Part 35 (1/2)

THE THOUSANDTH MAN

One man in a thousand, Solomon says, Will stick more close than a brother.

And it's worth while seeking him half your days If you find him before the other.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend On what the world sees in you, But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend With the whole round world agin you.

'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show Will settle the finding for 'ee.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go By your looks or your acts or your glory.

But if he finds you and you find him, The rest of the world don't matter; For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim With you in any water.

You can use his purse with no more shame Than he uses yours for his spendings; And laugh and mention it just the same As though there had been no lendings.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call For silver and gold in their dealings; But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all, Because you can show him your feelings!

His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right, In season or out of season.

Stand up and back it in all men's sight-- With _that_ for your only reason!

Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide The shame or mocking or laughter, But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side To the gallows-foot--and after!

Simple Simon

Cattiwow came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug. He stopped by the woodlump at the back gate to take off the brakes. His real name was Brabon, but the first time the children met him, years and years ago, he told them he was 'carting wood,' and it sounded so exactly like 'cattiwow' that they never called him anything else.

'Hi!' Una shouted from the top of the woodlump, where they had been watching the lane. 'What are you doing? Why weren't we told?'

'They've just sent for me,' Cattiwow answered. 'There's a middlin' big log sticked in the dirt at Rabbit Shaw, and'--he flicked his whip back along the line--'so they've sent for us all.'

Dan and Una threw themselves off the woodlump almost under black Sailor's nose. Cattiwow never let them ride the big beam that makes the body of the timber-tug, but they hung on behind while their teeth thuttered.

The wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the woods, and you see all the horses' backs rising, one above another, like moving stairs. Cattiwow strode ahead in his sackcloth woodman's petticoat, belted at the waist with a leather strap; and when he turned and grinned, his red lips showed under his sackcloth-coloured beard. His cap was sackcloth too, with a flap behind, to keep twigs and bark out of his neck. He navigated the tug among pools of heather-water that splashed in their faces, and through clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs, and when they hit an old toadstooled stump, they never knew whether it would give way in showers of rotten wood, or jar them back again.

At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of horses stood round a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The ground about was poached and stoached with sliding hoof-marks, and a wave of dirt was driven up in front of the b.u.t.t.

'What did you want to bury her for this way?' said Cattiwow. He took his broad-axe and went up the log tapping it.

'She's sticked fast,' said 'Bunny' Lewknor, who managed the other team.

Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They c.o.c.ked their ears forward, looked, and shook themselves.

'I believe Sailor knows,' Dan whispered to Una.

'He do,' said a man behind them. He was dressed in flour sacks like the others, and he leaned on his broad-axe, but the children, who knew all the wood gangs, knew he was a stranger. In his size and oily hairiness he might have been Bunny Lewknor's brother, except that his brown eyes were as soft as a spaniel's, and his rounded black beard, beginning close up under them, reminded Una of the walrus in _The Walrus and the Carpenter_.

'Don't he just about know?' he said shyly, and s.h.i.+fted from one foot to the other.

'Yes. ”What Cattiwow can't get out of the woods must have roots growing to her”'--Dan had heard old Hobden say this a few days before.