He slapped his leg again. “An' him—his namesake—he was cock-eyed, too—I seed him onct at New 'Leens.”
“Don't you never trust a cock-eyed man, Bud. He'll flicker on you in the home-stretch. I've tried it an' it never fails. Love him, but don't trust him. The world is full of folks we oughter love, but not trust.”
“No—I never will,” said Bud as thoughtfully as he knew how to be—“nor a cock-eyed 'oman neither. My wife's cock-eyed,” he added.
He was silent a moment. Then he showed the old man a scar on his forehead: “She done that last month—busted a plate on my head.”
“That's bad,” said the Bishop consolingly—“but you ortenter aggravate her, Bud.”
“That's so—I ortenter—least-wise, not whilst there's any crockery in the house,” said Bud sadly.
“There's another thing about this hoss,” went on the Bishop—“he's always spoony on mules. He ain't happy if he can't hang over the front gate spoonin' with every stray mule that comes along. There's old long-eared Lize that he's dead stuck on—if he c'u'd write he'd be composin' a sonnet to her ears, like poets do to their lady love's—callin' them Star Pointers of a Greater Hope, I reck'n, an' all that. Why, he'd ruther hold hands by moonlight with some old Maria mule than to set up by lamplight with a thoroughbred filly.”
“Great—great!” said Bud slapping his leg—“didn't I tell you so?”
“So I named him Ben Butler when he was born. That was right after the war, an' I hated old Ben so an' loved hosses so, I thought ef I'd name my colt for old Ben maybe I'd learn to love him, in time.”
Bud shook his head. “That's agin nature, Bishop.”