The center grandfather leaned back, readjusting the creases in his large belly and looked right and left for approval. With nods and grunts, his fellow grandfathers gave it to him. Even the deaf grandfather seemed to be fully briefed and in favor as he nodded with one hand cupped about his ear.
“The hitch is this,” said the center grandfather. “Now the rules and customs of real men are not set up at random. There is always a purpose behind them. And the purpose behind affairs of honor is to enable real men to live honorably and safely, one with another.”
“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous!” muttered Boy Is She Built. “What I think, is—”
“Shut up!” said the axman.
“Therefore, it is not just the honors of two individuals at stake in such instances, but the whole structure of custom by which we live. In this instance, now, it may well be honorable for man to fight with man; but is it honorable for man to fight a Shorty—considering all that a Shorty is, in the way of size and differentness? In short, if we let this Shorty fight the Terror it’s the same thing as admitting he’s as much a man as any real man among us. And is he? What kind of proof have we got that he deserves to be treated like one of us, like a real man?” The center grandfather paused and looked out over the crowd. “Anybody who has anything they want to say on this question can now speak up.”
“Ahem!” said Shaking Knees.
“Mayor?” said the center grandfather. Shaking Knees rolled forward a couple of ponderous paces.
“Just thought I’d clear the record,” he said. “I don’t claim to be any expert on the Half-Pint here, or Greasy Face, or any other Shorty. But I just thought I’d mention,” he rubbed his nose with one large-knuckled hand, “that Little Bite here is a guest in Humrog. And speaking as the Mayor of Humrog, I don’t exactly guess that Humrog would be making a guest out of anyone who wasn’t entitled to be treated as a real man.” He smiled widely around the crowd. “Just thought I’d mention it to you Clan Hollows folk.”
The grandfathers consulted.
“Well, now,” said the center grandfather, after the huddle was over. “The way the grandfathers of Clan Hollows think is this. Everybody here knows the folks in Humrog, after all we do most of our trading there. And we know that Humrog folks generally know what they’re talking about. So if the folks in Humrog are pretty generally sure that Little Bite, there, is the same thing as a real man, the grandfathers of Clan Hollows and the folks of Clan Hollows are willing to go along with the way they think, as far as Little Bite is concerned.”
“Thanks. Humrog thanks you,” said Shaking Knees.
“Not at all. However,” went on the center grandfather, “deciding Little Bite can be taken for a real man, is one thing. Deciding Half-Pint, just because he’s a Shorty, too, is a real man as well is something else again. After all, Little Bite didn’t come hunting the Terror for an affair of honor—” he broke off suddenly, and his voice took on the first tinge of politeness it had yet shown. “One Man?”
“If I might—” the great basso of One Man rumbled politely off to John’s left; and John, turning his head and peering around the bulk of the Hill Bluffer, saw the giant Dilbian rising. “If I might just say a few words to the eminent grandfathers of this ancient clan.”
“The honor’s ours, One Man,” the center grandfather assured him.
“Very good of you,” said One Man. The whole assemblage had gone dead silent and One Man’s scarcely-raised voice carried easily to all of them. “An old man like myself, now, who has lived long enough to be a grandfather in my own clan, if I had one, and was worthy, sees things perhaps a little differently from you younger people. It’s enough for me nowadays to sit feebly in my corner, letting the fire warm my old bones, and ponder on the world as it goes by me.”
“Now, One Man,” said the center grandfather, “we all know you’re nowhere near’s feeble as all that.”
“Well, thank you, thank you,” said One Man, lifting an arm like a water main in acknowledgement and then letting it drop, as if its weight was too much for him. “I’ve got a few years left, perhaps. But it wasn’t myself I was going to talk about. I was just going to mention something of how things look to me from my chimney corner. You know, as I watch the passing parade I can’t help thinking how much things have changed from the old days. The old customs are falling into disuse.”
“Never said a truer word!” muttered the deaf grandfather on the end of the bench. He now had both hands cupped behind both ears.
“Children no longer have the old respect for their parents.”
“You can bet on that!” growled Shaking Knees, scowling at his daughter.
“Everywhere, the old way of doing things is being replaced by the new. Where this will lead us nobody knows. It may be that the new ways are better ways.”
“So there!” said Boy Is She built, tossing her nose up at her father.
“We cannot, at this moment, say. But certainly we seem stuck with a world now in which we are not alone, in which we must deal with Shorties and Fatties, and maybe other creatures, too. This leads me to a suggestion which in my own limited judgment I consider rather sound; but I hesitate to push it on the venerable grandfathers of this Clan, being only an outsider.”
“We’d be glad to hear what One Man has to suggest,” growled the center grandfather. “Wouldn’t we?” He looked around and found the other grandfathers nodding approval.
“Well,” said One Man, mildly, “why not let them fight and make up your minds afterwards whether Half-Pint deserves to be regarded as a man—depending on how he shows up in the fight? That way you don’t risk anything; and whichever way you decide, you’ve got evidence to back you up. For after all, it isn’t size, or hair, or where he was born that makes a man among us. It’s how he behaves, isn’t that correct?”
He paused. The grandfathers and the crowd as well, including such diverse elements as Shaking Knees and Boy Is She Built, muttered their approval.
“A lot of people have thought that it might make somebody like the Terror look foolish, facing up to someone as small as a Shorty. Something or someone that small, they thought, couldn’t possibly have a hope of standing up to a toothless old grandmother with a broken leg. But the Terror seems willing. And if the Half-Pint seems willing, too, who knows? The Half-Pint might even surprise us all and actually take the Terror.”
There was a roll of laughter from the crowd and One Man sat down. The center grandfather shouted at the chief axman; and the axman shouted for order. When comparative silence was re-established, it was found that Gulark-ay had taken several ponderous steps toward the bench of the grandfathers.
“What’s this?” said the center grandfather, as the chief axman whispered in his ear. He consulted with his fellow grandfathers.
“Very well,” he said at last; and raised his voice to the crowd. “Quiet out there! The Beer-Guts Bouncer’s got something to say and your grandfathers can’t hear anything short of a thunderstorm with you yelling around like that!”
The crowd noise dwindled to near silence.
“Speak up!” said the center grandfather to Gulark-ay.
“Well, now, I kind of hate to shove in like this,” said Gulark-ay in robust tones very different from the voice he had used to John, that morning before in the forest. He hunched his fat shoulders and was suddenly and amazingly transformed from a sleek Buddha to an overweight, but clumsily forthright and honest-looking, lout; somewhat embarrassed by being the center of all attention. “I wouldn’t want to mess in the business of Clan Hollows, here. And I sure wouldn’t want to say anything against that fine suggestion One Man made just now. But fair’s fair, I say. I guess I ought to tell you.”