Well, as Eugene drew closer, that crowd fell into a silence until all a body could hear was Ben Butler braggin’ about all the nuts he had et, an’ what a prodigious big squirrel he was; but Eugene never faltered. He walked up an’ set his box down careful, motioned Doc over to the side lines, made a graceful motion to ol’ man Dort, an’ sez: “As yours is the local champion you introduce him first, an’ make your claim.”
Ol’ man Dort removed his tobacco, wiped his forehead, an’ sez: “Feller citizens, I make the claim that Ben Butler is the biggest full-blooded squirrel ever sent to enlighten the solitude of lonely humanity. This is him.”
The ol’ man looked lovin’ly down at his squirrel, an’ we every one of us gave a rousin’ cheer. It was all the family the ol’ man had, an’ it meant more to him ’n a body who hadn’t never tried standin’ his own company months at a time could realize. Ol’ man Dort thrust some new tobacco into his face, bit his lips, winked his eyes rapid, an’ bowed to us, almost overcome.
Then Eugene stepped a space to the front, bowed to the crowd in several directions, an’ sez: “Gentlemen, an’ feller citizens—From Iceland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strands an’ Afric’s sunny fountains, every nation an’ every clime has produced some peculiar product o’ nature which lifts it above an’ sets it apart from all the other localities of the globe. When you speak of the succulent banana, the golden orange, or the prickly pineapple, Nova Scotia remains silent; but when you speak of varmints, she rears up on her hind legs and with a glad shout of triumph, she hands forth the short-tailed grizzly ground-squirrel, an’ sez, ‘Give me the blue ribbons, the gold medals, an’ the laurel crowns of victory.’ I have the rare pleasure an’ the distinctive honor of presenting to your notice Columbus, the hugest squirrel ever exhibited within the confines of captivity.”
We was so took by Eugene’s eloquence that we hardly noticed him slip the apron from in front of his cage; but when we did look, we could hardly get our breath. I was standin’ close to the Friar; and at first he looked puzzled, and then his face lit up with a regular boy’s grin; but he didn’t say a word.
Columbus was certainly a giant; he stood full two feet tall as he sat up an’ scrutinized around with a bossy sort of grin. He was dappled fawn color on the sides with a curly black streak down the back an’ sort o’ chestnut-red below, with a short tail an’ teeth like chisels. He won so blame easy that even us what had bet on him didn’t cheer.
Ol’ man Dort give a grin, thinkin’ Ben Butler must have won, an’ then he stepped around an’ looked into Eugene’s cage. He looked first at Columbus, an’ then at Ben Butler, then he looked again. “That damned thing ain’t alive,” he sez. “It’s made up out o’ wool yarn. Poke it up an’ let me see it move.”
“Poke it yourself,” sez Eugene. He was one o’ these cold-blooded gamblers who ain’t got one speck o’ decent sentimentality; an’ he was mad ’cause we hadn’t cheered.
Ol’ man Dort took a stick an’ poked Columbus, an’ Columbus give a threatenin’ grin, chattered savage, an’ bit the stick in two. “Give him the money, Ike,” sez ol’ man Dort. “I own up I never was in Nova Scotia, an’ I never supposed that such squirrels as this grew on the face o’ the whole earth. What’ll you take for him?” he sez to Eugene.
“It ain’t your fault that you didn’t know about him,” sez Eugene, thawin’ a little humanity into himself. “I don’t want to rub it in on nobody; and I’ll give you this here squirrel free gratis, ’cause I admit that you know more about squirrels ’n anybody else what ever I met; an’ you have the biggest red squirrel the’ is in the world.”