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Page 40
"Yep, I lost an election bet, and had to go to church," answered
Slim, in all seriousness.
The cowboys laughed, and Mr. Price lamely replied: "Oh, yes, I
see."
"It was a good show," continued Slim, doing his best to appear at
ease. The frantic corrections of his companions only made him
flounder about the more.
"Excuse me," he apologized, "I mean that I enjoyed it."
"Do you recall the subject of my discourse," inquired Mr. Price,
coming to his assistance.
"Your what course?" asked Slim.
"My sermon?" answered the parson.
"Well, I should say yes," replied the Sheriff, greatly relieved
to think that he was once more out of deep water. "It was about
some shorthorn that jumped the home corral to maverick around
loose in the alfalfa with a bunch of wild ones."
The explanation was too much for Mr. Price. Great student of the
Bible as he had been, here was one lesson which he had not
studied. As told by Slim, he could not recall any text or series
of text from which he might have drawn similes fitted for his
cowboy congregation, when he had one. "Really, I--" he began.
Slim, however, was not to be interrupted. If he stopped he never
could begin again, he felt. Waving to the preacher to be silent,
he continued his description: "When his wad was gone the bunch
threw him down, and he had to hike for the sage-brush an' feed
with the hogs on husks an' sech like winter fodder."
The minister caught the word "husks." Slim was repeating his own
version of the parable of the Prodigal Son.
"Husks? Oh, the Prodigal Son," smiled Price.
"That's him," Slim sighed, with relief. "This yere feed not
being up to grade, Prod he 'lows he'd pull his freight back home,
square himself with the old man and start a new deal--"
Sage-brush was deeply interested in the story. Its charm had
attracted him as it had scholars and outcasts alike since first
told two thousand years ago on the plains of Old Judea.
"Did he stand for it?" he interrupted.
"He sure did," eloquently replied Slim, who was surprised and
delighted with the great impression he was making with his
experience at church. "Oh, he was a game old buck, he was. Why,
the minute he sighted that there prodigious son a-limpin' across
the mesa, he ran right out an' fell on his neck--"
"An' broke it," cried Fresno, slapping Sage-brush with his hat in
his delight at getting at the climax of the story before Slim
reached it.
The narrator cast a glance of supreme disgust at the laughing
puncher. "No, what the hell!" he shouted. "He hugged him. Then
he called in the neighbors, barbecued a yearlin' calf, an' give a
barn-dance, with fireworks in the evenin'."
"That's all right in books," observed Sage-brush, "but if I'd
made a break like that when I was a kid my old man would a fell
on my neck for fair."
"That was a good story, Parson--it's straight, ain't it?" asked
Slim, as a wave of doubt swept over him.
"It's gospel truth," answered the minister. "Do you know the
moral of the story?"
"Sure," replied Slim. With a confidence born of deep
self-assurance, Slim launched the answer: "Don't be a fatted
calf."
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