Tales from the Veld Part 21

"Well, I'm blessed! Ghoisters! You never seed a pig in a nest up a tree seven hundred feet high?"

"Not that I remember, Abe."

"Gum! Yes, sir; there were a pig in that nest. Them birds, sonny, had kept me off till their squabs could fly, and then they played that joke on me. I chucked the pig out, and when I got down he were as dead as bacon. Come to think of it, sonny, it were a kind thought of them eagles to put it up there, and it makes me smile every time to think of the way them birds laughed till they shook their feathers out."

The old man fixed his abstracted gaze on a cloud of tobacco smoke.

"I hope to train 'em next year," he said, "to keep me in venison and lard. Going? Well, so long!"

"So long, Abe!"

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

ABE'S BILLY GOAT.

Our Poison Club was in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition. During the past year the members had killed off 1,500 red cats, wild dogs, jackals, seven leopards, and 500 baboons. This represented a good round sum--each tail being equivalent to a five-s.h.i.+lling demand on the exchequer of the country--and the chairman had called a meeting to distribute the awards.

"I have pleasure in announcing, gentlemen," he said, "that Mr Si Amos is the champion poisoner--having placed to his credit 300 cat tails, seventy-five jackal tails, fifty-four baboon tails, and one leopard tail. In addition to the dues which are rightly his, he is ent.i.tled to the silver medal presented by the club."

"Well done, Si! Step up!"

Silas pulled his lank figure together, hitched up his trousers, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and lumbered up the narrow pa.s.sage.

"Give him pizen!" said someone in a loud voice, whereat there were cries of "Shame!"

Silas paused, balanced himself uncertainly on one leg, and searched the audience.

"It's that Abe," he said. "What he says don't amount to nothin'."

"Mr Pike," expostulated the chairman; "I'm astonished at you."

"Look here, Jim Hockey," said Abe, rising up from a back seat, and pointing his pipe-stem at the chairman; "I don't keer if you give that _thing_ there a whole string o' silver b.u.t.tons--and Lord knows he wants 'em, to keep himself from falling to pieces--but I tell you, you're opsettin' the laws of nature goin' about killing the animiles off the face of the yearth. It's not the mean, sneaking way you've got inter of dropping pizen pills all over the place that riles me so much as the killin' of 'em off by the thousan' without takin' any thought of what's coming. Take baboons--"

"Are we here, Mr Chairman, to listen to a speech from Mr Pike, or are we not?" asked one member, who was credited with having opened a market in jackals' tails.

"Take baboons," said Abe, pointing his pipe-stem insultingly at his interrupter. "I allow they're mean, I allow they eat your mealies, steal your fruit, kill a sheep or two, and frighten your wives; but if it warn't for the baboons there'd be a scorpion under every stone and a centipede in every ole stump. The baboons eat them vermin. Take cats-- if it warn't for cats the lands would be swarmin' with mice. If it warn't for the jackals there'd be a hare in every gra.s.s clump."

"If it warn't for Abe Pike," said Silas, with a look of disgust, "there'd be a durn sight less jaw."

"Hear, hear!"

"Year away," said Abe, "and listen to this. When you're done killin'

all these critturs, the scorpions, an' the centipedes, an' the rats, an'

the snakes, an' the spiders'll swarm all over you. What yer got ter do is to set Nature ag'in Nature. The wild buck can look after hisself; teach the tame goat and the sheep to do the same."

"The laws of Nature, Abe, have covered your lands with weeds."

"Yes; and reduced his mangy live stock to one goat," added Si.

"Laugh! yer yeller-eyed, big-footed, long-legged, two-headed, freckled-faced duffers--laugh!--but I bet you that ole goat'll knock the stuffin' out of your club, and purtect hisself ag'in any wild crittur, from a stink-cat to a tiger."

"You're jawing," said Si; "otherwise I'd hold you to your bounce."

Abe took from his pocket a skin purse, tightly bound with a long thong, unwound this, emptied out into his yellow hand, which shook with excitement, two bright sovereigns.

"That ain't any wild cat tail money," he said; "it's the saving of sixty years' hard work--and I stake that."

"What's the wager?" asked the chairman.

"That my ole goat proves to this yer club that Nature provides a way outside of pizening by holding his own ag'inst anything on two feet or four feet, 'cept a elephant or a steam roller."

"The club takes the bet," said the chairman, in a solemn voice and a winking eye.

"Well; jes' take keer o' that money until your nex' meeting, when I'll turn up with the ole Kapater. So long!"

"You'll lose that money, Abe," I said following him as he slouched away.

"It's a heap of money," he said; "a glittering pile that I been saving up for my ole age."

"Call the bet off, Abe."

"You think the ole man's a blasteratious ijiot, sonny? Well, well!

maybe. Let him stand at that till nex' meeting."

In three months the meeting was called, and due notice served on Mr Abe Pike and his goat. It was a full house that met in the drowsy afternoon in the big shed on Mr Hockey's farm, and the discussion turned at once on the disposal of Abe's money--the general opinion being that it should be given back.

"I object," said Si Amos, who had brought with him a huge and hideous half-breed between a boar-hound and a mongrel. "That ole man's been throwing slurs on this club, and it's my opinion he ought to pay for it.

Anyhow, I'll 'psa' my dog on to his goat."

Last of all, Abe Pike himself entered the shed, wearing an expression of profound despondency.

"Anyone got a pipe of tobacco?" he said, looking around gloomily.

There was no tobacco hospitably forthcoming, everyone being too disgusted at the thought that all the fun was off.

Abe leant wearily against the wall. "Time was," he said, "when a man would hand you his tobacco bag as he said 'Good-morning.' There's a natural meanness in pizening animiles, and it's jes' oozing out of yer."

"Where's your goat, you old humbug?"

"Gentlemen, I'm very sorry, but that goat's woke up with a most awful temper, and I jes' drop in t' ask you _voetsack_ all the dogs outer the place 'fore I bring him in."

"Yah!" said Si Amos; "I knew he'd back down. It was part of the bet that dogs was to be brought."

"That's so," said Mr Hockey.

"You won't turn out your dogs?"