“Why should I waste words on a stranger and an interloper?”
“Come down, William. Come down, or I’ll assert the last remnant of my
authority as a two-legged person.”
William stamped his foot on the shingles in a manner plainly hostile.
The Poet picked up a good-sized cobble-stone.
“William, for the last time I warn you. Come down!”
The goat backed up two or three steps and shook his horns.
“Very well, William, your blood be on your own head”; and the Poet threw
the cobble-stone.
Now, as is well known, a goat has only one really vulnerable spot,
namely, his curved and bony nose. Furthermore, a goat’s nose—like the
beard of the prophet—is sacred. Therefore, when the cobble-stone, flying
straight from the Poet’s incautious hand, struck William forcibly upon
his most honored feature, the situation became grave. Stopping only to
make one grimace of anguish, partly physical but mainly of his outraged
soul, he ran to the west gable, leaped down upon the water-tank, thence
to the woodshed roof, and from there one leap landed him on the ground.
Measuring with his inflamed and malevolent eye his distance from the
Poet, he began backing slowly, with portent that could not be
misunderstood.
“O George, he’s going to butt you!” screamed Galatea. “Sit down! sit
down!”
But the Poet stood gazing at William like one fascinated. Having backed
to a distance satisfactory to his nice discrimination in such matters,
the goat lowered his nose and launched himself forward straight as an
arrow aimed for the lank, concave surface which indicated the Poet’s
stomachic region. Perhaps it was the goat’s waning enthusiasm over a
mark so little inviting,—at any rate the impact of his horns was only
sufficient to cause the Poet to sit down with promptness.
“O George, did he hurt you?” asked Galatea anxiously. “I told you to sit
down.”
“I believe I took your advice, Galatea,” said the Poet, looking about
him in a dazed manner.
The goat was slowly backing again. There was a look in his eye which
said more plainly than words:—
“Perchance you’ve had enough? If not, there’s more where that came
from.”
“Don’t get up, George,” said Galatea. “Don’t move. Sit where you are and
he’ll go away.”
“I’ve no intention of getting up,” answered the Poet. “I’m perfectly
comfortable where I am, thank you. Besides, I’m not one of those
low-spirited, truckling persons who insist on standing in the presence
of a superior.”
The cow, the bull-calf, the pig in his ruffle, and the colt looking out
of the kitchen window, were regarding the spectacle with evident
satisfaction. The goat, as though satisfied that his wounded honor had
been sufficiently avenged, began slowly consuming one of the white
garments bleaching on the grass.
In her excitement Galatea’s hat had escaped from its fastening and
fallen to the ground. Just now the sun shone through the branches of an
old cherry tree, converting her loosened coils of dark red hair into a
scarlet taunt which the bull-calf could not ignore. With hind-legs wide
apart, because of the peach-basket, he was pawing the earth with his
forefeet and uttering adolescent bellows of rage.
“Do you think, dear, that he means me?” asked the girl anxiously,
starting to rise.
“Yes, dear, it’s your turn,” replied the Poet complacently.
“But I’m—I’m sitting down.”
“It’s that red badge of provocation you carry about under your hat,
Galatea. Why in thunder did you take it off? Look out! He’s coming!”
The Poet rose, intending to intercept the bull-calf, whose progress was
somewhat impeded by the peach-basket; but, noticing the goat backing
away for another assault, he sat down again.
“Quick, Galatea! The cherry tree!”
There was a comfortable branch at about the height of a man’s shoulder,
with a wooden bench under it. With the bellowing bull-calf close at her
heels, Galatea ran to the bench and—not without a generous display of
striped hose—swung herself up to the branch, leaving the enemy pawing
the earth innocuously below.
“Galatea,” remarked the Poet solemnly, “I always said that those striped
ones of yours were unlucky. Do you remember?”
“Shut up, George!” Galatea tucked her little boots under her on the
branch, smoothed out her walking-skirt, and leaned against the trunk of
the tree with the manner of a young lady accustomed to the usages of the
very best society. George had the indecency to laugh.
“George, if I were a full-grown man I wouldn’t sit on the grass the
whole afternoon just because of a poor, innocent little billy-goat.”
“Galatea, if I were a perfectly proper, highly educated and accomplished
young lady just out of Vassar, I wouldn’t roost in a cherry tree just
because of an innocently inquiring bull-calf.”
Then they both laughed.
Just then the colt whinnied long and joyously.
“Giddap,” sounded a voice from the road.
A sleek-coated young bull-terrier, very much alert, bounded down the
path and stopped suddenly, as though divided between astonishment and
indignation at the sight of the cow in the tulip-bed.
“That must be Napoleon,” said Galatea. “Gabriel is returning.”
A spring-wagon, loaded with trunks and boxes, and drawn by an extremely
well-fed bay mare, whose driver, stoop-shouldered and sunburnt,
perspired uncomfortably in his Sunday clothes, came into view on the
driveway beyond the cherry tree, and stopped.
“How do you do, Gabriel?” said Galatea, smiling upon him from the cherry
tree.
“Pleased to meet you, Gabriel,” said the Poet affably, from his seat on
the grass.
For at least a minute the man in the wagon gazed upon the scene in
silence, slowly opening and closing his mouth. Then he jumped down,
remarking:—
“Jumpin’ Jehosephat! Sic’em, Napoleon!”
The terrier jumped for Mrs. Cowslip’s nose. She rose from the tulip-bed,
but stood at bay. There was a great clatter of hoofs in the kitchen, and
the colt ran out through the open door and began kicking up his heels
gleefully under his mother’s nose. The bull-calf, the goat, and the pig
arrayed themselves, as for an argument, beside the cow.
“Amanda!” bawled Gabriel. And then to the Poet: “Be you folks hurt, or
only skeered? I must a’ missed ye, waitin’ for t’ other train.”
“We’re only scared, I think,” answered the Poet, rising cautiously, with
one eye on the goat. Galatea slid down from her perch and joined them.
“Darn the critters!” said Gabriel. “It’s all Amanda’s fault. Of course
she had to go trapsin’ off somewhere. Amanda! O Amanda!”
Amanda appeared in the edge of the orchard, with a tin pail in her hand,
indicating with a wave of her apron that she was coming as fast as she
could with her heaping pail of strawberries.
“I locked ’em up,” said Gabriel. “But, laws, ’t aint no use lockin’ up
critters edicated by a college perfessor.”
“Fer th’ land sakes!” ejaculated Amanda, arriving breathlessly and
taking in the whole scene at a glance.
The pig went up to her, grunting amiably in his white ruffle.
“You shameless critter!” said Amanda, with her face aflame, as she tore
the indecorous garment from Reginald’s neck.
“Ha! ha! ho! ho! ho!” laughed Gabriel. “Serves ye right, Amanda, for
goin’ off an’ leavin’ edicated critters loose around th’ house.”
“Shoo!” said Amanda, waving her apron at Mrs. Cowslip, who merely gave
her a mild look of reproach.
“Git back to th’ barn, all of ye,” commanded Gabriel, with no better
result.
“Say it, Gabe,” said Amanda, stamping her foot.
“No,” answered Gabriel, “I mustn’t. It keeps their feelin’s hurt for a
hull day. Th’ Perfessor wouldn’t like it.”
“I don’t care, Gabe, you jest say it.”
“Say what?” asked the Poet, overcome with curiosity.
“W’y,” explained Gabriel, “ye see, it’s th’ Perfessor’s idee that these
critters are jest as good as he is. Ekel rights for man an’ beast, he
calls it. You bet they’re willin’, consarn ’em! It’s only when they want
to run th’ hull place that he resorts to extreme measures, as he says.
Then he shouts a queer, heathen word at ’em, an’ they sneak off like a
dog caught suckin’ eggs.”
Out of regard for the Professor’s feelings Gabriel proceeded with such
comparatively mild measures as flicking Mrs. Cowslip with his whip, and
trying ineffectually to push the bull-calf toward the barn. The colt
danced about, nipping at him with bared teeth. But it was Reginald who
brought things to a climax. The pig, escaping the teeth of the terrier,
ran between Gabriel’s legs, sending him sprawling on his back.
“Say it, Gabe,” called out Amanda.
“You bet I’ll say it!” Gabriel replied, rising and confronting the
four-footed mutineers, now grouped as though conscious that they had
carried matters a trifle too far. Throwing out his chest, Gabriel
thundered the single word:—
“ABRACADABRA!”
The effect was magical. The Poet and his sister could hardly believe
their eyes. Instantly, with head drooping in the most dejected manner,
the colt started toward the barn, followed by Mrs. Cowslip and the
bull-calf, their tails now drooping and sorrowful. Next went the goat
with conscience-smitten mien, and at the end of the melancholy file was
the pig, squealing plaintively, all the kink out of his tail.
“Wait a bit, this won’t do at all!” suddenly exclaimed the Poet, with
more excitement in his voice than his sister had ever before noted.
“Do ye want to be a friend to th’ critters?” inquired Gabriel.
“I’m going to be a brother to them,” said the Poet.
“And I’m going to be a sister to them, poor things!” said Galatea.
“Didn’t the Professor have some word with which he expressed his
forgiveness, and his love, with a gentle reproof and warning to be more
careful in the future?” she added, looking at Gabriel with soft appeal
in her eyes.
“Sartin’, sartin’.” Gabriel scratched his head. “I can’t jest remember.
It begun the same, with a-b ab—”
“Of course,” broke in the Poet. “The canonical form of pronouncing
absolution.”
He ran after the delinquents, calling them by name: “O Mrs. Cowslip!
Clarence! Gustavius! William! Reginald!”
They stopped and looked back penitently. Galatea ran to her brother’s
side. He held out his hands and cried:—
“ABSOLVO!”
“Absolvo, absolvo!” echoed Galatea.
Cheerfully, but with subdued spirits, Bos, Equus and Co. gathered about
their new friends, accepting their forgiveness with various tokens of
gratitude. The pig lay down at Galatea’s feet, grunting contentedly,
while the colt brushed her cheek with his velvet muzzle. The Poet felt a
warm nose in his hand, and was not amazed to find it was his late
enemy’s, the goat’s.
“Well, darn my skin!” said Gabriel.
“Galatea, I think we shall do very well—very well indeed,” said the
Poet.
II
_Fair Warning to the Horseless_
Seated on the veranda, in a low lawn-chair which caused his long shanks
to thrust his angular knees up to the level of his chin, the Poet was
perusing the Odes of Horace in the original text, and pencilling their
English equivalent on the leaves of a small writing-pad. His handwriting
was large and careless. Every minute or two he tore a filled sheet from
the pad and dropped it on the edge of the veranda floor at his side. A
straggling honeysuckle vine concealed from him the fact that William was
present, and that, as each sheet fell to the floor, the goat was
consuming it with every evidence of appreciation. Probably never before
had a translation of Horace met with such instant success.
But presently William, becoming impatient at the Poet’s deliberation,
seized a sheet out of his hand and stood detected. At the same instant a
musical peal of laughter from the open window of the breakfast room
proved that the Poet’s sister had been a delighted witness of the
disaster. After one startled look about him, the Poet realized that the
goat’s attentions had been indeed thorough. He had recourse to his
customary whimsical philosophy.
“Galatea,” said the Poet gravely, “do you observe that the whole of my
manuscript has been accepted without reading? That is the highest
compliment possible to pay a poet.”
“And yet you hear it everywhere that the classic poets are not
appreciated nowadays.”
The girl, still laughing, joined her brother on the veranda. She was all
in pink—fluffy pink, with a fluffy pink thing flapping above her
mahogany tresses, producing an effect impossible to describe, fatal to
another woman, in her case charming. The goat put his forefeet on the
veranda and seemed to nod his approval.
“William,” said the Poet, “you have given me an idea—an idea which may
influence my whole career.”
“Why not?” commented Galatea. “Haven’t you and I been duly initiated as
members of the firm of Bos, Equus and Co.? Aren’t all our interests
mutual?” And again she laughed.
“I have long been undecided,” resumed the Poet, “as to whether my muse
is classical and for the few, or modern and for the many; or, indeed,
whether I should not give up poetry for the plough. William, it shall be
for you to decide. I will now compose something for the masses. If you
accept it instantly, as you have accepted my Horatian Odes—not for
publication, it is true, but—er—but for purposes best known to yourself,
I shall at once take steps to become an honest husbandman. If, however,
you decline what I am about to offer you, I shall consider myself a
properly ordained Poet of the People, and shall act accordingly.
William, a grave responsibility rests upon your discrimination.”
The goat nodded with an intelligent expression, his venerable beard
sweeping the floor.
“O George, how perfectly absurd!” laughed Galatea.
The Poet scribbled on his pad for a couple of minutes, tore off the
sheet, and offered it to William. The goat sniffed at it, and appeared
doubtful.
“You are quite right, William. Others have found my handwriting
illegible. I will read it to you.”