Sixes and Sevens | Page 5

Old man Ellison's smiles came back and filled his wrinkles when he
saw Sam. He hurried out of the house in his shuffling, limping way to
greet him.
"Hello, Mr. Ellison," called Sam cheerfully. "Thought I'd drop over and
see you a while. Notice you've had fine rains on your range. They
ought to make good grazing for your spring lambs."

"Well, well, well," said old man Ellison. "I'm mighty glad to see you,
Sam. I never thought you'd take the trouble to ride over to as
out-of-the-way an old ranch as this. But you're mighty welcome. 'Light.
I've got a sack of new oats in the kitchen -- - shall I bring out a feed for
your hoss?"
"Oats for him?" said Sam, derisively. "No, sir-ee. He's as fat as a pig
now on grass. He don't get rode enough to keep him in condition. I'll
just turn him in the horse pasture with a drag rope on if you don't
mind."
I am positive that never during the eleventh and thirteenth centuries did
Baron, Troubadour, and Worker amalgamate as harmoniously as their
parallels did that evening at old man Ellison's sheep ranch. The Kiowa's
biscuits were light and tasty and his coffee strong. Ineradicable
hospitality and appreciation glowed on old man Ellison's
weather-tanned face. As for the troubadour, he said to himself that he
had stumbled upon pleasant places indeed. A well-cooked, abundant
meal, a host whom his lightest attempt to entertain seemed to delight
far beyond the merits of the exertion, and the reposeful atmosphere that
his sensitive soul at that time craved united to confer upon him a
satisfaction and luxurious ease that he had seldom found on his tours of
the ranches.
After the delectable supper, Sam untied the green duck bag and took
out his guitar. Not by way of payment, mind you -- neither Sam
Galloway nor any other of the true troubadours are lineal descendants
of the late Tommy Tucker. You have read of Tommy Tucker in the
works of the esteemed but often obscure Mother Goose. Tommy
Tucker sang for his supper. No true troubadour would do that. He
would have his supper, and then sing for Art's sake.
Sam Galloway's repertoire comprised about fifty funny stories and
between thirty and forty songs. He by no means stopped there. He
could talk through twenty cigarettes on any topic that you brought up.
And he never sat up when he could lie down; and never stood when he
could sit. I am strongly disposed to linger with him, for I am drawing a
portrait as well as a blunt pencil and a tattered thesaurus will allow.

I wish you could have seen him: he was small and tough and inactive
beyond the power of imagination to conceive. He wore an
ultramarine-blue woollen shirt laced down the front with a pearl-gray,
exaggerated sort of shoestring, indestructible brown duck clothes,
inevitable high-heeled boots with Mexican spurs, and a Mexican straw
sombrero.
That evening Sam and old man Ellison dragged their chairs out under
the hackberry trees. They lighted cigarettes; and the troubadour gaily
touched his guitar. Many of the songs he sang were the weird,
melancholy, minor-keyed canciones that he had learned from the
Mexican sheep herders and vaqueros. One, in particular, charmed and
soothed the soul of the lonely baron. It was a favourite song of the
sheep herders, beginning: "_Huile, huile, palomita_," which being
translated means, "Fly, fly, little dove." Sam sang it for old man Ellison
many times that evening.
The troubadour stayed on at the old man's ranch. There was peace and
quiet and appreciation there, such as he had not found in the noisy
camps of the cattle kings. No audience in the world could have
crowned the work of poet, musician, or artist with more worshipful and
unflagging approval than that bestowed upon his efforts by old man
Ellison. No visit by a royal personage to a humble woodchopper or
peasant could have been received with more flattering thankfulness and
joy.
On a cool, canvas-covered cot in the shade of the hackberry trees Sam
Galloway passed the greater part of his time. There he rolled his brown
paper cigarettes, read such tedious literature as the ranch afforded, and
added to his repertoire of improvisations that he played so expertly on
his guitar. To him, as a slave ministering to a great lord, the Kiowa
brought cool water from the red jar hanging under the brush shelter,
and food when he called for it. The prairie zephyrs fanned him mildly;
mocking-birds at morn and eve competed with but scarce equalled the
sweet melodies of his lyre; a perfumed stillness seemed to fill all his
world. While old man Ellison was pottering among his flocks of sheep
on his mile-an-hour pony, and