"Well," sez he, "I'd read the Bible clean through from cover to cover
an' I never saw anything unreasonable in it, so I thought I could set
Barbie right without any trouble. She read the first chapter, an' by
that time I was runnin' for cover an' yellin' for help. The' ought to
be something done about that book, it ain't right to try an' raise a
child to be honest, an' tell 'em that they must believe the Bible, an'
then have 'em find out what the Bible really sez."
"Well, what about it?" sez I.
"Well, it sez that the' was light an' darkness an' evenin' an' mornin'
on the first day; on the third day the' was all kinds o' grass an'
herbs yieldin' seeds, an' fruit trees yieldin' fruit; but the' wasn't
no sun or stars until the fourth day. Now how could you have evenings
an' mornings an' grass an' fruit trees without sunshine? You know that
wouldn't work, an' when she put it up to me I simply threw up my hands,
an' sent Spider Kelley with the buckboard to hunt up this missionary
preacher. He was long-haired an' pius, an' when I saw him I felt purty
sure he could straighten it out; but he wasn't game. Barbie argued fair
an' square, an' he lost his temper an' called her an infidel an' a
heretic an' a nagnostic; but she pulled a lot o' books on him, an' he
couldn't understand 'em an' blasphemed 'em something terrible; but he
see he was whipped, an' just simply ran away. I felt mighty bad about
Barbie bein' an infidel until Friar Tuck came around. You remember
Friar Tuck--the one they call an Episcolopian?" Course I remembered
Friar Tuck. Everybody knew him an' he was about as easy to forget as a
stiff neck--though for different reasons. Preachers are about as
different as other humans to begin with, but the women seem more
unanimously bent on spoilin' 'em; so as a general rule I wade in purty
careful when I 'm startin' an acquaintance with a strange one, but I
did know that this here one was all to the right, an' his time belonged
to any one who demanded it. This made him purty wearin' on hosses, an'
when one would give out on him he'd just turn it loose an' rope another
'thout makin' any preliminary about it; all the explanation a body got
was just seein' a tired, stray pony eatin' grass. The first time he
tried that game they gathered up a posse an' ran him down; but he
pulled a Bible on 'em showin' where he got his commission from, threw a
sermon into 'em 'at converted two an' made one other sign the pledge,
an' that put an end to any unsolicited interference in his line o'
work. He was a big man with two right hands, an' some one gave him the
name of Friar Tuck out of a book, an' he was known by it the whole
country over.
I nodded my head: "Did the Friar get fainty about Barbie bein' a
heretic?" sez I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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