“Ricky, you knows something about music—what is a alto?”
Ricky thinks deep for a while, and then he says:
“Ike, did yuh ever let out a whoop, and then hear the same whoop come
back to yuh? That’s it?”
“I thought that was a echo.”
“Yeah, sure; but that’s only when yuh hear one reply. Sabe? When yuh
hears two replies—that’s alto. It’s a Hungarian word, which means
two.”
“What does it mean when you hears more than two?”
“That’s basso profundo, Ike.”
“I thinks Maud S is paralyzed,” complains Wick. “She don’t seem to
have no use of her legs.”
“For this we offer much thanks,” says Dirty.
“But she’s got to get up and go with yuh,” says Wick. “You can’t leave
her layin’ there on the stage.”
“She’ll get up,” declares Dirty. “I know a lot about mules. Lemme
alone and don’t worry about Maud S.”
“There ain’t much use of rehearsin’,” squeaks Scenery; “I’m the main
thing up there, and I’ve studied my gestures a-plenty, and I know the
words fine.”
“We’ve got to put the humps on Maud S,” says Wick. “We can hang some
stuff over the humps, so nobody will know she ain’t a cam-el. You know
how they does in a circus, Magpie?”
Me and Dirty, not wishful to get the least hazy, decides to buy us
some more bottle cheer, instead of carousing around with the common
herd, and we communes with each other in my cabin, until the shades of
night have come down upon us. Then we finds our way back to the hall.
We’ve got a full audience—in more ways than one. Doughgod Smith has
been appointed door-keeper and he annexes our guns as we goes in.
“Yuh can’t take your guns in with yuh,” he states. “Them is orders.”
He’s got a lot of belts and holsters, but few guns hanging on a hook.
Dirty looks ’em over and picks out a good-looking gun, which he shoves
down inside his waistband.
“Them orders don’t say yuh can’t pack a strange gun, do they?”
“Not my orders,” says Doughgod. “They tell me not to let any man in
with his gun, that’s all. You ain’t settin’ no precedent, Dirty. I
reckon every man in the hall is packin’ a strange gun, but there’s one
satisfaction—they can’t shoot more than six time per each, ’cause I’ve
got all their extra ammunition.”
I picks out an old decrepid .44, and goes inside the hall. I looks
over that congregation and I can’t see where Doughgod had any reasons
for being cheerful. There’s at least a hundred men in there, which
means six hundred shots, which is usually plenty and sufficient.
The reward notices are sure well represented, and you could just about
lynch the whole bunch and not make any mistake.
We finds the acting talent behind the curtain. Scenery is all dressed
up in a gunny-sack gown, with a ribbon tied around his head and no
boots on. He’s making gestures like a prize-fighter.
“My ——!” gasps Dirty. “Would yuh look at that?” Scenery jerks one fist
outward and upward, swings the other arm behind him, like he was
guarding his rear, and then squeaks:
“Lo, there shineth a bright light. Let’s go to it.”
“Mark an X after Scenery Sims,” says Dirty. “He won’t last.”
We goes over where Wick is looking at Maud S. She’s still laying down
and don’t act like she’s ever get up again.
“’Fraid she’s on her last legs,” says Wick. “Yessir, I reckon we’re
goin’ to lose Maudie.”
“’Fraid?” snorts Mrs. Smith. “That de-eared hay-hound? Let her die.”
“Not until she’s been a ca-mel, maw,” says Wick, and then he goes out
to set down beside his new drum.
Dirty sets down beside Maud S and takes her head in his lap.
“Ain’t the Cross J quartet going to sing?” asks Matilda.
Old Testament shakes his head.
“Nope. They got mad—them and Tellurium. They all went home.”
“Tweet, tweet, tweet,” goes the flute.
“Bum! Bum! Bum!” goes the drum.
“Whar-r-r-oo-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m,” goes the jew’s-harp.
“The orchestra is tunin’ up,” observes Dirty. “We ain’t got long to
live, Ike.”
* * * * *
Then old Judge Steele steps out through the curtain, and the hum of
conversation dies down.
“Feller citizens and ladies,” says the judge, “the first thing on the
program is a du-it. Miss Mudgett is going to sing ‘Spring, Lovely
Spring,’ with the kind assistance of Mrs. Smith. This here is a
soup-ranner and alter du-it. We asks yuh to bear with the orchestra to
the limit of your patience, as this is their first appearance
together.”
“Who?” asks Big Foot Forrest.
“All of ’em. They’re acquainted, but that’s about all you can say for
’em. All right, Wick—let her go.”
“Tweet, tweet, tweet! Bum, bum, bum, bum! Whar-r-r-oo-o-o-m-m-m-m!”
Mrs. Smith and Matilda goes out through the curtain. Somebody laughs
out loud and then comes a thud.
“All right—go ahead,” says Hair Oil Heppner’s voice. “Big Foot thought
he saw somethin’ funny, but he’s forgot what it was.”
The song starts and this is how she sounds:
“Tweet, bum, Spree-e-e-hing, lovely spree-e-e-hing, tweet, tweet, bum,
whar-r-r-oo-o-m, Spree-e-hing, Spree-e-e-hing, bum, bum, kerong-g-g-g,
tweet, tweet.
“You cree-e-e-heep o’er me-e-e-adhows be-e-e-e-right,
whar-r-r-room-m-m, bum, bum, tweet, tweet, o’er me-e-e-adhows
be-e-e-right, bum, bum, bum, tweet, tweedle, wharoom, whar-r-r-oom——”
“Whoa, Blaze!”
I whirls just in time to see Magpie get kicked behind the knees by
Maud S, who is laying down. She must ’a’ just sort of cramped herself
and then let fly with both hoofs.
Magpie turns plumb over and goes out through the curtain and right
into Mrs. Smith, who is straining over “be-e-e-right;” and when they
hit the platform she’s on top.
“From Spring to Fall!” yelps Mex Mason.
Mrs. Smith gets off poor Magpie, and lets out a wail:
“O-o-o-o-o-o-oh! Every time I try to do something, some hammer-head
comes bustin’ along and spoils it!”
“Did you hit her on purpose?” demands Wick, standing up.
“Your —— mule—” begins Magpie, foolish-like.
“You done it on purpose!” howls Mrs. Smith.
Wick believed her, I reckon, cause he throwed his drum stick right at
poor Magpie. It was a good shot. It came right through the hole in the
curtain and it hit Judge Steele on the bridge of his nose. The old boy
sort of got dignified acting.
“Wonderful,” says Dirty. “Wonderful cons’tution.”
The judge just walks around the stage, making gestures and working his
lips, but there ain’t no words. Pretty soon he stops, seems to listen,
and then he says, soft-like: “Guilty? Why, gentlemen, that man is as
innocent as a new-born baby.”
“Knocked back seven years,” says Dirty, awed-like. “That’s what he
said the time he was my lawyer, and that was seven years ago.”
The crowd out in front are talking loud, and I know danged well that
there’s going to be trouble if we don’t keep going. Mrs. Smith comes
waddling in, follered by Matilda and Magpie.
Mrs. Smith is sore as a boil.
“I will not sing another note,” she declares. “Every time I start to
do anything in public——”
“Maud S is getting restless,” states Scenery. “We better pull off our
act.”
“Can yuh get her up at the right time, Dirty?” asks Magpie.
“Get things set, and I’ll do my dangest.”
Then they cleared everybody away, while we got ready. Me and Dirty and
Scenery are all dressed in them gunny-sack gowns, and have got our
boots off.
They’ve got a big bunch of cactus and a lot of rocks, which they puts
around to make it look like a desert. Pete Gonyer is behind the back
curtain, ready to take the cover off the moon, and then turn up the
lamp. Maud S is making funny noises in her throat, but Dirty is
setting on her head.
“What’s the matter with her?” I asks.
“Speed-crazy,” grins Dirty.
“Get ready,” says Magpie. “Now, for gosh sakes, make this look real.”
They blew out all the lights except one in the back of the room, and
then pulled the curtain.
“What does she represent—a load of dirt?” asks Pole-Cat Perkins.
“That’s a —— of a thing to ride thirty miles to see,” opines “Windy”
Wilkins.
“Where is the moon?” squeaks Scenery, in a whisper. “Pete, where in ——
are yuh?”
“Aw, ——!” groans Pete. “Magpie, did yuh turn out this lamp?”
“It was lit when I left there!” snaps Magpie. “You must ’a’ blowed on
it.”
“I never blowed on nothin’!”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roars Art Miller. “This is one funny game. Like a
minstrel show. Pete, ask him why he thinks yuh blowed on it.”
* * * * *
Comes a little bit of light, and I feels Scenery climb to his feet.
There he stands in the gloom, pointing up and down and sidewise, and
then he squeaks:
“Lo, there bringth a slight—uh—slineth a bite—I mean—a—a—lineth
a—let’s go to it—uh—to it.”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” howls somebody. “Pete Gonyer’s lightin’ the moon!”
I turns and takes a look. There is Pete at the back of the stage. He’s
got the cover off the moon, and is trying to get the old lamp to
light.
“Dang it!” he howls. “I’ve turned the wick plumb into the bottom!”
“Whoa, Maud!” howls Dirty. “Help me hold her, Ike!”
I turns, and there is Maud S standing on her hind legs, and, as I
look, them humps, which wasn’t well cinched, being as she was laying
down at the time, swing down and just about fill up all the space
between her front and hind legs.
“Ho-hold her!” wails Dirty; but Maud S thinks she’s a circus animal.
Hold her? Man, that mule, after all these years, found out that she
had authority to go to some place. She waltzes around a couple of
times, busts a hole in the stage and falls over backwards into the
orchestra.
Wick Smith falls over backwards, pulling his new drum over with him,
thereby saving his part of the orchestra.
“Whoo-o-o-ee! Pow-w-w-w-der Ri-i-ver!” yowls a puncher, and a circle
of chairs lands around Maud S, trying to block her, but Maud S ain’t
to be stopped.
She bucked plumb over the top of Wick Smith, and that drum rattled
against her heels.
Zowie! She telescoped and lifted that drum with both hind feet. Dirty
Shirt was just going to jump off the stage to attack her from the
rear, and that drum caught him in midair. Dirty comes plumb back onto
the stage and lands setting down in that bed of cactus. The drum hit
me in the knees, and I went plumb over the top of it and dug my chin
into the desert.
When I got my senses again I sees that about seven punchers have hold
of Maud S, and are trying to hold her.
“Lights!” yelps Wick. “Light some lamps. My ——, my drum is busted!”
“—— your old drum!” howls Dirty Shirt, standing on the stage, trying
to lift the seat of his pants loose from himself.
“O-o-o-o-oh, the tab-lew is ruined!” wails Mrs. Smith.
Everybody helped light the lamps, and then we stands and looks at each
other. Maud S looks like her course was about run, but them punchers
don’t take any chances.
“Sandy Claws has come!” yells a voice at the door, and we all takes a
look. I never seen anything like that apparition. It’s a two-year old
steer, wearing a bear-skin overcoat, with a string of sleigh-bells
around it, and on the lower lip of the danged animal is Tellurium
Wood’s false whiskers, and over one horn is that tall hat. The steer
is about half way into the hall when we see it coming, and its tail is
twisted over its back. Around its mouth is twisted a rope, which is
yanked off as it humps into the door.
“Ba-a-a-rr!” blats that steer, like it hurt all over, and right up
that room it comes, romping regardless of life or limb.