"THINGS KINDA SLIPPED UP"
Two motley roosters and a black Minorca were craning necks to outcrow one another before the dawn. Out of the chill dark came Bud, the Walking Sorrel swinging automatically along in the long strides of the running walk that gave him his name and made him better than most horses on a long, hard trail. When he stopped, the sorrel's legs trembled with exhaustion. Bud's spurred boots dragged like an old man's on the path to the house, and his head buzzed until the roosters, the frogs and the humming of mosquitoes blended in one muffled, discordant chorus.
As he stepped upon the porch Maw sat up, rubbing her eyes, and got out of bed, dragging a faded, big-flowered kimono over her nightgown and thrusting tiny, bare feet into a shapeless pair of slippers much too large for her. Her muslin nightcap went up to a peak at the crown of her head. She looked like a female goblin fleeing from a midnight rendezvous as she came pattering into the kitchen with a lighted candle held aloft in her hand, her round eyes blinking with sleep.
"My, I bet you're about starved, Buddy! When a boy gets in this time of night, I know he's hungry. I set back a whole berry pie for you, and the cream for it is all whipped and ready. I thought I wouldn't spread it till you come, because if it stands too long the crust gets soggy. And there's plenty of cold fried chicken—I saved you the gizzards, Bud, and three wings. I know how you like them parts. Nev' mind washin' your face. You set right down and I'll have you eatin' in two seconds."
That was one of the reasons why the Meadowlark worshiped Maw.
"Drink this, Buddy. It's last night's milk—poured right off the top of the pan, cream and all."
Slumped into the nearest chair by the table, Bud put out a hand slowly and took up the glass, spilling milk on Maw's white tablecloth and down his shirt front because his hand shook so. But the rich milk refreshed him like a draught of wine, and when he had set down the glass—empty—he turned hollow eyes with some interest toward the plate heaped with chicken fried a golden brown as only Maw could do it. Maw was spreading fresh bread for him, two great slices, and she seemed blessedly unconscious of Bud's wolfish feeding, once he started to eat.
But finally, when Bud had finished the third wing and was biting into the bluish knob of a gizzard, Maw hooked her slipper heels over the top rung of her chair and nodded her head like a witch over her cauldron.
"Things kinda slipped up, I s'pose. They will do that no matter how careful we plan. I heard enough of what you and Skookum was talkin' about last night—"
"Last night?" Bud repeated, looking up in dull amazement. "Is that as long ago as it was, Maw?"
"Well, a course it's most mornin' now, so I s'pose I can say night b'fore last. When every minute is crammed and jammed with happenin's, it does seem to take an awful lot of 'em to make a day. The day has gone real quick for me, too. And there's Margy, sayin' Cranford would be real excitin' alongside this place. She got real put out t'day, because you boys went off first thing this forenoon, and then Butch Cassidy come over and spent most all the time foolin' around with Skookum and didn't talk to her much, and somethin' or other went wrong in her story—she was tellin' me all about it while we washed up the dishes.
"Margy's getting real friendly," Maw went on, after a pause spent in studying Bud's face and in deciding, no doubt, that he was not yet ready to talk of his own affairs. "This afternoon she come right up and put her arm around me and patted me on the shoulder! I didn't s'pose she'd ever get used to me so she could look at me without scringin', but she's got all over that, and it ain't much more'n a week since she come. She's just as sweet as she can be, and she tells me all about everything, real confiding."
"Cranford! Ye gods!" Bud exploded tardily, the full enormity of the outrageous comparison striking him in the middle of his demolishing the plate of chicken. He dropped a clean-picked thigh bone on the heap beside his plate and looked at Maw with a shadow of his old, impudent grin. "If Marge were a man I'd show her some excitement, maybe."
"She's writing a bank-robbery story, Bud, and—maybe I hadn't ought to tell you—she's got you for the hero of it. She—"
"Me for the hero? Good Lord!"
"Well," said Maw, blinking at him across the table, "looks to me as if you'd had about all the adventures she's put you through in her story, except I don't s'pose you've been arrested for the murder and throwed in jail and incarcerated, like Margy had 'em do to you. She says it's awful hard to make up excitin' things, when she come out here expectin' that things would happen right along that she could use fine. She says she's goin' to have the Indians break out and start massacreeing the whites, and she wanted all day to ask you about some secret order; Golden Arrer, she says it is. She wants to make it a religious outbreak of some kind, and either let 'em catch you and start in to torture you, or else have you save a girl from bein' tortured. She tried to get Lark to tell her, but Larkie's kinda queer about some things. She couldn't get a peep outa him. He told her there wasn't no such thing, but of course she knew he was just denyin' it for some reason of his own. She thinks maybe he's mixed up and implicated somehow—maybe a high priest of the order; but I told her I didn't hardly believe he was."
Bud gave a whoop and choked so that Maw climbed down from her chair and came around and thumped him between the shoulders until he could wave her off with weak gestures of refusal. He came to with his face red and blinking tears, but he had no sooner got his breath than he began to laugh.
"I s'pose I've said somethin' funny, but I don't see what." Maw spoke tartly when the first outburst had subsided. "I guess you oughta be in pretty good shape now after gorgin' the way you have. I'll go call Lark, and then I expect maybe you'll see fit to tell us what's happened, and what brings you home this time in the morning, lookin' like a string of suckers and eatin' like you'd starved for a week. And all I can say," she stopped to say pettishly, "is that small matters amuse small minds. If I used a word wrong, that's my business!" She scuttled off before Bud could explain.
Maw was further shocked to find Bud emptying the pantry of cooked food when she returned to the kitchen. Four loaves of fresh baked bread reposed neatly beside half a baked ham, and the cookie jar was in his arms.
"For the love of Moses!" snapped Maw. "Didn't you get enough to eat yet?"
Behind her, Lark glanced appraisingly at the devastated table and grinned. The pile of chicken bones beside Bud's plate was enough, to say nothing of the remnant of pie with the whipped cream scraped off in streaks.
"For the time being, maybe; but I may possibly want to eat again, Maw, before Marge has me put in jail and incarcerated!" Bud was still badly in need of sleep, and Maw's tone had not been conciliating.
"I ain't responsible for that word, Bud Larkin. Margy used it herself, and if it don't meet with your approval, it's none of my funeral. Here's Lark, wantin' to know what you've been up to, and why you come draggin' your feet into the house this time of night. Are you goin' to take all them cookies, Bud? I can't make any more till I get some sour cream. I churned every bit that I had."
"You did? Fine! Bob's out in the hills, and fresh butter will go dandy with this bread. You know, Maw, there's only one real bread-maker in the world, and she's just about four feet high and cross as a she bear with toothache."
"I ain't no such a thing! Do you s'pose you could carry a pie if I wrapped it up good?"
"Sure. I'll carry it inside, however. Then I know it will be well wrapped. Lark may want to carry one. How about it, Lark? Want to go hunting with me, after I've had an hour or so of sleep?"
Lark hitched up his belt, picked up Maw and set her on a corner of the table. Then, ignoring her indignant protests, he began his preparations significantly in the gun closet, choosing what weapons he would take. Bud eyed him from under straight brows while he wrapped the bread in one of Maw's choicest dish towels which she kept for "comp'ny", when some range woman would insist upon helping her with the dishes.
"You won't need a shotgun—and I'll just omit that hour of sleep. Maw's pie is a real rejuvenator."
"It ain't no such a thing! Bud, ain't you goin' to tell what you've been up to or where you've been? My land, I never saw such carryin's on!"
"Nothing exciting, Maw. Nothing that Marge could use in that story of hers. Come on, Lark."