The Big Question. John R. Erickson
the…POP!
Ah-eeeeeee!
Holy smokes, a spark of electricity bit me on the end of the nose, and you talk about a stampede! Fellers, I ran smooth over the top of little Drover and was heading toward Del Rio when it suddenly occurred to me that Slim was…well, laughing. I slowed to a walk, then stopped.
I went to Puzzled Wags on the tail section. What was the meaning of this?
Slim got control of his laughter and said, “Well, the fence is hot. Thanks, pooch. You saved me from having to test it with my own flesh and blood.”
Oh great. I saved him from…you see what we have to put up with around here? Oh well, it didn’t cause any permanent damage to the nose, and I ended up getting pats, rubs, and the piece of jerky, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad deal. But if you ask me, Slim enjoyed it a little more than he should have.
Anyway, we got our work done and made it back to Slim’s shack before dark, and the next day, we had ourselves a bachelor Christmas. It didn’t amount to much. There are many things that bachelors don’t do for Christmas. They don’t put up decorations, send Christmas cards, buy presents, bake cookies, or invite a houseful of kinfolks to come for the holidays.
I don’t know how many kinfolks he had, but they weren’t invited. Why? Because when you invite visitors, you have to clean the house, and as Slim often said, “What’s the point of cleaning the house? It just gets dirty again.”
Yes, Christmas at Slim’s shack was a pretty quiet affair. He’d cut himself a little juniper tree up in the canyons and decorated it with a tin foil star and a few strings of popcorn, and that was about all. Oh, wait, I almost forgot. Before he went into the kitchen to cook Christmas dinner, he sang us a song, and get this: it was a song about Cowboy Cooking.
Musically, it wasn’t so great, but I have to admit it was pretty funny. You want to hear it?
‘Maters and ‘Taters
‘Taters are friends of the cowboy.
They’re honest and pretty near free.
If you leave ‘em too long in the sack, though,
You’ll think that you’ve sprouted a tree.
‘Taters don’t take any talent,
Their cooking is easy to learn.
Just slice ‘em and throw ‘em in your hot grease,
And leave ‘em until they are burned.
When they’re black, you can drain all the grease off.
Old newspaper works like a charm.
If you happen to eat the sports page,
That’s okay, it don’t cause any harm.
When you’re done, leave the pan on the stove top.
That grease will turn solid and white.
When it’s time to fry up some more ‘taters,
Light the fire and pick out the flies
‘Maters and ‘taters for breakfast.
‘Taters and ‘maters for lunch.
Yippy-ti-yi-yo, p-o-t-a-t-o-e-s…spells ‘taters.
Yippy-ti-yi-yo, t-o-m-a-t-o-e-s…spells ‘maters.
Your momma has told you that ‘maters
Are healthful and better than pie.
But when you bite down too hard on a ‘mater,
It’ll ‘splode and squirt in your eye.
Fresh ‘maters require too much effort
To interest your average man.
When a cowboy feels need for some veggies,
His ‘maters will come from a can.
Canned ‘maters are good in your gravy.
Canned ‘maters are good by theirselfs.
Canned ‘maters don’t rot in the ice box,
They’ll sit twenty years on the shelf.
A bachelor chef uses ‘maters
As a sauce that is meant to disguise.
If you dump a can into your cold grease,
You won’t notice the taste of them flies.
‘Maters and ‘taters for breakfast.
‘Taters and ‘maters for lunch.
Yippy-ti-yi-yo, p-o-t-a-t-o-e-s…spells ‘taters.
Yippy-ti-yi-yo, t-o-m-a-t-o-e-s…spells ‘maters.
‘Maters and ‘taters are good.
Well, for Slim Chance, that was a pretty good musical effort. It wasn’t as corny as most of his songs, and I can tell you that it was based on true life experience. I mean, the guy actually does those things. He didn’t get his ideas out of a book.
But for that particular Christmas meal, he didn’t cook either ‘taters or ‘maters. He fixed a turkey...well, part of a turkey. Boiled turkey necks. He’d found them on sale at the grocery store in Twitchell, ten pounds of necks for three bucks. He cooked them all in a big pot, don’t you see. What he didn’t eat, he threw into a bread bag and placed it in the ice box, which left him enough pre-cooked meals to last several weeks. Then he deep-freezed the pot so he didn’t have to wash it. Pretty shrewd.
Oh, and did I mention that he gave me and Drover a neck apiece? He did. It was our Christmas present, and he even let us eat them inside the house. That was pretty generous of him, and I can tell you that I spent a very pleasant afternoon, gnawing on all those funny-looking neck bones.
Drover enjoyed his too, until tragedy struck. No, he didn’t choke on a bone. Toward the middle of the afternoon, after he’d chewed up about half of his turkey neck, he fell asleep and somebody stole the rest of it. It almost broke his little heart and I had to spend some time helping him through his grief.
You’ll never guess who stole it. Hee hee. Or maybe you would. Well, why not? If you get careless with your dinner, it’s liable to sprout legs and walk away, and that’s probably what happened, come to think of it. That turkey neck just, well, grew legs and walked out the door.
But the best part of our Christmas day, the very best and most wonderful part, came around sundown when a lady showed up at Slim’s front door, and she just happened to be the prettiest gal in all of Ochiltree County.
Chapter Two: Miss Viola Brings Me A Present
Maybe you’ve already guessed her name. Miss Viola. Around sundown, she paid us a visit and she was carrying a plate of baked goodies wrapped in red paper and tied with a green bow.
When Slim threw open the door and saw her standing there, his jaw dropped and he stared at her with bug eyes. You know what? So did I. I mean, you talk about a beautiful sight! She wore a long denim dress that reached to the tops of her red roper boots, and she had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a red ribbon and . . .
I don’t know how to put this, but there was something about her face—the clear blue eyes, the radiance of her smile. It was as though someone had turned on the lights in a dungeon. She just lit the place up, and all we could do was gawk at her. Even Drover gawked. He’d spent the past half-hour moaning about his stolen turkey neck, but when Viola appeared at the door, his mouth fell open, his eyes bugged out, and he stared right along with me and Slim.
Fellers,