Badger-face was so blame weak that his eyes filled up with tears at this; an’ the only way he could straighten himself up was to put a few florid curses on his own thumby left-handedness; but Olaf had gone after some wood, so it didn’t start anything. “I’ll take that name,” sez he, “an’ I’ll learn how to spell an’ pronounce it as soon as I can; but you’ve diluted down my blood so confounded thin with your doggone, sloppy milk diet that I’m a long way from havin’ that feller’s grit, right at this minute.”
Horace stood over Badger-face, an’ pointed his finger at him, fierce. “Listen to me,” sez he. “The next time you heave out an insult to milksops or milk diets, I’ll sing you my entire song—to the very last word.”
We set up a howl; but Badger-face didn’t realize all he was up against when he took on with Horace, so he only smiled in a sickly way, an’ looked puzzled.
“I’ll tell ya what I’m willin’ to do, Dinky,” said he, as soon as we stopped our noise; “now that I’ve took a new name, I don’t need to wear this sort of a beard any more, an’, if ya want me to, I’ll trim it up the same fool way ’at you wear yours; an’ I’ll wear glasses, too, if you say the word.”
“We’ll wait first to see how you look in a biled shirt,” sez Horace; “but in honor of your new name, I’m goin’ to let you have some deer-meat soup for your dinner, an’ a bone to gnaw on.”
We had a regular feast that day, and called Badger-face Promotheus every time we could think up an excuse; so as to have practice on the name. The Friar did his best to take part; but I knew every line in his face, and it hurt me to see him fightin’ at himself.
After dinner we took a walk together; but we didn’t talk none until we had climbed the rim, fought the wind for a couple of hours, an’ started back again. It was his plan to think of some big, common chunk of life when he was in trouble, so as to take his mind as much as possible off himself; and he started to talk about Horace an’ Promotheus. He even laughed a little at the combination which Promotheus Flannigan an’ Horace Walpole Bradford would make when they settled down on the East again.
“The more I think it over,” said the Friar, “the plainer I can see that most of our sorrow an’ pain and savageness comes from our custom of punishin’ the crops instead of the farmers. Look at the possibilities the’ was in Promotheus when he started out. He has a strong nature, and in spite of his life, he still has a lot o’ decent humanity in him. Who can tell what he might have been, if his good qualities had been cultivated instead o’ smothered?”
“That’s true enough,” sez I; “and look at Horace, too. They simply let him wither up for forty years, and yet all this time he had in him full as much devilment as Promotheus himself.”
“Oh, we waste, we waste, we waste!” exclaimed the Friar. “Instead o’ usin’ the strength and vigor of our manhood in a noble way, we let some of it rust and decay, and some of it we use for our own destruction. The outlaw would have been the hero with the same opportunity, and who can tell what powers lie hidden behind the mask of idleness!”