"'Parson,' says Enright, lookin' like he's a heap bothered about somethin'--'parson, in addition to your little game as a preacher that a-way, you don't happen to be up none on table-tippin' or sperit rappin', same as them mediums, do you?'

"'Which I sh.o.r.e don't,' replies the preacher sharp, archin' his neck, indignant. 'Likewise, I regyards them cer'monials you alloodes to as satantic in their or'gin.'

"'Doubtless, parson,' returns Enright, some disapp'inted, 'doubtless.

Still, if you-all but counts the rings on my horns, as givin' some impression of the years I've lived an' what troubles I've probably gone through, you'll onderstand that I ain't takin' Satan no more serious than a empty six-shooter. But the mere trooth is, parson, I'm pestered by them promises I makes deeceased. Which I'd give a yellow stack to get put next to Dead Shot's sperit long enough to explain concernin' them nuptials, an' make cl'ar jest how me an' the Doc falls down.'"

II

OLD MAN ENRIGHT'S UNCLE

"Which you'll excoose me," and the old cattleman replaced his gla.s.s upon the table with a decisive click, "if I fails to j'ine you in them sent'ments. For myse'f, I approves onreserved of both lies an' liars.

Also, that reemark goes double when it comes to public liars tellin'

public lies. Which, however se'fish it may sound, I prefers this gov'ment to last my time; an' it's my idee that if them statesmen back at Washington ever takes a hour off from their tax-eatin' an' tells the people the trooth, the whole trooth an' nothin' but the trooth of their affairs, said people'll be down on the sityooation instanter, like a weasel on a nest of field mice, an' wipe the face of nacher free an' cl'ar of these United States."

The above was drawn forth by my condemnatory comments on the published speech of a Senator, wherein the truth was as a grain of wheat in a bushel of mendacious chaff.

"Sh.o.r.e," continued the old gentleman, with the manner of one who delivers final judgment, "lies is not only to be applauded, but fostered. They're the angle-irons an' corner-braces that keeps plumb the social fabric, wantin' which the whole frame-work of soci'ty would go leanin' sideways, same as that Eyetalian tower you shows me the picture of the other day. Why, if everybody in the world was to go tellin' the trooth for the next hour ninety-nine folks in every hundred would be obleeged to put in the rest of their lives hidin'

out.

"Do I myse'f ever lie?

"Frequent an' plumb cheerful. I bases life on the rooles laid down by that sharp who advises folks to do unto others as others does unto them, an' beat 'em to it. Believin', tharfore, in handin' a gent his own system, I makes it my onbreakable practice to allers lie to liars.

Then, ag'in, whenever some impert'nent prairie dog takes to rummagin'

'round with queries to find out my deesigns, I onflaggingly fills him to the brim with all forms of misleadin' mendac'ty, an' casts every fictional obstruction in his path that's calc'lated to get between his heels an' trip him up. I sh.o.r.e do admire to stand all sech inquirin' mavericks on their heads, an' partic'ler if they're plottin'

ag'in me.

"An' why not? A party that a-way, as I some time ago instructs you, ain't got no more right to search my head than to search my warbags, an' a gent who may lock a door may lie. Which, if you'll go off by yourse'f an' think this yere over, you'll see that it's so, an' so with a double cinch.

"Thar's statements, too, which, speakin' technical, might be regyarded as lyin' which don't in jestice cla.s.s onder no sech head. For spec'men, when d.i.c.k Wooten, upon me askin' him how long he's been inhabitin' the Raton Pa.s.s, p'ints to the Spanish Peaks an' says, 'You see them em'nences? Well, when I pitches camp in this yere gully them mountings was two holes in the ground,' I don't feel like he's lyin'.

I merely remembers that he steals the bluff from old Jim Bridger, grins an' lets it go at that.

"Likewise, I'm sim'larly onaffected towards that amiable mult.i.toode who simply lies to entertain. These yere latter sports in their preevar'cations is public ben'factors. You-all can spread yourse'f out in the ca'm shadow of their yarns, same as if it's the shade of a tree, an' find tharin reefreshment an' reepose.

"While the most onimag'native of us, from Peets to Cherokee, ain't none puny as conversationists, the biggest liar, ondoubted, who ever comes romancin' into Wolfville is Enright's uncle, who visits him that time. Back in Tennessee a pa.s.sel of scientists makes what this yere relative of Enright's deescribes as a 'Theological Survey' of some waste land he has on Gingham Mountain, an' finds coal. An' after that he's rich. Thus, in his old age, but chipper as a coopful of catbirds, he comes rackin' into town, allowin' he'll take a last look at his nephy, Sam, before he cashes in.

"His name is Stallins, bein' he's kin to Enright on his mother's side, an' since thar's nine ahead of him--Enright's mother bein' among the first--an' he don't come along as a infant ontil the heel of the domestic hunt that a-way, he's only got it on Enright by ten years in the matter of age.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SECOND EVENING OLD STALLINS IS WITH US, DAN BOGGS AN'

TEXAS THOMPSON UPLIFTS HIS AGED SPERITS WITH THE "LOVE DANCE OF THE CATAMOUNTS." p. 43.]

"No, I sh.o.r.e shouldn't hes'tate none to mention him as a top-sawyer among liars, the same bein' his constant boast an' brag. He accepts the term as embodyin' a compliment, an' the quick way to get his bristles up is to su'gest that his genius for mendac'ty is beginnin'

to bog down.

"For all that, Enright imparts to me, private, that the old gent as a liar ain't a marker to his former se'f.

"'You've heard tell,' Enright says, 'of neighborhood liars, an'

township liars, an' county liars; an' mebby even of liars whose fame as sech might fill the frontiers of a state. Take my uncle, say forty years ago, an' give him the right allowance of baldface whiskey, an'

the coast-to-coast expansiveness of them fictions he tosses off sh.o.r.e ent.i.tles him to the name of champion of the nation. Compar'd to him, Ananias is but a ambitious amatoor.'

"It's the second evenin' old Stallins is with us, an' Enright takes him over to Hamilton's Dance Hall, whar Boggs an' Texas--by partic'lar reequest--uplifts his aged sperits with that y'ear-splittin' an'

toomultuous minyooet, the 'Love Dance of the Catamounts.' Which the exh'bition sets his mem'ry to millin', an' when we gets back to the Red Light he breaks out remin'scent.

"'Sammy,' he says to Enright, 'you was old enough to rec'llect when I has that location over on the upper Hawgthief? Gents,' he goes on, turnin' to us, 'it's a six-forty, an'--side hill, swamp an' bottom--as good a section as any to be crossed up with between the Painted Post an' the 'Possum Trot. It's that "Love Dance of the Catamounts" which brings it to my mind, since it's then an' thar, by virchoo of a catamount, I wins my Sarah Ann.

"'She's sh.o.r.e the star-eyed Venus of the c.u.mberland, is my Sarah Ann.

Her ha'r, black as paint, is as thick as a pony's mane; her lips is the color of pokeberry juice; her cheeks--round an' soft--is as cl'ar an' bright an' glowin' as a sunset in Jooly; her teeth is as milk-white as the inside of a persimmon seed. She's five-foot-eleven without her moca.s.sins, stands as up an' down as a pine tree, got a arm on her like the tiller of a scow, an' can heft a full-sized side of beef an' hang it on the hook. That's fifty years ago. She's back home on the Hawgthief waitin' for me now, my Sarah Ann is. You'd say she's as gray as a 'possum, an' as wrinkled as a burnt boot. Mebby so; but not to me, you bet. She's allers an' ever to me the same endoorin'

hooman sunburst I co'tes an' marries that long time ago.'

"Old Stallins pauses to reefresh himse'f, an' Texas, who's been fidgetin' an' frettin' since the first mention of Sarah Ann, goes whisperin' to Boggs.

"'Can't some of you-all,' he says, plenty peevish, 'head this yere mushy old tarrapin off? This outfit knows what I suffers with that Laredo wife of mine. An' yet it looks like I'm to be tortured constant with tales of married folks, an' not one hand stretched out to save me from them reecitals.'

"'Brace up,' returns Boggs, tryin' to comfort him. 'Thicken your hide ag'in sech childish feelin's, an' don't be so easy pierced. Besides, I reckons the worst's over. He's comin' now to them catamounts.'

"Texas grinds his teeth, an' old Stallins resoomes his adventures.

"'My Sarah Ann's old pap has his location jest across the Hawgthief from me. Besides him an' Sarah Ann, thar ain't n.o.body but the old woman in the fam'ly, the balance of 'em havin' been swept away in a freshet. Sh.o.r.e, old man Bender--that's Sarah Ann's pap's name--has fourteen children once, Sarah Ann, who's oldest, bein' the first chicken on the domestic roost. But the other thirteen is carried off one evenin' when, what with the rains an' what with the snow meltin'

back on Gingham Mountain, the Hawgthief gets its back up. Swish comes a big wave of water, an' you hear me them children goes coughin' an'

kickin' an' splutterin' into the misty beyond.

"'Which I says thirteen only because that's whar old Bender allers puts his loss. Zeb Stiles, who lives on the Painted Post, insists that it's fifteen who gets swept away that time. He allows he counts them infant Benders two evenin's before, perched along on old Bender's palin's like pigeons on a limb. Thirteen or fifteen, however, it don't make no difference much, once they're submerged, that a-way.

"'Mebby I've been co'tin' my Sarah Ann for goin' on six months, givin'

her b'ar robes an' mink pelts, with now an' then a pa'r of bald eagle wings to bresh the hearth. Nothin' heart-movin', however, comes off between us, Sarah Ann keepin' me at arm's len'th an' comportin'

herse'f plumb uppish, as a maiden should. She's right; a likely girl can't be too conserv'tive techin' what young an' boundin' bucks comes co'tin' at her house.

"'Old Bender sort o' likes me in streaks. After he gets bereft of them thirteen or fifteen offspring he turns morose a whole lot, an' I used to go 'cross in my dugout an' cheer him up with my lies.

"'Could I lie?

"'My nephy, Sammy, thar'll nar'ate how I once lies a full-grown b'ar to death. The cunnin' varmint takes advantage of me bein' without my weepons, an' chases me up a tree. I ensconces myse'f in the crotch, an' when the b'ar starts to climb I hurls down ontrooth after ontrooth on top of him ontill, beneath a avalanche of falsehood, he's crushed dead at the base of the tree. Could I lie, you asks? Even folks who don't like me concedes that I'm the most irresist'ble liar south of the Ohio river.

"'While I'm upliftin' the feelin's of old Bender mendacious that a-way, he likes me; it's only when we gets to kyard-playin' he waxes sour. He's a master-hand to gamble, old Bender is, an' as sh.o.r.e as I shows up, followin' a lie or two, he's bound he'll play me seven-up for a crock of baldface whiskey. Now thar ain't a sport from the k.n.o.bs of old Knox to the Mississippi who could make seed corn off me at seven-up, an' nacherally I beats old Bender out of the baldface.

"'With that he'd rave an' t'ar, an' make like he's goin' to jump for his 8-squar' Hawkins rifle, whar she's hangin' on a pa'r of antlers over the door; but he'd content himse'f final by orderin' me out of the shack, sayin' that no sech kyard-sharpin' galoot as me need come pesterin' 'round allowin' to marry no child of his'n. At sech eepocks, too, it looks like Sarah Ann sees things through the eyes of her old man, an' she's more'n common icy.

"'One day old Bender goes weavin' over to Pineknot, an' starts to tradin' hosses with Zeb Stiles. They seesaws away for hours, an' old Bender absorbs about two dollars' worth of licker, still-house rates.

In the finish Zeb does him brown an' does him black on the swap, so it don't astonish n.o.body to death when next day he quiles up in his blankets sick. Marm Bender tries rekiverin' him with yarbs, an'

k.u.mfrey tea, an' sweet gum sa'v. When them rem'dies proves footile she decides that perhaps a frolic'll fetch him.

"'It's about second drink time in the afternoon when Marm Bender starts out Fiddler Abe, givin' notice of the treat. I hears the old n.i.g.g.e.r as, mule-back, he goes meanderin' along, singin':

Thar's a smoke house full of bacon, An' a barrel full of rum.

For to eat an' drink an' shake a laig You've only got to come.