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Read Ebook: Ecclesiastical History of England Volume 5—The Church of the Revolution by Stoughton John
Font size: Background color: Text color: Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev PageEbook has 1097 lines and 162950 words, and 22 pages"Billy shot a hawk, breaking its wing. That was the first in the collection. He was a lovely pet. When you gave him a piece of meat he said 'Cree,' and clawed chunks out of you, but most of the time he sat in the corner with his chin on his chest, like a broken-down lawyer. We didn't get the affection we needed out of him. Well, then Wind-River found a bull-snake asleep and lugged him home, hanging over his shoulder. We sewed a flannel collar on the snake and picketed him out until he got used to the place. And around and around and around squirmed that snake until we near got sick at our stummicks watching him. All day long, turning and turning and turning. "The style that cat spread on in the matter of growing was simply astonishing; he grew so's you could notice it overnight. At the end of two months he was that big he couldn't stand up under our sheet-iron cook-stove, and this was about the beginning of our family troubles. Tommy, the snake, was a good deal of a nuisance from the time he settled down. You'd have a horrible dream in the night--be way down under something or other, gasping for wind, and, waking up, find Tommy nicely coiled on your chest. Then you'd slap Tommy on the floor like a section of large rubber hose. But he bore no malice. Soon's you got asleep he'd be right back again. When the weather got cool he was always under foot. He'd roll beneath you and land you on your scalp-lock, or you'd ketch your toe on him and get a dirty drop. I don't think I ever laughed more in my life than one day when Billy come in with an armful of wood, tripped on Tommy, and come down with a clatter right where Judge Jenkins, the hawk, could reach him. The Judge fastened one claw in Billy's hair and scratched his whiskers with the other. Gee! The hair and feathers flew! Bill had a hot temper and he went for the hawk like it was a man. The first thing he laid his hand on was Tommy, so he used the poor snake for a club. Wind-River and me were so weak from laughing that we near lost two pets before we got strength to interfere." "But, as I was saying, the cold nights played Keno with our happy home. Neither Tommy nor Bob dared monkey with the Judge--he was the only thing on top of the earth the cat was afraid of. Bob used to be very anxious to sneak a hunk of meat from His Honour at times, yet, when the Judge stood on one foot, cocked his head sideways, snapped his bill and said 'Cree,' Robert reconsidered. On the other hand, Tommy and Bob were forever scrapping. Lively set-tos, I want to tell you. The snake butted with his head like a young streak of lightning. I've seen him knock the cat ten foot. And while a cat doesn't grow mouldy in the process of making a move, yet the snake is there about one seventeen-hundredth-millionth part of a second sooner. And that's a good deal where those parties are concerned. Now, on cold nights, they both liked to get under the stove, where it was warm, and there wasn't room for more'n one. Hence, trouble; serious trouble. Bob hunted coyotes on moonlight nights. We threw scraps around the corner of the house to bait 'em, and Bob would watch there hour on end until one got within range. It was a dead coyote in ten seconds by the watch, if the jump landed. If it didn't, Bob had learned there was no use wasting his young strength trying to ketch him. He used to sit still and gaze after them flying streaks of hair and bones as though he was thinking 'I wisht somebody'd telegraph that son-of-a-gun for me.'" "Well, then he'd be chilly and reckon he'd climb under the stove. But Thomas 'ud be there. "'H-h-h-h-hhhh!' says Tom, in a whisper. "'Er-raow-pht!" says Robert. 'Mmmmm-mm--errrrr--pht!' And so on for some time, the talk growing louder, then, with a yell that would stand up every hair on your head, Bob 'ud hop him. Over goes the cook-stove. Away rolls the hot coals on the floor. Down comes the stove-pipe and the frying-pans and the rest of the truck, whilst the old Judge in the corner hollered decisions, heart-broke because he was tied by the leg and could not get a claw into the dispute. "But children will be children. We swore awful, still we wouldn't have missed their company for a fair-sized farm. "And now comes in the first little twist of the Big Bend Ranch, proper--all these things I'm telling you were the eggs. Here's where the critter pipped. "'Twas November, and such a November as you don't get outside of Old Dakota, a regular mint-julep of a month, with a dash of summer, a sprig of spring, a touch of fall, and a sniff or two of winter to liven you up. If you'd formed a committee to furnish weather for a month, and they'd turned out a month like that, not even their best friends would have kicked. And here we'd been makin' hay, and makin' hay, the ranch people thanking Providence that prairie grass cures on the stem, while we cussed, for we were sick of the sight of hay. I got so the rattle of a mower give me hysterics. We were picked because we were steady and reliable, but one day we bunched the job. Says I, 'Here; we've cut grass for four solid months, includin' Sundays and legal holidays, although the Lord knows where they come in, for I haven't the least suspicion what day of the month it may be, but anyhow, let's knock off one round.' "So we did. I sat outside in the afternoon, while the other two boys and the rest of the family took a snooze. Here comes a man across the south flat a-horseback. "I watched him, much interested: first place, he was the first strange human animal we'd laid eye on for six weeks; next place, his style of riding attracted attention. I thought at the time he must have invented it, him being the kind of man that hated horses, and wanted to keep as far away from them as possible, yet forced by circumstances to climb upon their backs." "His mount was a big American horse, full sixteen hand high, trotting in twenty-foot jumps. If I had anything against a person, just short of killing, I'd tie him on the back of a horse trotting like that. It's a great gait to sit out. Howsomever, this man didn't sit it out; what he wanted of a saddle beyond the stirrups was a mystery, for he never touched it. He stood up on his stirrups, bent forward like he was going to bite the horse in the ear, soon's the strain got unendurable. "Well, here he come, straight for us. I'd a mind to wake the other boys up, to let 'em see something new in the way of mishandling a horse, but they snored so peaceful. I refrained. "'How-de-do?' says he. "I said I was worrying along, and sized him up, on the quiet. He was a queer pet. Not a bad set-up man, and rather good looking in the face. Light yellow hair, little yellow moustache, light blue eyes. And clean! Say, I never saw anybody that looked so aggravating clean in all my life. It seemed kind of wrong for him to be outdoors; all the prairie and the cabin and everything looked mussed up beside him. "As soon as he opened up, I noticed he had a little habit of speaking in streaks, that bothered me. I missed the sense of his remarks. "'Would you mind walking over that trail again?' I asked him. 'I do most of my thinking at a foot-step and your ideas is over the hill and far away before I can recognise the cut of their scalp-lock.' "'Haw!' says he and stared at me. I was just on the point of askin' him if red hair was a new thing to him, when all of a sudden he begun to laugh, 'Haw-haw-haw!' says he; 'not bad at all, ye know.' "This got him going. I saw him figuring away to himself, and then I had to smile so you could hear it. "'Well,' says I, better humoured, 'tell us it again--I caught the word sheep in the hurricane.' "So he went over it, talking slow. I listened with one ear, for he had a white bulldog with him; a husky, bandy-legged brute with a black eye, and he was sniffing, dog fashion, around the door, while I blocked him out with my legs. Doggy was in a fra 349 Toland and Norris 350 Literary Style 352 Rise of Religious Societies 354 Young Men's Associations 356 Society for Reformation of Manners 358 Societies Advocated from the Pulpit 361 Christian Knowledge Society 364 Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts 369 Circumstances of the Nonjurors 375 Kettlewell 377 Dodwell 380 Hickes 382 Lee 383 Nelson 384 Nonjurors in London 387 Social Gatherings at Shottesbrook Park 387 Ken's Retirement at Longleat 390 Deaths of Nonjurors-- White 391 Turner 392 Samuel Pepys 393 Political Views of Nonjurors 395 Religious Spirit 396 Modes of Worship 398 Nonconformist Places of Worship in London 400 Nonconformists in Nottingham and Chester 402 In Northamptonshire 403 Presbyterians 404 Ordinations 405 Edmund Calamy 408 Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page |
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