Still, here he come cantering in, and the committee was all crossed up and couldn’t think of nothing to say, so it wasn’t nothing to do but let him ride. He said he was the Knight of Hawthorne Bay and they passed him in.
Well, the first tilt wasn’t hardly over before the whole place knowed that was a big mistake. Because where Bert had went when he skipped was out West and if it was anything he couldn’t do in a saddle that runty-looking horse could pretty near do it for him, because it wasn’t nothing more or less than a cow pony, what he had rode all the way back East from Texas. He could spear them rings so easy he made all them other guys look ridiculous, and he wouldn’t come loafing up on a slow singlefoot either, but on a dead run. And he would kind of holler when he got in front of the people, like them circus cowboys does, and that was kind of a new one in that neck of the woods, and nobody knowed what to make of it.
They couldn’t get away from his score, though, so when the judges read out that he was the winner, they tried to give him a little bit of a hand. So that went to Bert’s head just like it was liquor. I guess it had been pretty lonely out there on the farm without nobody to come and see him, and when Mr. and Mrs. Glynn set the supper out under the trees, he was laughing and cutting up like he was drunk. So all hands thought they might as well kid him along, and pretty soon somebody asks him who is he going to crown Queen of Love and Beauty.
“I ain’t made up my mind yet. I don’t know which one I’m going to pick. It’s so many good-looking women here I’m afraid I’m going to have to shake up all the names in a hat and pull one out.”
So with that, Mr. Glynn went behind the house and got a bunch around him.
“Listen, men,” he says. “Do you know what? That simple-looking nut thinks that winning the tournament gives him the right to pick any woman here and name her Queen.”
“What!” says two or three.
“He certainly does,” says Mr. Glynn. “And I don’t know what to do. Suppose he picks my wife? I can’t have her leading the grand march with that jailbird.”
“Say,” they says. “We got to think about that.”
So Mr. Glynn was grand marshal of the tournament, and of course he had to make the speech handing the crown over to Bert after they had all drove in to the Grand Opera House for the dance. And so he made the speech. And he made it long and flowery, because he was pretty good on that stuff on account he liked to make Fourth of July speeches. And Bert, he just ate it up. Because it look like to him that everything had been forgot and nobody didn’t hardly remember if it was him that was indicted or maybe somebody else. So he kept his eyes glued to Mr. Glynn and kept smiling to hisself. And while Mr. Glynn was talking, Mrs. Glynn and a couple other women kind of tiptoed through the little door that led back of the stage. And two or three more followed them, and then some more, and in a minute they was all slipping through the door like ghosts.
And when Bert took the wreath of flowers from Mr. Glynn, and turned around to pick out some woman to give it to, it wasn’t a single woman in the hall.
So Bert looked around, and his face got red, and a kind of a silly-looking grin stayed on it. And then he swallowed a couple of times, and dropped the wreath down on the floor. And then he walked straight out of the hall. And then he went to the hitching rack, and got on his horse, and rode out into the night. And nobody down there ain’t seen him from that day to this.
Santa Claus, M.D
Down in the country one time they got a new principal to the high school, name of Hartman. And he was a kind of funny-looking guy, and he taught science. So pretty soon he began to teach them pupils in the higher grades all about how the animals has little ones, and he was wasting his breath if you ask me, because if it was anything them tough mugs didn’t know about the animals and all the rest of it, why it wasn’t much. But along about Thanksgiving it begun to be some talking around. A whole lot of people, they let on they didn’t think much of it, teaching boys and girls stuff like that. And pretty soon, the board of trustees, they held a couple meetings.
So just about that time Hartman, he stood up in the assembly hall in front of the whole school, little children and all, and give them a little talk on Christmas. And he says the best thing is to know the truth about Christmas, and the truth is that it ain’t no Santa Claus, but only your father dressed up, and the real way to celebrate Christmas was to quit thinking so much about presents and to go to church and give thanks that Jesus Christ was born that day.
Well, did you ever cuff a hornet’s nest with the butt end of a fishing pole while you was trying to jerk a big one up on the bank? That’s what it was like when Hartman made that little talk. Them little children went home bellering to their father and mother, and a couple dozen big Ikes showed up at the school and wanted to fight, and things got hot. So the trustees, they made up their mind what they was going to do pretty quick. They fired Hartman, and took the key to the school away from him, and put one of them woman teachers in charge till they could get somebody else.
So that kind of eased things off, but Hartman ain’t left town. He hung around and he would come over to one of the stores from the little house where he lived at on the edge of town, and buy some stuff, and then duck away without speaking to nobody. So the day before Christmas some of the boys fixed it up that they would kind of give him the idea that he better beat it. And what they was going to do was go around that night and take him out, and maybe fan him a few times with a strap, and then make him kneel down in front of Doc Merritt, who would have on the Santa Claus suit that he used to wear up to the festival at the Methodist church, and then let him take his pick would he leave town hisself or get rode out on a rail.
So they done it. The Doc put on his suit, and him and about a dozen others sneaked over there. And when they beat on the door, they could hear some running around upstairs, but not nobody come to the door.
“Come on out, Hartman!” they hollers. “We brung Santa Claus with us and we want you to look at him.”
But still nobody come to the door, and they was getting ready to break it down. But all of a sudden a light showed, and through the glass in the door they seen Hartman running down the steps, fast as he could come. And he opened the door and come running out without no hat.
“Grab him!” one of them hollers, and a couple of them made a pass at him.
But he throwed them off like they was puppy dogs or something, and went running up the street fast as he could go. And they was so surprised all they done was stand there and look at him.
So it seemed like it was something funny about it and they opened the door and peeped in. And right away they could hear something upstairs. It sound like a woman crying.
“Hell,” says one of them. “Let’s beat it.”
“Wait a minute,” says Doc Merritt. “Shut up, you guys.” And he listened, and then he tiptoed upstairs.
“What’s the matter?” they says when he come back.
“Boys,” he says, “this party is off. It’s his wife. She’s having a baby.”
So he sent a couple of them over to his office, and give them the key, and told them to bring him his kit, and went back upstairs. And the rest of them, they felt kind of ashamed of theirself, and they beat it.