made him so,” says I to myself (as I oft did) crossing the yard for to rinse our two chipped dishes at the well pump.
But I wonder now does the War be excuse enough for Tom to froth up like he does? Sure I myself saw the Elephant. I myself laid down my share of poor Johnny Reb & like Tom was steeped in Sesesh blood & yet I do not think now to kill every man who crosses me. “Let it pass please God,” I said to myself mounting the steps to the farmhouse.
WHEN YOU KIP IN a barn the lamplight from behind the window glass of a warm house does be like an insult. It makes you wonder how it comes to pass that you have no abode of your own when other lesser men do.
I knocked on the farmer’s door & stood to wait. After some time the Harris boy opened it before turning back to the supper table without so much as a nod to me (fine fellow!) & I did enter & dry the plates with a kitchen rag & place them together but separate from the Harris family plates.
“Speak your mind Michael,” says the farmer then with sweet pipe smoke leaking from the corners of his mouth. “Or leave us in peace. We all seen enough of each other today I think.”
From force of habit I did remove my straw hat & hold it in 2 hands over my heart & I have no doubt my forehead glowed a shocking white against the sun cured hide of my face.
“The calf Mr. Harris,” says I surprising myself for I did not intend to speak of it. “Only the brother & myself be wondering—”
Harris rapped his pipe down in a clay bowl on the table as if to knock it clean but more in the way of a magistrate striking sentence with his gavel.
“I have told you & that brother of yours the calf no more belongs to you than does this house or farm or anything in it.”
Harris had the stern & rosy fat face of more than one 1st Sergeant from my days in the Army. It was a fearsome face though neither father nor son saw a single ball fired in anger in the War the father paying (so it was said in Chillicoth) 300$ indulgence for men to go & fight in their place as was custom among men of means. My knuckles went white round the brim of my hat.
He went on, “And tell that brother of yours that if he wants words with me over that calf to come see me himself & do not go sending the church mouse in his place to do the barn cat’s business.”
Like you done in the War sending someone in your place! As I was thinking this I saw the son smile & anger flared in my heart under the straw hat that covered it. You 2 b______ would have less mockery in you if the barn cat came in here to see you I thought & at this I did recall some words my mother oft said when her boys gave backtalk to her May God Give Her Rest for we never did. In the Gaelic the words are Iss Minic A Vrish Bale Dinna A Hrone which in English means Many Is The Time A Man’s Mouth Broke His Nose as you do well know Sir. But there in that farmer’s kitchen my mind changed it of its own will & in my mind it went Many’s The Time A Man’s Mouth Cut His Throat.
But I pushed this terrible thinking down under the fear & prostration for both of these come fair easier to me than the rage that runs as blood in my brother’s veins. I swallowed & summoned what courage I could because alongside the abject face of my God Given Nature was also a bold & stubborn aspect which in the War served me well & which will serve me well in life if I do ever leave this Valley with my guts still inside me & not spooled out in the buffalo grass or with my neck stretched by the rope you may wish to string round it Sir.
Says I to the farmer, “Then we will be taking our owed wages Mr. Harris.”
Well that stuffed goose of a son smiled rightly at this & Harris himself made to mock the way I speak repeating my words to