So I up and asked him to tell me somethin’ about his start.
[CHAPTER SIX—A REMINISCENCE]
I pity the man who has never slept out doors in the Rocky Mountains. Swingin’ around with the earth, away up there in the starlight, he fills himself full o’ new life with every breath; and no matter how tough the day has been, he is bound to wake up the next mornin’ plumb rested, and with strength and energy fair dancin’ through his veins. For it to be perfect, a feller has to have a pipe, a fire, and some one close and chummy to chat with. This night me an’ the Friar both went down to the crick and washed our feet. We sat on a log side by side and made noises like a flock of bewildered geese when we first stuck our feet into the icy water; but by the time we had raced back and crawled into his bed, we were glowin’ all over.
We didn’t cover up right away, because the Friar just simply couldn’t seem to get sleepy that night; and after a minute he put some more wood on the fire, filled his pipe again, and said: “So you want me to tell you about my story, huh? Well, I believe I will tell you about my boyhood.”
So I filled my pipe, and we lay half under the tarp with our heads on our hands and our elbows on our boots, which were waitin’ to be pillows, and he told me about the early days, talkin’ more to himself than to me.
“My mother died when I was six years old, my father divided his time between cleanin’ out saloons, beatin’ me, an’ livin’ in the work-house,” began the Friar, and it give me kind of a shock. I’d had a notion that such-like kids wasn’t likely to grow up into preachers; and I’d allus supposed ’at the Friar had had a soft, gentle youth. “I was a tough, sturdy urchin,” he went on, “but I allus had a soft heart for animals. I used to fight several times a day; but mostly because the other kids used to stone cats and tie tin cans on dogs’ tails. I used to shine shoes, pass papers, run errands, and do any other odd job for a few pennies, and at night I slept wherever I could. I had a big dry-goods-box all to myself for several months, once, and I still look back to it as being a fine, comfortable bedroom.
“One morning I was down at the Union Depot when a farmer drove up a big Norman hoss hitched to a surrey. Some o’ the other kids joshed him, called the hoss an elephant and asked where the rest o’ the show was. The man was big, well fed, and comfortable lookin’, same as the hoss, and he didn’t pay any heed to the kids except to call one of ’em up to hold the hoss while he went into the depot. The kid wanted to know first what he was goin’ to be paid, and he haggled so long ’at the farmer beckoned to me to come up. ‘Will you hold my hoss for me a few minutes?’ he asked.
“That big gray hoss with the dark, gentle eyes seemed to me one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, and I was mighty anxious to have charge of him, even for a few minutes; so I sez, ‘You bet I will.’
“The other kids roasted me and made all manner o’ sport; but they knew I would fight ’em if they got too superfluous, so after a bit they went on about their business. The’s somethin’ about man’s love for a hoss that’s a little hard to understand. I had never had no intimate dealin’s with one before, yet somethin’ inside me reached out and entwined itself all about this big, gray, velvet-nosed beauty left in my charge. I reckon it must be in a man’s blood; that’s the only explanation I can find. All the way back along the trail o’ history we find the bones of men and hosses bleachin’ together in the same heap; and about every worthwhile spot on the face o’ nature has been fought over on hossback, so it’s small wonder if the feel of a hoss has got to be part of man’s nature.
“The farmer had had a woman and a little girl in his care, to see off on the train, and he was gone some time. I had a few pennies in my pocket, and I bought an apple an’ fed it to the hoss, gettin’ more enjoyment out of it than out of airy other apple I’d ever owned. I can feel right now the strange movin’s inside my breast as his moist nose sniffed at my fingers and his delicate lips picked up the bits of apple, as careful an’ gentle as though my rough, dirty little hand had been made o’ crystal.