"When I survey the pasture in these here back blocks of Genesis, I know we got to make allowances. These patriarchs is only sheepmen anyhow, and sheep herders is trash. They're not what we call white men, but Jews, which is a species of dago. When they get religion they're a sort Mormons, a low-lived breed, yet useful for throwing population quick into a lonesome country where they don't seem popular.
"Now here's Laban. He hasn't got religion, but keeps a trunk full of no-account gods, believed in by ignorant persons. Instead of attending to business, he trusts his foreman Jacob, so it serves him right if he's robbed. Yet the Lord ain't down on him quite so much as you'd think, for he's allowed to graze government land, with no taxes, mortgage, or railroads to rob the meat off his bones. Maybe the Lord's sort of sorry for the poor sheep-herding dago without no horses—the same being good for men's morals, though Jones did kick me out of the stable this very morning. Moreover, Laban lives in a scope of country where men is surely scarce, or he'd never give more'n one of his daughters to such a swine as Jacob. Laban tries to be white, so he'd get my vote at elections.
"You'd think that if the Lord could stand Jacob He must be plumb full of mercy—so there's hope for skunks. He's got so many millions of thoroughbred stud angels that even the best of men is low grade stock to Him. And regarding us mavericks, He has an eye on them as takes kindly to their feed. Yes, He claps His brand on them as know their work.
"So He sees Jacob is a sure glutton, and more, a great stockman, projucing an improved strain of ringstraked goats and sheep. And Jacob does his duty to his country, begetting twelve sons—mean as snakes but still the best he can raise. Yes, there's excuses for Jacob, and lynching ain't yet invented.
"Jacob throws dirt in old man Laban's face, then skins out for his own reservation. On this trail he's got to cross Esau's ranch—the first man he ever swindled. Just you watch him, abject as a yaller dawg, squirming and writhing and crawling to meet the only gentleman in that country. You or me, Billy, would have kicked Jacob good and plenty, but we're only scrub cow-boys, and that's what the Bible instructs.
"The mean trash agrees to keep off Laban's grass; he puts up bribes to Esau; he plays his skin game on the folks at Succoth, which I explain because there's ladies present, and the only comfort is that the angel of the Lord has sized him up, being due to twist his tail in next Sunday's chapter. Now let us get through praying, quick as the Lord will let us, because them calves ain't had their buttermilk."
When we knelt, the widow still sat rigid, and with her wooden leg scratched out upon the oil-cloth vague outlines of a gallows. Afterward she explained. "Yer husband, Mrs. Smith, bad cess to him, is mighty proud av his spectacles, phwat he can't see through and all, and showing off his learning and pride av a Sunday."
"But why draw gallows on the floor?"
"And why for should I not draw gallows on the flure, seeing he'll never drown? It's hung he'll be for a opprissing the fatherless and the widow, and burn he will afther for a Protestant. Yis," she flashed round on her son, "feed buttermilk to thim calves, and hould up yer head alladh, 'cause you inherit glory while he's frying!"
Away from the widow's hate and her son's vengeance, I led my man out under the stars. I gave him his cigar, that black explosive charged with deadly fumes, lighted him a sulphur match. It soothes his passions, and the pasture scent makes him gentle, but when I fear my grizzly bear, and hardly dare to stroke, I lead him by the keen silver spring, across the hollow where our flowers would make a devil smile, and on through the wild rose tangle, to my cathedral pines. To-night he seemed suspicious, even there, biting off tags of the vindictive Psalms. Nor would he sit under the father tree until I sang to him.