“Ike,” says he, sober-like, “what is there around here that looks the
most like a ca-mel?”
“It’s a neck-and-neck race between you and Maud S.”
“Thanks.”
* * * * *
He takes off his clothes and goes to bed, kinda chuckling to himself.
Maud S wasn’t no relation to the famous trotting mare of the same
name, unless you figure back to the dim and distant past to the time
when the devil got sore at a balky horse. He tried to haul it along by
the ears, but the horse dug in his hoofs, the same of which stretched
them ears a heap. When the devil saw what he’d done, he laughed. The
horse, being kinda sore, ruined its vocal cords mocking the devil’s
laugh. That’s how we got our first mule.
Looking at Maud S from all angles I’d opine that she was the second
mule.
Maudie was long. I don’t think I ever seen so much mule all in one
piece. Maud’s neck was long and looked like it might fall off any old
time and bust her crop-eared head. Her feet never wore shoes, and the
ends of her hoofs turned up like the ends of ski snowshoes. Maud was
cock-eyed in her one glass-eye, and her heart was bitter toward
mankind.
Wick Smith owned her. He tried to sell her to a Piegan Indian, but the
old buck got one look at her and said—
_“Diaub seahhost! Klahowya!”_