Talk about the courage to face cannon and Cossacks! It is nothing to the courage required to speak aloud in broad daylight of the finest things we have in us! I was not equal to it.
“Oh, I've been down for a tramp in the marsh,” I said, trying to put him off.
But Horace is a Yankee of the Yankees and loves nothing better than to chase his friends into corners with questions, and leave them ultimately with the impression that they are somehow less sound, sensible, practical, than he is and he usually proves it, not because he is right, but because he is sure, and in a world of shadowy halt-beliefs and half-believers he is without doubts.
“What ye find down there?” asked Horace.
“Oh, I was just looking around to see how the spring was coming on.”
“Hm-m,” said Horace, eloquently, and when I did not reply, he continued, “Often git out in the morning as early as this?”
“Yes,” I said, “often.”
“And do you find things any different now from what they would be later in the day?”
At this the humour of the whole situation dawned on me and I began to revive. When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can't laugh, we do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we can fight! And be honest!
“Horace,” I said, “I know what you are thinking about.”