“In conclusion, Clarence, and fellow members of Bos, Equus and Co., I
wish to say for those of us to whom nature has given but two legs
instead of four, but has made partial compensation by bestowing upon us
the power of speech, that we are proud to claim you as friends, as
partners, as equals—”
“Stop!” groaned Si Blodgett, with hand upraised. “Remember Moses and the
golden calf!”
“Look here, Si,” said Gabriel, “don’t you slander our bull-calf. He
ain’t gold. He’ll be doggone good beef some day.”
“Oh, ye unregenerate!” almost screamed Si Blodgett. “Soon ye will be
bowing down to wood and stone!”
“Galatea,” said the Poet, “what’s the next course?”
“Carrots, George.”
While Si Blodgett continued to groan unavailingly, the carrots were
served. The Poet resumed his instrument, and never before was that
classic, “Hiawatha,” adapted for banjo and guitar, so inspiringly
rendered. It was repeated until Galatea produced the dessert of loaf
sugar, and Si Blodgett showed signs of frothing at the mouth over the
ungodliness of the scene. As Galatea tripped around the table, dropping
lumps of sugar into grateful mouths, Si Blodgett came forward,
stretching his arms across the table to Gabriel. He had failed to notice
that the colt was keeping one eye on him, with the accompanying ear laid
back.
“Oh, brother, brother,” he said, “beware—”
Whatever the warning was to be, it was cut short by a grunt caused by
the colt thrusting his hind quarters brusquely into Si Blodgett’s
stomach.
“Darn th’ critter!” exclaimed the exhorter, with an astonishing change
of voice and sentiment. And he slapped Clarence smartly on the flank.
“Lookout, Si!” shouted Gabriel. “Th’ colt don’t like ye.”
Si Blodgett dodged barely in time to escape Clarence’s heels. The other
guests were becoming restless. The Poet and the Artist joined Galatea
beside Napoleon’s chair. The exhorter went and picked up his basket,
and, approaching Gabriel, said:—
“It is our duty to be good to those who despitefully use us. Brother
Gabriel, hearin’ you’ve been disapp’inted in your hatchin’ of Golden
Guinea eggs, and havin’ a couple o’ pair of the chicks to sell, I came
over to offer you the first chance. They’re scarce, you know. I’ll take
four dollars a pair.”
For the space of at least a minute there was amazed and breathless
silence. Even the Poet found himself speechless. Amanda stared at Si
Blodgett, and then at Gabriel, whose eyes were fixed on the basket while
he opened and closed his mouth dumbly. At length speech burst from him.
“Si Blodgett, where’d ye git the eggs to hatch out them Golden Guinea
chicks o’ yourn?”
“The Lord cares for them that serve Him,” said the prudent exhorter. “I
got them eggs where you got yourn, an’ what’s more, I only paid twenty
cents apiece for ’em.”
“You was there, Si Blodgett, biddin’ agin’ me,” said Gabriel, doubling
up his huge fists, “an’ you heard th’ guarantee that there wa’n’t no
more Golden Guinea eggs for sale in th’ hull county.”
“That was true, Brother Gabriel; but, ye see, I’d already bought mine
three days before, an’ they wa’n’t for sale, neither.”
Gabriel gurgled and managed to swallow part of his wrath.
“Give us a look at them chicks,” he said.
Si Blodgett knelt down on the grass and picked at the knot of the string
that held the cloth over his basket.
“George!” exclaimed Galatea in a startled whisper, “look! That man’s
trousers are of dark cloth with a blue stripe!”
“Yes, but wait a bit. Look at Napoleon and the colt.”
The terrier had jumped down from his chair and was growling, with
bristling crest. Clarence, with ears laid back, had turned about and was
shaking his head at the man on his knees, whose back was toward him.
The knot was refractory. Si Blodgett’s coat-tails fell apart, revealing
a key-chain, one end of which disappeared in his hip pocket.
[Illustration: THE GUESTS ATE THEIR TURNIPS DECOROUSLY]
“There!” whispered Galatea. “See that patch!”
“Wait!” said the Poet. “The psychological moment approaches—Ah!”
With a sudden rush the colt fell upon Si Blodgett’s rear, nipped
savagely at the region of his hip pocket, and backed away triumphantly
with his teeth closed on a chain from which a bunch of keys dangled. The
man yelled in fright, then, seeing what was in the colt’s mouth, as
Gabriel sprang forward to capture the aggressor, he jumped up,
exclaiming:
“Never mind, Gabe; he’ll drop ’em in a minute.”
“Clarence!” said Galatea softly.
The colt took a high-kicking turn about the chestnut tree, swinging the
keys from his teeth, and then trotted up to the girl and dropped them in
her hand. Si Blodgett reached for them, but Amanda was too quick for
him.
“W’y, of all things,” she said, holding one of the keys in a firm grip,
“if here ain’t that lost key of our henhouse!”
Si Blodgett’s face turned red, then pale, and then he laughed nervously.
“Ye don’t say, Sister Amanda. I was wonderin’ if it was yourn, the day I
found it in—in th’ road.”
Gabriel was beginning to look dangerous, but he couldn’t resist a thrust
at Amanda.
“What do ye go ’round sowin’ henhouse keys for, Mandy? Expect to raise a
crop of ’em?”
“I left that key in the henhouse door,” said Amanda stubbornly, “an’
that’s all there is to it.”
“O Lord, how long, how long!” groaned Si Blodgett, returning to his
exhorter manner. “But I don’t bear malice. I’ll take my basket and go on
my way in peace.”
“You’ll stop right where you are, Si Blodgett!” thundered Gabriel.
“Oh—er—Mr. Blodgett,” drawled the Poet, coming forward amiably. “I
believe you have the reputation of being an earnest worker in—er—in the
Lord’s vineyard?”
“If some have been brought to the throne of grace through my
exhortations, it’s only the Lord’s mercy. I make no boast. I will be
humble. I will take my basket and go.”
He stooped to pick up the basket, above whose rim peeped four little
Guinea chicks. The Poet’s gentle hand restrained him.
“Perhaps you’d better go, Mr. Blodgett—presently. But if I were you I’d
leave the basket, and—er—its contents.”
“I—I don’t quite understand,” said Si Blodgett weakly.
“Why,” said the Poet mildly, “one who is engaged in your chosen work
of—er—of saving souls ought to neglect no opportunity of pointing a
useful moral. Now, here is this little matter of circumstantial evidence
which seems to convict a—er—a holy man of robbing his neighbor’s
hennery.”
“Prove it! prove it! I defy ye!” snarled Si Blodgett.
“Be calm, Mr. Blodgett. Let us consider the subject from the standpoint
of the exhorter. Imagine yourself addressing an assemblage of young
men—young men who are a little wild, we will say, who have raided
watermelon patches, and are in a fair way to break into their neighbors’
henneries. Think of the effect upon those young minds when you tell them
about the lost key of a looted henroost found in your pocket!”
Si Blodgett laughed. “What does a key prove?”
“Then,” continued the Poet, “you go on to tell about the contributory
evidence—the fact that the real thief wore dark trousers with a blue
stripe, just like your own.”
“How do ye know he did?” snarled Si Blodgett, casting an uneasy glance
down the legs of his dark trousers with their blue stripe.
“Just like your own,” the Poet went on, “because, as the real thief was
carrying off the valuable eggs he’d come for, a yearling colt put his
head through a window into the hennery and playfully nipped him in the
region of his hip pocket, tearing away a ragged square of cloth, which
was found hanging to a nail on the window-ledge the next morning.”
The Poet took Clarence’s trophy from his pocket and examined it
reflectively. Si Blodgett’s knees shook, and his mouth hung open.
“Finally,” said the Poet, “you might drive home your useful moral by
explaining to your young hearers that your own dark trousers with their
blue stripe bore a patch the exact size and shape of the square of cloth
torn from those of the robber of henroosts—Why, Mr. Blodgett!”
At mention of the patch, the exhorter had turned and fled toward the
road.
“Hi, there! Si! Si Blodgett!” yelled Gabriel.
“No,” said the Poet, restraining him. “You have a good, serviceable
basket, and four fine, lusty Golden Guinea chicks—worth four dollars a
pair. Don’t be greedy.”
“Clarence, you’re a wonder!” said Galatea, with her arm about the colt’s
neck.
“Mandy,” said Gabriel, “you put these here chicks with their brothers
an’ sisters in th’ henhouse—an’ don’t go ’round sowin’ no more keys.”
VI
_Taurus Cupid, Esq._
As jocund Summer merged into placid Autumn, Gustavius throve mightily
and waxed fat. His shoulders broadened, his voice deepened, his
sharp-pointed horns acquired a high polish through painstaking friction
upon every available object, and became rigidly embedded in his
thickening skull. He could summon the red glow to his eyes in moments of
anger, and he exulted in the knowledge that his stout heart was bursting
with courage. Gustavius was putting bull-calfhood forever behind him,
and each day brought him increased yearnings for valorous deeds.
In view of this physical and moral transformation, Gustavius wondered at
his tolerance of the familiarities still recklessly practiced by his
comrades. But how could he stoop so low as to enforce respect from a pig
or a goat? The dog was eliminated from the problem, because it was a
dog’s natural prerogative to nip at the heels of superiority and avoid
punishment by flight. As for the mare, she was uniformly courteous, and
the playfulness of the colt disarmed him.
Concerning the two-legged members of the family, Gustavius felt himself
the victim of hereditary respect for the sternly authoritative person
called Gabe, and there was something so soothing in the manner of the
lank, long-limbed man who spent most of his time lounging about the
veranda that it was impossible to offer him any sort of challenge. The
red-headed girl—ah! Gustavius was not ashamed to confess to himself that
the bare sight of her made him glow with docile affection.
“And yet,” said Reginald impudently,—for Gustavius’s later reflections
had unconsciously resolved themselves into speech, as he stood with his
comrades in the afternoon shade of the willows,—“and yet a bit of
anything else as red as that girl’s hair sends you into convulsions of
rage. Talk about inconsistency—”
“Shut up, pig!” said Clarence. “You’re jealous.”
Suddenly Gustavius began to bellow and paw the earth.
“What disturbs you, my son?” inquired Mrs. Cowslip, between the finish
of one cud and the beginning of another.
“It’s that rank outsider again, who is forever butting in with that
vile-smelling red wagon,” said Gustavius, lifting his nose toward the
lawn. “He angers me beyond words. I’ve laid for him a hundred times, but
he hasn’t a drop of sporting blood in his body; he’s forever hanging on
to the skirts of the red-headed girl.”
Galatea and the Artist, carrying a long, flat box between them, were
walking about the lawn midway between the house and the willows.
Presently they found a smooth, level space, opened the box, and
proceeded to drive into the ground two gaudily painted stakes and some
arches of wire.
“It’s very annoying the way that chap’s always about nowadays,” admitted
Reginald. “I was just thinking of going up to get my back scratched, but
it’s no use now.”
“My time will come one of these days,” said Gustavius. “Just let me
catch that chap alone once, that’s all!” And he began industriously
sharpening his horns on the stone fence.
It was nothing short of wonderful, the influence unconsciously exerted
by the Poet’s sister over these four-legged comrades whom she had
captivated on the very day of her arrival, as you cannot fail to
remember. Now Mrs. Cowslip, Cleopatra, Clarence, Reginald, and William,
who ordinarily prided himself on his independence of action, left the
grateful shade of the willows, and, with perfunctory nibblings at grass,
of which they were already over-full, slowly approached the scene of
preparations for that ancient and honorable game called croquet. Soon
that influence was too powerful even to be resisted by Gustavius,
notwithstanding the hated presence of the Artist, and he moved sulkily
after the others.
The Artist was pensive, and occasionally, as his adoring glance rested
on Galatea’s graceful figure, he sighed. His attention being thus
divided, it was not strange that he should miss the second arch.
“How foolish of you!” she said. “I can now save you further exertions by
taking your ball around with me.”
Being already past the first side arch and in position for the middle
one, with the Artist’s ball an easy victim, she was able to make good
her promise. The Artist could not regret his inevitable defeat; it left
him free to follow Galatea about and pour into her ears a lover’s woes.
“Sweetheart, why do you continue so cold and distant to me? One would
suppose that when a girl is engaged—”
“Arthur, take your foot away from that arch!”
With beautiful precision she made the long “split” stroke, and was safe
for the first stake.
“As I was saying, dear, when a girl is engaged—”
“Arthur! you are trying to make me miss the stake! Can’t you play fair?”
“I’m not playing at all, darling. I can’t play. I can’t eat. I can’t
sleep. One would expect a little mercy from a girl who wears his
engagement—”
“There! you moved your ball just as I was about to strike for it!”
The Artist groaned and replaced the ball. She plumped her own into it
dexterously from half-way across the field, and proceeded on the home
stretch.
“I don’t know how long I’m going to stand this suspense,” sighed the
Artist, “and yet you resist all my pleadings to name the day—”
“Arthur, _I_ am playing croquet. Will you kindly stand one side?”
She played safely up to the last arch.
“If the date was fixed, dear, I think I could bear your lack
of—enthusiasm; that is, if the date were reasonably near—”
“Can’t you keep away from the handle of my mallet, Arthur? Now I’m
staked on your ball, and must risk all on one last stroke.”
“Oh, you’ll make it,” groaned the Artist. “I wish that ball was my head.
Any sort of attention would be better than none at all. I’ve lost all
hope of getting another kiss—”
“Ha! Whitewashed! whitewashed!” sang the girl, dancing about the stake.
“Perhaps there’s some other game you play?”
The Artist sat down on the grass with his head in his hands.
“Does your head ache, Arthur?”
“My heart aches. Darling, have pity on me and name the day when we two—”
“Why, certainly—Wednesday.”
The Artist leaped to his feet.
“Day after to-morrow—how happy you make me!”
“Oh, I haven’t decided on any _particular_ Wednesday.”
He threw himself back on the grass.
“But I’ve a feeling that it will be _some_ Wednesday, Arthur, dear.”
Then she stooped over quickly and kissed him.
“I wondered whether Arthur would have sufficient diplomacy to let you
win, Galatea,” said the Poet, with a perfectly straight face, his
approach having been unobserved; “but it seems that I did him an
injustice.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Galatea with dignity; “but if you
want to make it a three-handed game, I’ll undertake to whitewash you
both.”
“Oh, there’s nothing in it for me,” drawled the Poet aggravatingly;
“however, I’m obliging by nature; I don’t mind simplifying things for
Arthur.”
Galatea, with her nose in the air, sent her ball through the first two
arches with a single stroke, and with the two thus gained took position,
made the third arch, and with a swift safe drive for the middle one,
which she missed, found herself well out of the way of hostile balls.
“There,” she said; “I don’t mind giving you the advantage by starting
first.”
“Your generosity deserves a better reward,” said the Poet, as he
selected a mallet with great care, “but some twenty years’ observation
of the game has taught me that the croquet field is where friendship
ceases.”
The Poet’s lank, knobby figure was about as symmetrical as that of a
daddy-longlegs, but he had the eye of a champion marksman, and no nerves
at all. He followed his sister’s tactics, and improved upon them. He
took his position at the third arch with such nicety that in striking
through it he sent his ball to within a yard of where Galatea’s lay.
“Any odds?” he asked coolly, as he clicked them together.
Galatea was scornfully silent. The Poet’s “split” for position at the
centre arch was defective, and with brutal disregard of the Artist’s
feelings he took position directly in line with the two first arches.
“Arthur,” ordered Galatea, “come straight through and use your two
strokes to get George’s ball.”
“Oh, well, if you’re going to play partners against me!” And the Poet
threw down his mallet.
“There’s no rule against coaching,” snapped Galatea.
But the Artist’s mind was not on croquet. The game resolved itself into
a contest between the Poet and his sister as to which should take the
greatest liberties with his ball. Thus they were neck and neck at the
centre arch on the home stretch, with the Artist still at his second
arch. Galatea missed, and the Poet found himself in cocksure position
for the last two arches and the stake.
By this time all the four-legged members of the firm of Bos, Equus and
Co. had drawn near and were watching the progress of the game with
lively curiosity. Reginald, with his customary assurance, now advanced
with ingratiating grunts out of the side of his mouth, and rubbed his
side against the Poet’s leg, who had a sudden inspiration.
“Two to one I can make it with the pig’s legs for arches,” he said.
Galatea experienced renewed hope. The Poet cajoled Reginald into
standing between the two arches with his kinked tail resting upon the
one nearest the stake. There was a narrow, though clear, space between
his legs, in line with the arches.
[Illustration: ALL THE FOUR-LEGGED MEMBERS OF THE FIRM HAD DRAWN NEAR]
“Attention, Reginald!” and the Poet struck his ball with just the
requisite force to send it through the two arches.
Unfortunately, at that instant Reginald sat down, and the ball, striking
his fat stomach, bounced hopelessly out of position. Galatea dropped on
the grass and shrieked.
“I’ll give you the game,” said the Poet. “It’s an antiquated pastime,
anyhow.”
“Sour grapes,” laughed Galatea.
“Not at all. I’ve thought of an improvement, that’s all,” said the Poet.
“Stay where you are, Reginald. William, come here.”
The goat put his nose in the Poet’s hand and followed him to the other
end of the field, where he suffered himself to be stationed between the
two arches opposite the pig. Over the two arches on one side the Poet
stationed Cleopatra and Clarence, and opposite them Mrs. Cowslip and
Gustavius. The bull-calf wrinkled his yellow nose and looked mutinous,
while his comrades seemed much gratified. Then the Poet went calmly
around the field and pulled up all the arches, except the centre one,
and said:—
“There, all we lack is a camel or an elephant for the centre—but nothing
is perfect in this world, at the start.”
“George,” said Galatea, wiping her eyes, “for out-and-out idiocy you
certainly take the prize.”
“Not at all. That’s what’s said at first about every great discoverer.
There hasn’t been a single improvement in this game in seven hundred
years. Now for the first time in history you’re going to see croquet
played with living arches—Ouch!”
Clarence had made a sudden playful leap from his position and nipped the
Poet’s lean thigh. He was led back and admonished so severely that he
meekly refrained from making any further demonstrations.
With perfect gravity the Poet led Galatea and the Artist in a game of
croquet calculated to make history. If Mrs. Cowslip had not kicked the
Poet’s ball clear off the field when it bounced smartly against her
tenderest pastern, and if Gustavius had not destroyed the Artist’s nerve
by bellowing hoarsely in his ear at a critical moment, it would have
been a bewildering success.
“Anyway,” said the Poet, when Galatea had won through rank favoritism on
the part of Reginald, who refrained from sitting down in _her_ critical
moment, “anyway, we’ve given one more demonstration that all are born
free and equal in the firm of Bos, Equus and Co., even when it comes to
croquet.”
“One thing I don’t understand,” said the Artist, who, being in love, was
quite hopelessly serious, “and that is how you manage these animals
turned out loose this way, when they become unruly, as all animals are
apt to at times.”
“The learned Professor of whom we rented this place, and who attended to
their early education, didn’t neglect that point,” answered the Poet,
with a solemn glance at Galatea which brought before her mind’s eye a
vision of their first exciting experience with William and Gustavius.
“In times of mutiny one magic word uttered by the Professor brought them
to their senses completely humbled.”
“Indeed!” said the Artist. “This is most interesting. I’ve heard of such
methods being used by animal trainers. What is that word, George?”
“Its efficacy, Arthur, consists in the rarity of its use. It is
pronounced only as a last resort, as familiarity would breed contempt
for it. The word, Arthur, is”—and he whispered in the Artist’s
ear—“Abracadabra.”
And Galatea related the circumstances of their single observation of its
potency,—as recorded in the early part of this veracious chronicle,—with
special stress on the advantages offered by a low-limbed cherry tree in
case of pursuit by an enraged bull-calf.
“What you have told me is really wonderful,” said the Artist. “Never
again will I doubt that domestic animals are possessed of reasoning
powers, as well as capacity for affection.”
“Here comes Gabriel,” said Galatea. “He looks alarmed. I wonder what has
happened?”