Next mornin’ we started soon after sun-up. The Friar had a couple o’ women runnin’ a Sunday School at Bosco, and he wanted to see how they were gettin’ along. They had belonged to his brand of church clear back in England, and he set a lot of store by ’em; but owned up that they had their work cut out for ’em at Bosco; it bein’ one o’ the most ungodly little towns in the whole country.
We nooned on Carter, slipped over Boulder Creek Pass, and reached Bosco at sun-down. It allus surprised me to see how much travel the Friar could chalk up, takin’ his weight into account; but he was less irritatin’ to a hoss ’n airy other man I ever met up with. The more of a hurry he was in, the more time he took on the bad hills; and he never robbed a hoss by sleepin’ an hour late in the mornin’, an’ makin’ the hoss even up by travelin’ beyond his gait.
The husband of one o’ these women ran a saloon, the husband of the other—the women were sisters—was the undertaker and also ran a meat market. I thought this about the queerest business arrangement I had ever been confronted against; but the man himself was full as peculiar as his business.
I have a game I have played with myself all my life. I call it “why,” an’ I suppose it has furnished me more fun ’n anything else has. I take any proposition I come across an’ say all the whys about it I can think up an’ then try to answer ’em. Why did anything ever happen just as it did happen just when it did happen? This is the joke o’ life to me. I have played it on myself times without end; but only once in a while even with myself can I follow the line back to common sense.
[CHAPTER THIRTY—TY JONES GETS A WOMAN]
Bosco was a regular town with twenty or thirty houses, a post office, two general stores, three saloons, an’ all such things; and right on a good stage road runnin’ north an’ south. We stopped with the meat-market undertaker, ’cause they didn’t think it quite respectable for the Friar to live off the profits of the liquor traffic; though the Friar allus said ’at he had a heap more respect for a square saloon-keeper ’n for a sneaky drygoods merchant.
Shindy Smith was the saloon-keeper, an’ Bill Duff was the undertaker. Duff was the absent-mindedest man I ever got intimate with, an’ about drove his wife to distraction, she bein’ one o’ these hustlers who never make a false move. He had the idee that bein’ an undertaker took away his license to laugh, so he allus walked on his toes an’ disported as solemn a face as nature would allow; but nature had intended him for a butcher, an’ had made his face round and jowly. Whenever he didn’t have anything else to do, he used to sit down an’ practice lookin’ solemn. He’d fix his eyes on the ceilin’, clasp his hands across his stomach, pull up his eyebrows, droop his mouth, an’ look for all the world like a man dyin’ o’ the colic.
He was so absent-minded that he’d raise his cup to take a drink of coffee, forget what he had started to do, an’ like as not pour it over his flapjacks for syrup. He started to engineer a funeral once with his butcher’s apron on, and they told all sorts of stories about him which was shockin’ to an extent; though his wife kept such a sharp eye on him, that I don’t believe more ’n half of ’em. Still it wasn’t any sort o’ business for an absent-minded man to be in.
It was an uncertain business. Of course all lines o’ trade in a thinly settled country go by fits an’ starts; but his was worst of all. Sometimes he’d have as many as three funerals a month, and at others it would take him six weeks to sell out a beef carcass. A feller who had a spite again’ him started the story ’at he soaked his meat in embalmin’ fluid, an’ then if they came an extra special rush in both lines of his business at the same time, he’d—but then his wife kept such a skeptical eye on him, ’at I don’t believe a word of these stories, an’ I’m not goin’ to repeat ’em. The worst I had again’ him was that he was so everlastin’ careless. I lay awake frettin’ about his carelessness till I couldn’t stand it a second longer; and then I rolled up half the beddin’ an’ started to sleep on the side porch.
“Where you goin’?” sez the Friar.