While cows behave with de-co-rum,
And furnish us with milk.”
Well, I gave a whoop and threw the spurs into my pony. This was the seventy-ninth verse of Horace’s song, and it was his favorite, because it was founded on the Greek religion. I found him perched up behind a rock, and he kept on slammin’ chunks of his song up again’ the welkin until I shot some dirt loose above his head; and then he climbed down and reunioned with me.
He was lookin’ fine, except that some of his waist products had come back, and we talked into each other until the air got too thin to breathe. Then we suppered up and began talkin’ again. He had tried all sorts of gymnastical games back East, from playin’ golf to ridin’ hossback in a park, but it didn’t have the right tang. Folks thought he’d gone insane an’ lost his mind, the air didn’t taste right, he got particular about how his vittles were cooked; until finally, his endurance melted and began to run down the back of his neck. This decided him ’at he’d had full as much East as was good for him; so he loaded up a box with firearms, tossed some clothin’ into a handbag, and he said his grin had been gettin’ wider all the way out until it had hooked holes through the window lights on both sides o’ the train.
We were all glad to see him, an’ he dove into ranch life like a bullfrog into a cream jar; and he got toughened to a hard saddle in a mighty short time for a feller who had got used to upholstery back East. He said ’at the only thing ’at had kept life in him had been to sing his song constant; but he denied ’at this was his main excuse for fleein’ from his own range.
He didn’t seem to bear a mite o’ malice for the joke I had put up on him; but still, I have to own up ’at he half pestered the life out of me with his song. He had what he called a tenor voice; but it was the dolefullest thing I ever heard, and the more he sang, the more his notes stuck to him until I coveted to hear a love-sick hound serenadin’ the moon. When he saw it was riskin’ his life to drag out any more o’ the song, he would pause temptingly, and then begin a lecture on the Greek religion. He got me all mussed up in religion.
Of course, I knew ’at the Injuns had a lot o’ sinful religious idees, and I was prepared to give the other heathens plenty o’ room to swing in; but not even an Injun would ’a’ stood for as immoral a lot as the Greek gods an’ goddusses—especially the top one, which Horace called Zeus an’ Jove an’ Jupiter.
This one didn’t have as much decency as a male goat, and yet he had unlimited power. He was allus enticin’ some weak-minded human woman into a scrape; and when his wife, who was called Hera and Juno, would get onto his tricks, Zeus would snap his fingers, say “Flip!” and charm the human woman into some sort of an animal. It was a handy scheme for him, true enough; and he didn’t care a scene how embarrassin’ it was for the human women.
He turned one of ’em into a bear, and, like most other women, she was feared o’ bears an’ wolves an’ snakes, an’ the rest o’ the company she was forced to associate with. She led a perfectly rotten existence until her own son went bear huntin’, and was just on the point of jabbin’ a spear into her, when even Zeus himself admitted ’at this would be carryin’ the joke a leetle too far; so he grabs ’em up and sticks ’em into the sky as a group o’ stars.
Horace tried to argue ’at this proved Zeus to be merciful; but as far as I can see it’s as idiotic as havin’ the law hang a man for murder. Supposin’ some feller had murdered me—would I feel any happier because this feller who couldn’t put up with me in this world, is sent over to pester me in the next? Course I wouldn’t; but if one o’ my friends was murdered, and I had a chance to slay the feller ’at did it, this would give me a lot o’ satisfaction an’ joy an’ pleasure—though I don’t say it would be just.