SEIZED HER HAND AND KISSED IT ARDENTLY
V
Equus Minor, Detective
“Of all the crazy notions!” sniffed Amanda.
She was filling glass jars with raspberries out of a kettle on the roaring kitchen stove, while Gabriel screwed down the metal tops, perspiring freely in the super-heated midsummer temperature.
“Pshaw!” said Gabriel, “this here Poet an’ his sister ain’t a bit crazier’n the Professor was. D’ye recollect what the Professor said ’bout ‘the emotional capacities of so-called dumb animals,’—I seem to hear his lingo now,—jest before he went away, after playin’ his flute in the barnyard till pretty near midnight?”
“The Professor was a nice man,” admitted Amanda, “but when it came to dealin’ with critters he was crazy as a bedbug.”
“I dunno, Mandy. I sneaked out to th’ barn that night, an’ th’ way th’ cow an’ calf took to th’ Professor’s music made my flesh creep. You know, Mandy, they ain’t nothin’ in natur’ so doggone stubborn an’ foolish as a bull-calf—not even a pig. Well, you ought ‘a’ seen th’ ca’m an’ peaceful way that bull-calf laid his chin on the Professor’s shoulder an’ bla-a-ted softly to himself when th’ slow an’ solemn tunes was bein’ played.”
“Gabe, you tend to them jars an’ quit your jokin’.”
“Honest, Mandy, true as I live an’ breathe. An’ when the Professor see I was lookin’ on, he stopped playin’ an said to me: ‘Gabriel,’ says he, ‘give me time, an’ I’ll teach this bull-calf to sing the doxology.’ An’ I’m darned if I don’t believe he’d ‘a’ done it.”