--A BIBLE TALK
It was with a sigh of relief that Scipio now turned to Wild Bill.
Somehow, he naturally looked to him for guidance. Nor did he quite
know why.
"'Bout that Bible talk?" he inquired. "Guess you said they best set
around in the sun."
Bill nodded.
"I sure did. Guess they kind o' need airin' some. 'Tain't no use in
settin' in their clothes damp; they'll be gettin' sick, sure. Ther's a
dandy bit o' grass right here. Best set 'em down, an' get around an'
hand 'em your talk."
But the worried father pushed his weedy hair off his forehead with a
troubled air.
"I haven't read up a deal," he apologized.
The gambler promptly swept his objection aside.
"That don't figger any. Once you get goin' you won't find no trouble.
It's dead easy after you're started. That's the way it is with
passons. They jest get a holt of a notion, an' then--why, they jest
yarn."
"I see," replied Scipio doubtfully, while the other men gathered
round. "But," he went on more weakly still, "'bout that notion?"
Bill stirred impatiently.
"That's it. You start right in with the notion."
"Course," cried Sandy. "The notion's easy. Why, ther's heaps o' things
you ken take as a notion. Say, wa'an't ther' a yarn 'bout some blamed
citizen what took to a cave, an' the checkens an' things got busy
feedin' him?"
"Ravens," said Sunny.
"Ravens nuthin'," cried the indignant Sandy. "Checkens of the air,
they was."
Sunny shrugged.
"That ain't no sort o' Bible talk, anyway," he protested. "You need
suthin' what gives 'em a lesson. Now, ther's Nore an' his floatin'
ranch--"
"That wa'an't a ranch neither," contradicted Sandy promptly. "It was
jest a barn."
"Ark," said Toby.
"Wal, ark then," admitted Sandy. He didn't mind Toby's interference.
But the discussion was allowed to go no further. Bill's impatience
manifested itself promptly.
"Say, it don't matter a cuss whether it was an ark or a barn or a
ranch. Sunny's yarn goes. Now, jest set around an' git the kids in the
middle, an' you, Zip, git busy with this Nore racket."
The last authority had given its decision. There was no more to be
said, and the matter was promptly proceeded with. The expectant
children, who had stood by listening to the discussion of their
elders, were now seated on the grass, and before them sat the board of
Scriptural instruction. Bill remained in his position on the
tree-trunk. On the ground, cross-legged, sat Scipio, on his right.
Sunny lounged full length upon the ground next to him. Sandy and Toby
formed the other horn of the half-circle on the gambler's left.
It was a quaint picture upon which the warm noon sun shone down. The
open grass clearing, surrounded with tall dense bushes. On one side
the wash-tub and the various appurtenances of the bath, with the creek
a little way beyond. And in the open, sitting alone, side by side,
their little pink bodies bare of all but their coarse woolen
undershirts, their little faces shining with wholesome soap, their
eyes bright with expectancy for the story that was to come, the two
pretty children of a lonely father. Then, in a semicircle about them,
the members of the Trust, with their hard, unclean faces, their rough
clothes and rougher manners, and their uncultured minds driven by
hearts that were--well, just human.
"Git busy," ordered Bill, when the Trust had finally settled itself.
And promptly Scipio, with more determination than discretion, cleared
his throat and plunged into his peroration.
His mild face beamed. Gentleness and affection shone in every line of
it. And somehow his diffidence, the realization of his ignorance of
the work demanded of him, were absorbed and lost to his consciousness
in the wonderful parental delight of teaching his offspring.
"Say, kiddies," he began, with that soft inflection that seems so much
a part of some men of rough manners, "I want you to listen careful to
a yarn I'm goin' to tell you about. Y'see--"
He hesitated, and unconsciously one hand was lifted and passed across
his brow with a movement that suggested puzzlement. It was as though
he were not quite sure whither his story were going to lead him.
The gambler nodded encouragingly.
"Bully," he murmured, turning his eyes just for one moment in the
little man's direction. But it was only for a moment. The next he was
staring absorbedly out at the bush opposite, like a man lost in some
train of thought far removed from the matter in hand. His beady eyes
stared unsmilingly, but with curious intentness.
However, Scipio was far too much concerned with what lay before him to
think of anything else. But the sharply spoken encouragement spurred
him, and he went ahead.
"Now, maybe you both heard tell how God made this funny old world for
us to live in," he went on, endeavoring to give lightness to his
manner. "He made Sufferin' Creek, too--"
Toby coughed, and Sandy whispered audibly to him.
"I don't guess Zip ought to run Sufferin' Creek in this yarn," he said
seriously. "Sufferin' Creek don't seem right in a Bible talk."
Scipio waited, and then, ignoring the comment, labored clumsily on.
"Now, I'm goin' to tell you a yarn about it. Y'see, kiddies--y'see,
ther' weren't a heap o' folk around when God first fixed things
right--"
"Jest one man an' a snake," interrupted Sandy in his informative way.
"Shut up," whispered Toby, prodding him with his elbow. Sandy scowled,
but remained silent.
"Wal," continued Scipio, "as I was sayin', He jest made one sort o'
sample man an' a snake. An'," he added, suddenly brightening under
inspiration, "He sot 'em in a garden, an' called it the Garden of
Eden."
Little Vada suddenly clapped her hands.
"Yes, an' it was all flowers an'--an' fruit," she cried ecstatically.
Jamie's eyes were dancing with delight, too, but he remained silent,
waiting for developments.
The members of the Trust looked on with the deepest interest. Each
man's face wore a half-smile--that is, all except the gambler's, who
still appeared to be absorbed in his own thought--and the bush
opposite. But the interest of these men was less in the little man's
story than in a speculation as to when he was going to break down, and
yield his tutelary attitude before a battery of infantile questions.
However, Scipio was still in a fairly strong position.
"Well," he agreed, "I do guess ther' was fruit ther', but I don't
guess it was a fruit ranch exactly. Maybe it was sort of mixed
farmin'. Howsum, that don't matter a heap. Y'see, ther' was heaps an'
heaps of animals, an' bugs, an' spiders, an' things--an' jest one
man."
"Ther' was a woman," corrected the irrepressible Sandy. "That's dead
sure. They got busy on one of the man's ribs an' made her. Ain't that
so, Toby?"
He turned to the squat figure beside him for corroboration, but Sunny
took up the matter from across the semicircle.
"You're a wise guy," he exclaimed scornfully. "Can't you kep from
buttin' in? Say, I'd hate to know sech a heap as you."
Just for an instant Wild Bill turned his sharp eyes on his companions.
"Shut up you'se all," he cried. And promptly Scipio was allowed to
continue his story.
"Now, 'bout that garden," he said thoughtfully. "Y'see, God told that
feller he wasn't to pick no fruit. Y'see, I guess it was needed fer
cannin' or preservin'. Maybe it was needed for makin' elegant candy. I
don't know rightly--"
"You're talkin' foolish," exclaimed Sandy, jumping up excitedly.
"Cannin'?" he cried scornfully. "They didn't can fruit them days."
"Maybe you're right," said Scipio apologetically.
"I know I am," snorted Sandy.
"Then shut up," cried Bill, without turning his head.
"Anyhow," went on Scipio, when all argument had ceased, "it was jest
up to that feller not to pick that fruit. An' he didn't mean to
neither, only he got kind o' friendly with that snake--"
Little Vada jumped up.
"I know--I know," she cried, in the wildest excitement. "The snake
made him eat an apple, an' then the rain came down, an' poured an'
poured--"
"Poured an' poured," echoed Jamie, jumping to his feet and dancing
around his sister.
"That's so," admitted Scipio, in relief.
"Poured nothin'," murmured Sandy under his breath. "He's messin' up
the whole yarn."
But as his comment didn't reach the father's ears he went on
placidly.
"Wal, the rain poured down," he said, "so they was nigh drownded--"
"Why'd the rain tum?" suddenly inquired Jamie with interest.
"Ah!" murmured Scipio. Then he added brightly, "Because he picked the
fruit."
"Y'see," explained Vada, with sisterly patronage, "he didn't orter
picked the apple."
Jamie nodded without understanding.
"'Ess."
"Wal," went on Scipio, taking advantage of the pause, "he was nigh
drownded, an' he had to swim an' swim, an' then he built himself a
ranch."
"Barn," cried Sandy, unable to keep quiet any longer. "It was a barn
to kep his stock in."
"Ark," said Toby decidedly. "He built a Nore's Ark--same as toys
kiddies plays with."
"But Bill said Sunny's yarn goes," protested the troubled Scipio. And,
receiving an affirmatory nod from the preoccupied gambler, he went on.
"Wal, he set that ranch afloat, an' put out a boat an' rescued all the
other animals, an' bugs, an' spiders, an' things, an' then set out a
duck to see how things was going--"
"Not a duck, Zip," said Sunny, shaking his head sorrowfully.
"Course not," agreed Sandy scornfully.
"Pigeon," suggested Toby.
But little Vada saved the situation. She jumped to her feet, dragging
Jamie with her. Her dark eyes were shining, and her round little
cheeks were scarlet with excitement.
"It wasn't a duck, nor a pigeon, nor nothin' but a parrot," she
declared. "Momma told us. He sent out a parrot; an' it flew, an' flew,
an' flew. An' then it come back to the ark, carryin' a tree in its
beak. An' then Nore knew there wasn't no more rain, nor nothing, an'
they turned his wife into a pillow o' salt 'cos she'd made him eat the
apple. An', pop-pa, tell us another."
"'Ess, a nudder," cried Jamie, his chubby fat legs wabbling under him
as he danced about--"a nudder--a nudder--a nud--"
But his lisping request was never completed, for, without a word of
warning, Wild Bill suddenly leapt from his seat, and, with a wave of
his arm, swept the two children sprawling into their father's lap,
while he charged across the clearing. Just for a fraction of a second
he paused as he closed on the bush he had so long contemplated, and
his friends heard his voice in a furious oath.
"You son of a--!" he roared; and simultaneously there was a flash and
a sharp report from his gun--another, and yet another. Then he
vanished into the bush, his smoking revolver still in his hand ready
for use, followed, with no less speed, by Toby and Sandy Joyce.
For a moment Scipio stared; but Sunny Oak seemed to grasp something of
the situation. He flung himself before the two children, his right
hand gripping a revolver which he always carried concealed amongst his
rags. And at the same moment the gambler's voice came back to him.
"Huyk them kids right back to the store, an' kep 'em there!" it cried.
And instantly the indolent loafer, with a movement almost electrical
in its swiftness, seized Vada in his arms and dashed off up the hill,
followed by the little father, bearing the screaming Jamie in his.
Inside the bush the three men searched, with eyes and ears alert in
the fashion of furious terriers. The branches and inner leaves were
spattered with blood, showing that the gambler's shots had taken some
effect. The ground, too, was covered with footprints.
With a rush Bill set off trailing the latter, and so soft was the
ground that he had little or no difficulty in the matter. The trail
took them along the creek bank, and here and there a splash of blood
warned them that their quarry was severely wounded.
But, even so, they were doomed to disappointment. Thirty yards from
the clearing they came to a spot where the moist soil was well beaten
with horse's hoofs, and here the human footprints ended. All three men
stared out down the creek. And then it was that another furious oath
escaped the gambler's lips, as he beheld a racing horseman making good
his escape, more than a hundred yards below them.
For some moments Wild Bill stood raging impotently. Then he turned on
his companions, with a perfect devil glaring out of his ferocious
eyes.
"God's curse light on 'em!" he roared. "It's James' gang. May his soul
rot. I'll get 'em! I'll get 'em! They're after those kids. But, by the
wall-eyed Mackinaw, they shan't touch a hair o' their heads as long as
I'm a livin' man. It's war, boys! D'ye hear? It's him an' me. Me--an'
James! An' I swar to God he'll go down an' out as sure as my name's
Wild Bill!"