy?”
He hadn’t looked at the face on the photograph, nor at the Friar’s
face; but when we didn’t answer, he looked up, saw that we had sobered
in sympathy with the Friar, an’ then he looked at the face on the
photograph an’ got down off the chair. The face was of a beautiful
lady in a low-necked, short-sleeved dress. Not as low nor as short as
some dresses I’ve seen in pictures, but still a purty generous
outlook.
The Friar’s hands shook some; but he gradually got a grip on himself,
an’ purty soon, he sez in a steady voice: “This is a picture of
Signorina Morrissena. Does any one here know of her?”
Well, of course none of us had ever heard of her; so the Friar wrapped
up the package again an’ put it back into the buck-skin bag. We had
expected to have some high jinks that day, an’ Kit had baked a lot o’
vinegar pies for dinner, we had plenty o’ fresh deer-meat, an’ we had
agreed to let the Friar hold a regular preachin’ first; but when we
saw how the picture had shook him up we drifted back to our own shack
an’ sat talkin’ about where the deuce that blame trade-rat could
possibly have got a holt o’ the buck-skin bag. I was purty sure that
it was a picture o’ the Friar’s girl, the extra trimmin’s on the name
not bein’ much in the way of a disguise, an’ as soon as I got a chance
to see Horace I questioned him, an’ he said it was the girl, all
right; but that she had developed a lot.
The Friar had taken a hoss an’ gone up into the mountains, an’ had
left word that he didn’t want any dinner. We were as full o’ sympathy
with him as we could stand, but not in the mood to sidestep such a
meal as Kit had framed up; so we ate till after three in the
afternoon. We didn’t want to do anything to fret him a speck; so we
hardly knew what to do. Generally it tickled him to have us ask him to
preach to us; but we couldn’t tell how he’d feel about it now, and we
were still discussin’ it about the fire when the Friar came back.
He looked mighty weary, an’ we knew he had been drivin’ himself purty
hard, although it wasn’t just tiredness which showed in his face.
Still, the’ was a sort of peace there, too; so after he’d warmed
himself a while, ol’ Tank asked him if he wouldn’t like to preach to
us a bit.
The Friar once said that back East some folks used good manners as
clothin’ for their souls, but that out our way good-heartedness was
the clothin’, an’ good manners nothin’ more than a silver band around
the hat. “And some o’ the bands are mighty narrow, Friar,” I added to
draw him out. “Yes,” sez he, “but the hats are mighty broad.”
You just couldn’t floor the Friar in a case like this. He knew ’at the
politeness an’ the good-heartedness in Tank’s request was divided off
about the same as the band an’ the hat; and that all we wanted was to
ease off the Friar’s mind an’ let him feel contented; so he heaved a
sigh and shook his head at Tank.
When a blacksmith goes out into company, folks don’t pester him with
questions as to why tempered steel wasn’t stored up in handy caves,
instead of havin’ nothin’ but rough ore hid away in the cellar of a
mountain; and a carpenter is not held responsible because a sharp saw
cuts better ’n a dull one; but it seems about next to impossible for a
human bein’ to pass up a parson without insultin’ him a little about
the ways o’ Providence, and askin’ him a lot o’ questions which would
moult feathers out o’ the ruggedest angel in the bunch.
We could all see ’at the Friar had been havin’ a rough day of it; so
Tank began by askin’ him questions simply to toll him away from
himself; but soon he was shootin’ questions into the Friar as rough
shod as though they was both strangers to each other.
“You say it was sheep-herders what saw the angels that night the Lord
was born,” sez Tank. “How come the’ wasn’t any cow-punchers saw ’em?”
Tank had about the deep-rootedest prejudice again’ sheep-herders I
ever saw.
“The’ wasn’t any cow-punchers in that land,” sez the Friar. “It was a
hilly land an’—”
“Well I’d like to know,” broke in ol’ Tank, “why the Lord picked out
such a place as that, when he had the whole world to choose from.”
O’ course the Friar tried his best to smooth this out; but by the time
he was through, Tank had got tangled up with another perdicament.
“Then, there was ol’ Faro’s dream,” he said, “the one about the seven
lean cows eatin’ the seven fat ones. I’ve punched cows all my life,
and I saw ’em so thin once, when the snow got crusted an’ the chinook
got switched off for a month, that the spikes on their backbones
punched holes through their hides; but they’d as soon thought o’
flyin’ up an’ grazin’ on clouds, as to turn in an’ eat one another.”
By the time the Friar had got through explainin’ the difference
between dreams and written history, Tank was ready with another query.
“I heard tell once ’at the Bible sez, ‘If thy eye offends thee, pluck
it out.’ Does the Bible say this?”
“Well, it does,” admitted the Friar; “but you see—”
“Well, my free eye offends me,” broke in Tank. “It never did offend me
until Spike Groogan tried to pluck it out, and it don’t offend me now
as much as it does other folks. Still, I got to own up ’at the blame
thing does offend me whenever I meet up with strangers, ’cause it
allus runs wilder in front of a stranger ’n at airy other time. Now,
what I want to know is, why an’ when an’ how must I pluck out that
eye—specially, when it sez in another place that if a man’s eye is
single his whole body is full o’ light. My eye is single enough to
suit any one. Fact is, it’s so blame single that some folks call it
singular; but the’ ain’t no more light in my body ’n there is in airy
other man’s.”
You couldn’t work off any spiritual interpretation stuff on Tank. He
thought an allegory was the varmint which lives in the Florida swamps.
Well, as far as that goes, I did, too, until the Friar pointed out
that it was merely a falsehood used to explain the truth; but Tank, he
didn’t join in with any new-fangled notions, an’ a feller had to talk
to him as straight out as though talkin’ to a hoss. The’ was lots of
times I didn’t envy the Friar his job.
But after he had satisfied Tank that it wasn’t required of him to
discard either of his lamps, especially the free one, he drifted off
into tellin’ us how he had spent the day—and then I envied him a
little, for he certainly did have the gift o’ wranglin’ words.
He told about havin’ rode up the mountain as far as he could go, and
then climbin’ as far as he could on foot. He showed how hard it was to
tell either a man or a mountain by the lines in their faces, and he
went on with this till he made a mountain almost human. Then he
switched around and showed how much a mountain was like life, ambition
bein’ like pickin’ out the mountain, the easy little foothills bein’
the start, the summit allus hid while a feller was climbin’, and each
little plateau urgin’ him to give up there and rest. He compared life
and a mountain, until it seemed that all a feller needed for a full
edication, was just to have a mountain handy. Then he wound up by
sayin’ that he hadn’t been able to reach the peak. He had sat in a
sheltered nook for a time, gazin’ up at the face of a cliff with an
overhangin’ bank o’ snow on top, the wind swirlin’ masses o’ snow down
about him, and everything tryin’ to point out that he had been a
failure, and might as well give up in disgust. He stopped here, and we
were all silent, for, as was usual with him, he had led us along to
where we could see life through his eyes for a space.
“After a time,” sez the Friar as soon as he saw we were in the right
mood, “I caught my breath again and followed the narrow ledge I was on
around to where I could see the highest peak stand out clear and
solitary; and from my side of it, it wasn’t possible for any man to
reach it. There was no wind here, the air was as sweet and pure as at
the dawn o’ creation, and everywhere I looked I met glory heaped on
glory. A gray cloud rested again’ the far side o’ the peak, and back
o’ this was the sun. Ah, there was a silver and a golden linin’ both
to this cloud; and all of a sudden I was comforted.
“I had done all I could do, and this was my highest peak. Whatever was
the highest peak for others, this was the highest peak for me; and
there was no more bitterness or envy or doubt or fear in my heart. I
stood for a long time lookin’ up at the gray cloud with its dazzling
edges, and some very beautiful lines crept into my memory—‘The paths
which are trod, by only the evenin’ and mornin’, and the feet of the
angels of God.’”
The Friar had let himself out a little at the end, and his eyes were
shinin’ when he finished. “I guess I have given you a sermon, after
all, boys,” he said, “and I hope you can use it to as good advantage
as I did when it came to me up on the mountain. We all have thoughts
we can’t put into words, and so I’ve failed to give you all ’at was
given me; but it’s some comfort to know that, be they big or be they
little, we don’t have to climb any mountains but our own, and whether
we reach the top or whether we come to a blind wall first, the main
thing is to climb with all our might and with a certain faith that
those who have earned rest shall find it, after the sun has set.”
This was one of the days when the magic of the Friar’s voice did
strange things to a feller’s insides. We knew ’at he was talkin’ in
parables, an’ talkin’ mostly to himself; but each one of us knew our
own little mountains, an’ it was darn comfortin’ to understand that
the Friar could have as tough a time on his as we had on ours.
We all sat silent, each feller thinkin’ over his own problems; and
after a time, the Friar sang the one beginnin’, “O little town of
Bethlehem!” It was dark by this time, but the firelight fell on his
face, an’ made it so soft-like an’ tender that ol’ Tank Williams
sniffled audible once, an’ when the song was finished he piled a lot
more wood on the fire, an’ pertended ’at he was catchin’ cold. When
Kit called us in to supper, we all sat still for a full minute, before
we could get back to our appetites again.