When we started home, Bill was still discoursin' about us Westerners. He said that we wasn't nothin' but a lot o' children playin' games an' believin' in fairy tales, that we never provided for the future, that we was allus willin' to risk anything we had on some fool thing that wouldn't benefit us none, an' so on until I got weary of it, an' after I'd took a shuffle I dealt him out this hand.
"An' the''s another breed," sez I, "that ain't nothin' but children an' that's the writers. An idea comes along an' stings 'em like a bee, an' they immejetly begin to swell. They swell an' swell until the whole earth ain't nothin' but the background for that bee-sting. They howl about it as if it was the most important thing in creation; but if you call around next week, you find that swellin' gone down an' they're howlin' just as fierce over a new swellin' where a different idea has stung 'em; ain't it so?"
"Not exactly," sez Bill; "for we set down our thoughts an' emotions while we're smartin' from the sting an' the other fellers can get the sense of 'em an' pass judgment on 'em in cold blood without gettin' stung at all."
"Well, you landed there," sez I, "but the' wasn't one o' those fellers there to-day, who was a quarter whit more childish'n what you was. Talk about providin' For their future! Why, the way you went on over this stray pup, purt' nigh put you in the position of a man who didn't have no future to provide for, an' what in thunder good can this here pup ever do you, no matter what happens?"
The pup was sittin' with his head between Bill's knees, an' Bill pulled his ear a time or two, an' then sez, "I reckon you're right; the whole earth ain't nothin' but a kindergarten. We all play different games an' when you stop an' look at it they all cost about the same in the end an' they all bring in about the same profit; but I'm glad I'm livin' anyhow; an' I'm glad I've got this dog. I'm special fond o' dogs."
You couldn't help likin' Bill; he allus played in the open an' when he kept score, he give you all the points you made without fussin' over 'em; but I didn't like the look o' that new outfit on his hip. He was too impulsive to carry a gun, an' he was too young. Take it when a man has had some experience in gun-fightin', he gets purty sober over the effect of it; but a young feller—well, who on earth knows what way a young feller is goin' to jump when he gets touched up a little?
"That's a purty likely lookin' gun you got there, Bill," sez I. "Do you savvy how to run one?"
He took it out of his pocket an' looked around, but the' wasn't nothin' in sight that needed killin', so he began to pop at an old single-tree lyin' about thirty yards away. The ponies were trottin' along purty jerky, but hanged if he didn't hit it four times out of six.
"It don't just hang to suit me," sez Bill, "but I'll learn it after a bit."
I looked at him a moment, but he was merely speakin' his mind, an' I sez: "Bill, where in Goshen did you get to be a killin' man?"