THE HONK-HONK BREED
It was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather had been favourable; the windmills were all working, the bogs had dried up, the beef had lasted over, the remuda had not strayed--in short, there was nothing to do. Sang had given us a baked bread-pudding with raisins in it. We filled it--in a wash basin full of it--on top of a few incidental pounds of chile con, baked beans, soda biscuits, "air tights," and other delicacies. Then we adjourned with our pipes to the shady side of the blacksmith"s shop where we could watch the ravens on top the adobe wall of the corral. Somebody told a story about ravens.
This led to road-runners. This suggested rattlesnakes. They started Windy Bill.
"Speakin" of snakes," said Windy, "I mind when they catched the great-granddaddy of all the bullsnakes up at Lead in the Black Hills.
I was only a kid then. This wasn"t no such tur"ble long a snake, but he was more"n a foot thick. Looked just like a sahuaro stalk. Man name of Terwilliger Smith catched it. He named this yere bullsnake Clarence, and got it so plumb gentle it followed him everywhere. One day old P. T. Barnum come along and wanted to buy this Clarence snake--offered Terwilliger a thousand cold--but Smith wouldn"t part with the snake nohow. So finally they fixed up a deal so Smith could go along with the show. They shoved Clarence in a box in the baggage car, but after a while Mr. Snake gets so lonesome he gnaws out and starts to crawl back to find his master. Just as he is half-way between the baggage car and the smoker, the couplin" give way--right on that heavy grade between Custer and Rocky Point. Well, sir, Clarence wound his head "round one brake wheel and his tail around the other, and held that train together to the bottom of the grade. But it stretched him twenty-eight feet and they had to advertise him as a boa-constrictor."
Windy Bill"s story of the faithful bullsnake aroused to reminiscence the grizzled stranger, who thereupon held forth as follows:
Wall, I"ve see things and I"ve heerd things, some of them ornery, and some you"d love to believe, they was that gorgeous and improbable.
Nat"ral history was always my hobby and sportin" events my special pleasure and this yarn of Windy"s reminds me of the only chanst I ever had to ring in business and pleasure and hobby all in one grand merry-go-round of joy. It come about like this:
One day, a few year back, I was sittin" on the beach at Santa Barbara watchin" the sky stay up, and wonderin" what to do with my year"s wages, when a little squinch-eye round-face with big bow spectacles came and plumped down beside me.
"Did you ever stop to think," says he, shovin" back his hat, "that if the horsepower delivered by them waves on this beach in one single hour could be concentrated behind washin" machines, it would be enough to wash all the shirts for a city of four hundred and fifty-one thousand one hundred and thirty-six people?"
"Can"t say I ever did," says I, squintin" at him sideways.
"Fact," says he, "and did it ever occur to you that if all the food a man eats in the course of a natural life could be gathered together at one time, it would fill a wagon-train twelve miles long?"
"You make me hungry," says I.
"And ain"t it interestin" to reflect," he goes on, "that if all the finger-nail parin"s of the human race for one year was to be collected and subjected to hydraulic pressure it would equal in size the pyramid of Cheops?"
"Look yere," says I, sittin" up, "did YOU ever pause to excogitate that if all the hot air you is dispensin" was to be collected together it would fill a balloon big enough to waft you and me over that Bullyvard of Palms to yonder gin mill on the corner?"
He didn"t say nothin" to that--just yanked me to my feet, faced me towards the gin mill above mentioned, and exerted considerable pressure on my arm in urgin" of me forward.
"You ain"t so much of a dreamer, after all," thinks I. "In important matters you are plumb decisive."
We sat down at little tables, and my friend ordered a beer and a chicken sandwich.
"Chickens," says he, gazin" at the sandwich, "is a dollar apiece in this country, and plumb scarce. Did you ever pause to ponder over the returns chickens would give on a small investment? Say you start with ten hens. Each hatches out thirteen aigs, of which allow a loss of say six for childish accidents. At the end of the year you has eighty chickens. At the end of two years that flock has increased to six hundred and twenty. At the end of the third year--"
He had the medicine tongue! Ten days later him and me was occupyin" of an old ranch fifty mile from anywhere. When they run stage-coaches this joint used to be a roadhouse. The outlook was on about a thousand little brown foothills. A road two miles four rods two foot eleven inches in sight run by in front of us. It come over one foothill and disappeared over another. I know just how long it was, for later in the game I measured it.
Out back was about a hundred little wire chicken corrals filled with chickens. We had two kinds. That was the doin"s of Tuscarora. My pardner called himself Tuscarora Maxillary. I asked him once if that was his real name.
"It"s the realest little old name you ever heerd tell of," says he. "I know, for I made it myself--liked the sound of her. Parents ain"t got no rights to name their children. Parents don"t have to be called them names."
Well, these chickens, as I said, was of two kinds. The first was these low-set, heavyweight propositions with feathers on their laigs, and not much laigs at that, called Cochin Chinys. The other was a tall ridiculous outfit made up entire of bulgin" breast and gangle laigs.
They stood about two foot and a half tall, and when they went to peck the ground their tail feathers stuck straight up to the sky. Tusky called "em j.a.panese Games.
"Which the chief advantage of them chickens is," says he, "that in weight about ninety per cent of "em is breast meat. Now my idee is, that if we can cross "em with these Cochin Chiny fowls we"ll have a low-hung, heavyweight chicken runnin" strong on breast meat. These j.a.p Games is too small, but if we can bring "em up in size and shorten their laigs, we"ll sh.o.r.e have a winner."
That looked good to me, so we started in on that idee. The theery was bully, but she didn"t work out. The first broods we hatched growed up with big husky Cochin Chiny bodies and little short necks, perched up on laigs three foot long. Them chickens couldn"t reach ground nohow.
We had to build a table for "em to eat off, and when they went out rustlin" for themselves they had to confine themselves to sidehills or flyin" insects. Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s was all right, though--"And think of them drumsticks for the boardinghouse trade!" says Tusky.
So far things wasn"t so bad. We had a good grubstake. Tusky and me used to feed them chickens twict a day, and then used to set around watchin" the playful critters chase gra.s.shoppers up an" down the wire corrals, while Tusky figgered out what"d happen if somebody was dumfool enough to gather up somethin" and fix it in baskets or wagons or such.
That was where we showed our ignorance of chickens.
One day in the spring I hitched up, rustled a dozen of the youngsters into coops, and druv over to the railroad to make our first sale. I couldn"t fold them chickens up into them coops at first, but then I stuck the coops up on aidge and they worked all right, though I will admit they was a comical sight. At the railroad one of them towerist trains had just slowed down to a halt as I come up, and the towerist was paradin" up and down allowin" they was particular enjoyin" of the warm Californy sunshine. One old terrapin, with grey chin whiskers, projected over, with his wife, and took a peek through the slats of my coop. He straightened up like someone had touched him off with a red-hot poker.
"Stranger," said he, in a scared kind of whisper, "what"s them?"
"Them"s chickens," says I.
He took another long look.
"Marthy," says he to the old woman, "this will be about all! We come out from Ioway to see the Wonders of Californy, but I can"t go nothin"
stronger than this. If these is chickens, I don"t want to see no Big Trees."
Well, I sold them chickens all right for a dollar and two bits, which was better than I expected, and got an order for more. About ten days later I got a letter from the commission house.
"We are returnin" a sample of your Arts and Crafts chickens with the lovin" marks of the teeth still onto him," says they. "Don"t send any more till they stops pursuin" of the nimble gra.s.shopper. Dentist bill will foller."
With the letter came the remains of one of the chickens. Tusky and I, very indignant, cooked her for supper. She was tough, all right. We thought she might do better biled, so we put her in the pot over night.
Nary bit. Well, then we got interested. Tusky kep" the fire goin" and I rustled greasewood. We cooked her three days and three nights. At the end of that time she was sort of pale and frazzled, but still givin" points to three-year-old jerky on cohesion and other uncompromisin" forces of Nature. We buried her then, and went out back to recuperate.
There we could gaze on the smilin" landscape, dotted by about four hundred long-laigged chickens swoopin" here and there after gra.s.shoppers.
"We got to stop that," says I.
"We can"t," murmured Tusky, inspired. "We can"t. It"s born in "em; it"s a primal instinct, like the love of a mother for her young, and it can"t be eradicated! Them chickens is constructed by a divine providence for the express purpose of chasin" gra.s.shoppers, jest as the beaver is made for buildin" dams, and the cow-puncher is made for whisky and faro-games. We can"t keep "em from it. If we was to shut "em in a dark cellar, they"d flop after imaginary gra.s.shoppers in their dreams, and die emaciated in the midst of plenty. Jimmy, we"re up agin the Cosmos, the oversoul--" Oh, he had the medicine tongue, Tusky had, and risin" on the wings of eloquence that way, he had me faded in ten minutes. In fifteen I was wedded solid to the notion that the bottom had dropped out of the chicken business. I think now that if we"d shut them hens up, we might have--still, I don"t know; they was a good deal in what Tusky said.
"Tuscarora Maxillary," says I, "did you ever stop to entertain that beautiful thought that if all the dumfoolishness possessed now by the human race could be gathered together, and lined up alongside of us, the first feller to come along would say to it "Why, h.e.l.lo, Solomon!""
We quit the notion of chickens for profit right then and there, but we couldn"t quit the place. We hadn"t much money, for one thing, and then we, kind of liked loafin" around and raisin" a little garden truck, and--oh, well, I might as well say so, we had a notion about placers in the dry wash back of the house you know how it is. So we stayed on, and kept a-raisin" these long-laigs for the fun of it. I used to like to watch "em projectin" around, and I fed "em twict a day about as usual.
So Tusky and I lived alone there together, happy as ducks in Arizona.
About onc"t in a month somebody"d pike along the road. She wasn"t much of a road, generally more chuckholes than b.u.mps, though sometimes it was the other way around. Unless it happened to be a man horseback or maybe a freighter without the fear of G.o.d in his soul, we didn"t have no words with them; they was too busy cussin" the highways and generally too mad for social discourses.
One day early in the year, when the "dobe mud made ruts to add to the b.u.mps, one of these automobeels went past. It was the first Tusky and me had seen in them parts, so we run out to view her. Owin" to the high spots on the road, she looked like one of these movin" picters, as to blur and wobble; sounded like a cyclone mingled with cuss-words, and smelt like h.e.l.l on housecleanin" day.
"Which them folks don"t seem to be enjoyin" of the scenery," says I to Tusky. "Do you reckon that there blue trail is smoke from the machine or remarks from the inhabitants thereof?"
Tusky raised his head and sniffed long and inquirin".
"It"s langwidge," says he. "Did you ever stop to think that all the words in the dictionary stretched end to end would reach--"
But at that minute I catched sight of somethin" bra.s.s lyin" in the road. It proved to be a curled-up sort of horn with a rubber bulb on the end. I squoze the bulb and jumped twenty foot over the remark she made.
"Jarred off the machine," says Tusky.
"Oh, did it?" says I, my nerves still wrong. "I thought maybe it had growed up from the soil like a toadstool."
About this time we abolished the wire chicken corrals, because we needed some of the wire. Them long-laigs thereupon scattered all over the flat searchin" out their prey. When feed time come I had to screech my lungs out gettin" of "em in, and then sometimes they didn"t all hear. It was plumb discouragin", and I mighty nigh made up my mind to quit "em, but they had come to be sort of pets, and I hated to turn "em down. It used to tickle Tusky almost to death to see me out there hollerin" away like an old bull-frog. He used to come out reg"lar, with his pipe lit, just to enjoy me. Finally I got mad and opened up on him.