until Friar Tuck came around. You remember
Friar Tuck--the one they call an Episcolopian?" Course I remembered
Friar Tuck. Everybody knew him an' he was about as easy to forget as a
stiff neck--though for different reasons. Preachers are about as
different as other humans to begin with, but the women seem more
unanimously bent on spoilin' 'em; so as a general rule I wade in purty
careful when I 'm startin' an acquaintance with a strange one, but I
did know that this here one was all to the right, an' his time belonged
to any one who demanded it. This made him purty wearin' on hosses, an'
when one would give out on him he'd just turn it loose an' rope another
'thout makin' any preliminary about it; all the explanation a body got
was just seein' a tired, stray pony eatin' grass. The first time he
tried that game they gathered up a posse an' ran him down; but he
pulled a Bible on 'em showin' where he got his commission from, threw a
sermon into 'em 'at converted two an' made one other sign the pledge,
an' that put an end to any unsolicited interference in his line o'
work. He was a big man with two right hands, an' some one gave him the
name of Friar Tuck out of a book, an' he was known by it the whole
country over.

I nodded my head: "Did the Friar get fainty about Barbie bein' a
heretic?" sez I.

"No, he didn't," sez Jabez, "he just laughed when I told him about it,
an' he an' Barbie, they wrangled over it for a long time; but he played
fair. When he didn't know the answer he owned up to it, an' then he
told her that the Bible was written by a lot of different men, an' that
the spirit of it was inspired; but that the' wasn't any words ever
invented that could describe creation; because the origin of life was a
thing 'at man wasn't wise enough to comprehend, an' that all the
scientific books ever written couldn't come any nearer to it than that
first chapter of Genesis, which had been written ages ago when the old
Earth was still in its childhood."

"How did Barbie get around this?" sez I.

"Well, she didn't have much to say; he didn't climb up on a perch an'
call her names, he just sat there by her side like they was both
children together; an' then he took some of her books an' explained
things she didn't understand an' pointed out things 'at other
scientists didn't believe in, an' he actually said 'at he believed that
after they had examined the earth all over, inside an' out with a
magnifyin' glass, every last sc