The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0139/01396.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 13KB | 249 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01396}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Life On The Mississippi
Chapter XXXVI}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{backus
little
cattle
gamblers
now
saw
say
wiley
ain't
better}
$Date{1917}
$Log{}
Title:       Life On The Mississippi
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1917

Chapter XXXVI

The Professor's Yarn

     It was in the early days.  I was not a college professor then.  I was a
humble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me - to survey, in
case anybody wanted it done.  I had a contract to survey a route for a great
mining ditch in California, and I was on my way thither, by sea - a three or
four weeks' voyage.  There were a good many passengers, but I had very little
to say to them; reading and dreaming were my passions, and I avoided
conversation in order to indulge these appetites.  There were three
professional gamblers on board - rough, repulsive fellows.  I never had any
talk with them, yet I could not help seeing them with some frequency, for they
gambled in an upperdeck stateroom every day and night, and in my promenades I
often had glimpses of them through their door, which stood a little ajar to
let out the surplus tobacco-smoke and profanity.  They were an evil and
hateful presence, but I had to put up with it, of course.

     There was one other passenger who fell under my eye a good deal, for he
seemed determined to be friendly with me, and I could not have gotten rid of
him without running some chance of hurting his feelings, and I was far from
wishing to do that.  Besides, there was something engaging in his countrified
simplicity and his beaming good nature.  The first time I saw this Mr. John
Backus, I guessed, from his clothes and his looks, that he was a grazier or
farmer from the backwoods of some Western state - doubtless Ohio - and
afterward, when he dropped into his personal history, and I discovered that he
was a cattle-raiser from interior Ohio, I was so pleased with my own
penetration that I warmed toward him for verifying my instinct.

     He got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast, to help me
make my promenade; and so, in the course of time, his easy-working jaw had
told me everything about his business, his prospects, his family, his
relatives, his politics - in fact, everything that concerned a Backus, living
or dead.  And meantime I think he had managed to get out of me everything I
knew about my trade, my tribe, my purposes, my prospects, and myself.  He was
a gentle and persuasive genius, and this thing showed it; for I was not given
to talking about my matters.  I said something about triangulation, once; the
stately word pleased his ear; he inquired what it meant; I explained.  After
that he quietly and inoffensively ignored my name, and always called me
Triangle.

     What an enthusiast he was in cattle!  At the bare name of a bull or a
cow, his eye would light and his eloquent tongue would turn itself loose.  As
long as I would walk and listen, he would walk and talk; he knew all breeds,
he loved all breeds, he caressed them all with his affectionate tongue.  I
tramped along in voiceless misery while the cattle question was up.  When I
could endure it no longer, I used to deftly insert a scientific topic into the
conversation; then my eye fired and his faded; my tongue fluttered, his
stopped; life was joy to me, and a sadness to him.

     One day he said, a little hesitatingly, and with somewhat of diffidence:

     "Triangle, would you mind coming down to my stateroom a minute and have a
little talk on a certain matter?"

     I went with him at once.  Arrived there, he put his head out, glanced up
and down the saloon warily, then closed the door and locked it.  We sat down
on the sofa and he said:

     "I'm a-going to make a little proposition to you, and if it strikes you
favorable, it'll be a middling good thing for both of us.  You ain't a-going
out to Californy for fun, nuther am I - it's business, ain't that so?  Well,
you can do me a good turn, and so can I you, if we see fit. I've raked and
scraped and saved a considerable many years, and I've got it all here." He
unlocked an old hair trunk, tumbled a chaos of shabby clothes aside, and drew
a short, stout bag into view for a moment, then buried it again and relocked
the trunk.  Dropping his voice to a cautious, low tone, he continued: "She's
all there - a round ten thousand dollars in yellow-boys; now, this is my
little idea: What I don't know about raising cattle ain't worth knowing.
There's mints of money in it in Californy.  Well, I know, and you know, that
all along a line that's being surveyed, there's little dabs of land that they
call 'gores,' that fall to the surveyor free gratis for nothing.  All you've
got to do on your side is to survey in such a way that the 'gores' will fall
on good fat land, then you turn 'em over to me, I stock 'em with cattle, in
rolls the cash, I plank out your share of the dollars regular right along, and
- "

     I was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could not be
helped.  I interrupted and said severely:

     "I am not that kind of a surveyor.  Let us change the subject, Mr.
Backus."

     It was pitiful to see his confusion and hear his awkward and shamefaced
apologies.  I was as much distressed as he was - especially as he seemed so
far from having suspected that there was anything improper in his proposition.
So I hastened to console him and lead him on to forget his mishap in a
conversational orgy about cattle and butchery.  We were lying at Acapulco, and
as we went on deck it happened luckily that the crew were just beginning to
hoist some beeves aboard in slings. Backus's melancholy vanished instantly,
and with it the memory of his late mistake.

     "Now, only look at that!" cried he.  "My goodness, Triangle, what would
they say to it in Ohio?  Wouldn't their eyes bug out to see 'em handled like
that? - wouldn't they, though?"

     All the passengers were on deck to look - even the gamblers - and Backus
knew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic.  As I moved away
I saw one of the gamblers approach and accost him; then another of them; then
the third.  I halted, waited, watched; the conversation continued between the
four men; it grew earnest; Backus drew gradually away; the gamblers followed
and kept at his elbow.  I was uncomfortable.  However, as they passed me
presently, I heard Backus say with a tone of persecuted annoyance:

     "But it ain't any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've told you a
half a dozen times before, I warn't raised to it, and I ain't a-going to resk
it."

     I felt relieved.  "His level head will be his sufficient protection," I
said to myself.

     During the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Francisco I several times
saw the gamblers talking earnestly with Backus, and once I threw out a gentle
warning to him.  He chuckled comfortably and said:

     "Oh, yes! they tag around after me considerable - want me to play a
little, just for amusement, they say - but laws-a-me, if my folks have told me
once to look out for that sort of live stock, they've told me a thousand
times, I reckon."

     By and by, in due course, we were approaching San Francisco.  It was an
ugly, black night, with a strong wind blowing, but there was not much sea.  I
was on deck alone.  Toward ten I started below.  A figure issued from the
gamblers' den and disappeared in the darkness.  I experienced a shock, for I
was sure it was Backus.  I flew down the companionway, looked about for him,
could not find him, then returned to the deck just in time to catch a glimpse
of him as he re-entered that confounded nest of rascality.  Had he yielded at
last?  I feared it.  What had he gone below for?  His bag of coin?  Possibly.
I drew near the door, full of bodings.  It was a-crack, and I glanced in and
saw a sight that made me bitterly wish I had given my attention to saving my
poor cattle-friend, instead of reading and dreaming my foolish time awa