“Is that his work? He dared not play his tricks on the dear Doctor!”
“Yes, it’s his’n. The idee! There was Abel went and gave old Dobbin to the parson, to save his long legs some of their trampin’ after weeds and stuff and ’cause he was afraid to ride ary other horse in the settlement. And there was Osceolo, that for a feller’s hired out to a regular tavern-keeper like us, to be a hostler and such, he don’t earn his salt. All the time prankin’ round on some tomfoolery. And Abel’s just as bad. A man with only two or three little weeny tufts o’ hair left on his head and mighty little sense on the inside, at his time of life, a-fiddlin’ and cuttin’ up jokes, I declare—I declare, I’m beat, and I wish——”
“But what is it?” demanded Kitty, bringing her old friend back to facts.
“Why, nothing. Only when the dominie came home and stopped here, as he always does after he’s been a-prairieing, to show you his truck and dicker, Osceolo happens along and is took smart! The simpleton! Just set old Dobbin scamperin’ off back into the grass again and clapped the saddle and tin box and what not on to the ox’s back. Spected he’d see the parson come out and mount and never notice. ’Stead of that, along comes Abel—strange how constant he has to visit to your house!—and sees the whole business. Well, he’d caught some sort of a wild animal, and—say, Kitty Briscoe, I mean Keith!—that Indian’d drink whiskey, if he got a chance, just as quick as one raised in the woods, instead of one privileged to set under such a saint as the Doctor all his days. I tell you—Well, what you laughing at, Gaspar Keith? Ain’t I tellin’ the truth?”
“Yes, Mother Mercy, doubtless you are. But it isn’t so long back, as Abel says, that you objected to ‘setting under’ the Doctor yourself.”
“Suppose it wasn’t? I didn’t know him then, not as I do now. He’s orthodox, I found out, and that’s all I wanted. But I know what I’m talkin’ about. Osceolo, he’s always beggin’ for Abel to keep liquor: an’ we teetotallers! An’ he’s teased so much that the other day Abel thought he’d satisfy him. So he got an old bottle, looked as if some tipsy Indian had thrown it away, and filled it with a dose of boneset tea. He made a terrible mystery of the whole matter, pretendin’ to be sly of me, and took it out from under his coat and gave it to Ossy out behind in the stable, like it was a wonderful secret. Do you know, that Indian hain’t never let on a single word about that business yet? Oh! he’s a master hand for bein’ close-mouthed. They all be. They just do—but don’t talk.”
“Mercy, if you were only a little more talkative, you’d be better company!” teased Gaspar, who was eager for the finish of the story and his supper.
“Now—you! Well, laugh away. I don’t mind. All is, when Abel saw the trick Ossy had played on the Doctor, he plays one on Ossy. He’d caught a queer sort of animal, as I said, and he was fetchin’ it to Kit. Everybody brings her everything, from rattlesnakes up. But when he saw that ox, he just opens the tin box and claps the creature inside and then hunts up Ossy. He says: ‘There’s something in that box pretty suspicious, boy. You might look an’ see what ’tis but don’t let on.’ He’s that curiosity, Osceolo has, that he forgot everything else and stuck his hand in sly. I expect he thought it was something to eat, or likely to drink, and he got bit. Hand’s all tore and sore, and now Abel’s scared and gone off with him to the surgeon at the Fort, and there’ll be trouble. Ossy was muttering something about the ‘Black Hawk coming and that he’d had enough of the white folks. He was born an Indian, and an Indian he’d die’; and to the land! I hope he will! He makes more mischief in this settlement than you can shake a stick at!”
“‘It’s hard for a bird to get away from its tail,’” quoted Gaspar, lightly. “Osceolo began life wrong and his reputation clings to him. I’ll take the saddle off Jim, and let’s go in to supper. None of my Sun Maid’s tribe is to be feared, I think, no matter how direly they may threaten.”