who was the man in the brown coat and the yellow straw hat?
his name was ken upside.
he went down to the river to buy his poor dog a bone.
but when hie got there old man mose was gone.
that is strange, ken mused, old man mose is always here.
right where he belongs.
puzzled, ken wandered into the swamp.
maybe charlie catfish knew where old man mose had gone to.
if anybody would know, it would be charlie.
or mama roo, but ken was not about to try to find mama roo on this sultry summer evening as the sun was going down.
soon it would be night.
and tiger, kens dog, would be wanting a bone.
tiger was a good old dog, but getting a little old in his game.
ken saw a flash of light in the gathering gloom.
that must be charlie, he thought.lighting his pipe.
and sure enough, it was.
charlie waited for ken to speak up if he had a mind to. charlie never started conversations,
a body could come upon charlie in the swamp, or even in town on the rare occasions he ventured into town, and charlie would wait for the body to speak, even if it took all night or a week or until judgment day, before he, charlie, would speak a word.
ken did not waste time on preliminaries.
howdy, charlie. seen old man mose around?
ain’t seen him around lately. seen him leave, though.
leave? leave when? and leave to where?
where do you think? to join pancho villa. he’s been talking about it for years, you know that.
but he was going to take me with him! he promised!
charlie shrugged. i got nothing to say about that. between you and him.
well, ken expostulated, that does not do much for the last flickering embers of my belief in human nature. i never thought old man mose, of all people, would turn out such a dirty rat.
anything i can do for you?
my dog needs a bone.
i don’t deal in bones, never have. you know that.
but what am i going to do?
you might try mama roo. if you can find her.
find her? it’s getting late.
it is already late.
night had fallen, and ken and charlie could hardly make each other out.
hell, said ken, maybe mama roo went off to join pancho villa her own self.
stranger things have happened, charlie agreed.
No comments:
Post a Comment