Ajax, for example

“Horse sense,” says “Magpie” Simpkins, “consists of knowing something that no school-teacher could pound into your head with a pile-driver. It’s a sort of an initiative and referendum that books can’t tell you about, and if you ain’t got it, Ike, you might as well get you a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and hide out in the brush, where you won’t hamper folks with your idiocy. There was Ajax, for example.”

Magpie hooks his spurs into the top of the table and leans back in his chair. He knows there ain’t no argument, but hopes I’ll find one. I agrees with Magpie--for once. I’ll tell you why I agree with him, and maybe you’ll agree with me.

Me and you both know that there’s educated fools. If I can have my choice I’ll take the fool that never got educated in preference to one what absorbed everything he found in books, ’cause the educated one can’t even crawl into a blanket without peering into a book to see the definition of the word “crawl,” the proper uses of a blanket, and the procedure according to precedent.

Yessir, there was Ajax, for example.

Me and Magpie are cooking breakfast in our cabin on Plenty Stone Creek one Summer morning, when we hears footsteps approaching on horseback. Magpie steps to the door with a pan of bacon in his hand and peers outside. He takes one look and tries to scratch his head with the pan, the same of which leaves our hog-meat on the floor.

Then he looks back at me.

“Ike, come here! It’s either a mistake or I’m mistaken.”

I walks over and takes a look. Looks like one of Sam Holt’s rat-tailed broncs, but the rider--whooee! I don’t blame Magpie for dropping the bacon. I’d ’a’ dropped a stick of dynamite if I’d had one.

I’ll begin at the top and work on down. First we have a hat. She looks like a cross between a ordinary hard hat and a campaign lid, being as she’s sort of flat on the top. Under said hat cometh hair, which seems to grow straight out.

Then we have a pair of funeral-rimmed specs forking the longest, skinniest nose I ever seen. I feels that it must blow about the same note as the stopped-down E string on a fiddle. The chin of the critter seems to be so long that the weight of it holds his mouth open.

We have with us now the neck. To speak like a poet I’d say that he had the neck of a swan. Maybe not so graceful, but longer. His shoulders shows a heap of neglect, and from there he just sort of slopes off to his feet, which is some slope, if you asks me.

Riding with his elbows has made his sleeves pull up almost to his shoulders, and hanging on with his knees has pulled up the legs of his pants until he’s setting on most of ’em. He ain’t anything for a drinking man to look at--if he likes the taste of liquor.

Me and Magpie stands there sort of weak-like and watches him search his pockets. He ain’t said a word yet. The more pockets he searches the less he seems to find. He grunts and reaches for his hip pocket, the same of which seems to bend his legs backwards until his heels catch in that bronc’s flanks.

Zowie!

That rat-tailed bronc resents such familiarity, with the result that said apparition lands setting down in our front yard while the insulted bronc wends its way home.

I plumb forgot to mention that this person carried a little valise on the saddle-horn. Yes, it came off with him.

He sets there on the chip-pile blinking like a old owl, and then he produces an envelope from his hip pocket. Then he adjusts his specs and peers up at us.

“I beg your pardon,” says he.

“You have it,” says Magpie.

“You won’t catch that bronc this side of Piperock,” says I. “He’s still throwing sand.”

“Ah! Oh, the--er--equine? Ah! Unavoidable, I assure you.”

“Setting as you were,” admits Magpie. “Good scheme to always watch a bronc’s ears, old-timer.”

“Pleasant pastime, I have no doubt,” he agrees. “Oh, quite interesting. May I ask if either of you gentlemen is Mr. Simpson?”

“Little high and to the right,” says Magpie. “I’m Simpkins.”

“Ah, yes! Delighted, I assure you. My mistake.”

He peers at the letter.

“Very good indeed. Simpkins it is. I beg your pardon.”

“You’re going to get splinters in you if you don’t get up,” states Magpie.

“Thank you very, very much,” says he, handing the letter to Magpie.

“This is my--er--introductions, Mr. Simpson.”

“S-i-m-p-k-i-n-s,” spells Magpie.

“Ah, yes. Very simple.”

“Yes,” says I. “Very.”

Magpie opens the letter, and I reads it over his shoulder.