"An' thar that ornery Grief reposes, too plumb lazy to move, while
the branch creeps up about him. It's crope up so high, final, that
his y'ears an' the back of his head is in it. All Grief does is sort
o' lift his chin an' lay squar', to keep his nose out so's he can
breathe.
An' he shorely beats the game; for the rain ceases, an' the branch
don't rise no higher. This yere Grief lays thar ontil the branch
runs down an' he's high an' dry ag'in, an' then the sun shines out
an' dries his clothes. It's that same night when Grief has drug
himse'f home to supper, he says to his wife, 'Thar's nothin' like
exercise,' an' then counsels that lady over his corn pone an'
chitlins to take in washin' like I relates."
We walked on in mute consideration of the extraordinary indolence of
the worthless Mudlow. Our silence obtained for full ten minutes.
Then I proposed "courage" as a subject, and put a question.
"Thar's fifty kinds of courage," responded my companion, "an' a gent
who's plumb weak an' craven, that a-way, onder certain
circumstances, is as full of sand as the bed of the Arkansaw onder
others. Thar's hoss-back courage an' thar's foot courage, thar's day
courage an' night courage, thar's gun courage an' knife courage, an'
no end of courages besides. An' then thar's the courage of vanity.
More'n once, when I'm younger, I'm swept down by this last form of
heroism, an' I even recalls how in a sperit of vainglory I rides a
buffalo bull. I tells you, son, that while that frantic buffalo is
squanderin' about the plains that time, an' me onto him, he feels a
mighty sight like the ridge of all the yooniverse. How does it end?
It's too long a tale to tell walkin' an' without reecooperatifs;
suffice it that it ends disastrous. I shall never ride no buffalo
ag'in, leastwise without a saddle, onless its a speshul o'casion.
"No, indeed, that word 'courage' has to be defined new for each
case. Thar's old Tom Harris over on the Canadian. I beholds Tom one
time at Tascosa do the most b'ar-faced trick; one which most sports
of common sens'bilities would have shrunk from. Thar's a warrant out
for Tom, an' Jim East the sheriff puts his gun on Tom when Tom's
lookin' t'other way.
"'See yere, Harris!' says East, that a-way.
"Tom wheels, an' is lookin' into the mouth of East's six-shooter not
a yard off.
"'Put up your hands!' says East.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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