But the main good I got out of Spike was learnin' how to take old Cast Steel Judson. It was some years after this before I met up with him; but the good effect hadn't worn off and me an' Cast Steel just merged together like butter an' a hot penny. I wasn't much more 'an a kid even then, but law! I wish I knew just half as much now as I thought I did then. My self respect was certainly a bulky article those days an' I wasn't in the habit of undervaluin' my own judgment—not to any great extent; but that habit o' study I'd formed with Spike was my balance wheel, an' I generally managed to keep my conceit from shuttin' out the entire landscape. The' wasn't a great deal escaped my eye, 'cause I begun to notice purty tol'able young that experience is consid'able like a bank account: takes a heap o' sweat to get her started, but she's comfortable to draw on in a pinch.
Ol' man Judson was a curious affair, had his own way o' doin' every blessed thing, an' whenever he hired a man he always went through the same rigamarole. "Now what I'm contractin' for," he'd say, "is just only your time an' whatever part o' your thinkin' apparatus as is needed in doin' YOUR share o' my business. If I detail you to sit in the shade an' count clouds, I don't want no argument, I want the clouds counted. When I don't specially express a hungerin' for any of your advice, that's the very time when you don't need to give any. Whenever you think you have a kick comin'—why think again. Then if you still see the kick, make it to the foreman. If that don't work make it to me; but when you make it to me, you want to be mighty sure it will hold water. Above all things I hate a liar, a coward, an' a sneak. Now get busy 'cause life is short an' time is fleetin'."
That was the way he used to talk, an' some used to set him down as a tyrant, an' some had him guessed in as a rough old codger with a soft heart,—everybody took a guess at him,—but the blood in the turnip was that ol' Jabez Judson was purty tol'able sizey when you carne to fence him in. Everybody called him Cast Steel Judson, an' you might work through the langwidge five times without adding much to the description. Hard he was an' stern an' no bend to him; but at the same time you could count on him acting up to his nature. He wa'n't no hypocrite, an' th''s a heap o' comfort jest in that. A feller ain't got no kick comin' when a rattler lands on him; but if a wood dove was to poison him, he'd have a fair right to be put out. The only child 'at Cast Steel had was one daughter; but that don't indicate that paternity was one long vacation for Jabez. Barbie—her full name was Barbara—was the sweetest an' the gamest an' the most surpriseable creature a human being ever met up with, an' ol' Jabez could 'a' got along handier with seven sons than he did with that one girl. Oh, the eyes of her were like the two stars over old Savage, snappin' an' twinklin' an' sparklin' in the clear winter nights, or soft an' shy an' tender when the hazy spring moon cuddles up to them. She wasn't afraid of anything 'at walks the face o' the earth, an' Jabez had a hard time gettin' used to this—'cause he thought she ought to be afraid o' him.
Still, he fair worshipped her, an' if he'd been given full charge o' the earth for jest one day, an' anything would 'a' pestered the girl durin' that day, why the map-maker would sure have had a job on the day follerin'; 'cause from his standpoint, that girl was what the sun shone for an' the rain rained for an' the blossoms blossomed for.
We was allus havin' a lot o' Easterners string along during the summer, an' they generally was easy to entice into makin' a little visit with us. Some of 'em would spend their time crackin' stones an' makin' up tales about their bein' speciments o' the Zelooic age or the Palazoric age or some such a fool thing. They was mostly heathens, an' it didn't do no good to spring the Bible on 'em—in fact after we got able to read their signs we never contraried 'em at all, but just let 'em heave out any tale they could think up an' pretend 'at we believed it; an' hanged if I don't begin to suspicion that the' 's a heap o' truth in some o' their nonsense.
Purty near every one of 'em insisted that at one time all those mountains, even old Savage, had been under water, an' they'd take us out an' show us the signs; but we couldn't stomach that until we found out that this was one o' the Injun traditions too, an' then we give in.
Well, one o' these strays was what they call an astronomer. His speciality was the stars, nothing less; an' he knew 'em by name an' could tell you how far off they are an' what they weigh an' how many moons they had an'—oh, he knew 'em the same as I know the home herd, an' he didn't only know what they had done—he knew what they was a-goin' to do, an' when he called the turn on 'em, why they up an' done it. Comets an' eclipses an' sech like miracles were jest the same to this feller as winter an' summer was to me, an' we fed him until he like to founder himself, tryin' to hold him through the winter; but at last he had to go, an' after he'd gone Cast Steel was purty down-hearted for quite a spell.
"It ain't fair, Happy," sez he to me one day after the astronomer had gone.
"No," sez I, "I reckon it will rain before mornin'."
"I mean it ain't a fair shake," sez he. "Jupiter has eight of 'em an' we ain't but one an' the' ain't nobody lives there, while—"