He found not only the blacksmith there with the Hill Bluffer but a fair sprinkling of other citizens of the village, and others began to come out of their various houses and follow him up as he approached the blacksmith shop, until he had quite a crowd surrounding him as he stepped in under the roof of the open shed to greet the Bluffer and Flat Fingers.
“Morning, Pick-and-Shovel,” the blacksmith replied, his eyes fastened on the object tucked under Bill’s belt. “I’ve got your blade and buckler ready. Want to try them out?”
“In a minute,” replied Bill, with elaborate casualness. “You don’t have a nail and a hammer you could lend me, do you?”
“Why, I guess so,” replied the blacksmith. He turned to one of the tables nearby, searched among the litter that covered it, and came up with something rather like a short sledgehammer and one of the nails he had made himself from the native iron.
The sledgehammer was difficult to handle with one hand, while holding the nail. The nail itself was some eight inches in length, a triangular sliver of gray native iron, with a bulge at one end for a head and a rather blunt point at the other. Nonetheless, Bill managed to knock it partway into one of the upright posts supporting the shed roof. Then he returned the sledgehammer to the blacksmith, took the gong hammer from his belt, and hung it by the hole in one end of its handle from the nail he had just driven into the pole.
A pleased mutter of deep-voiced and admiring comment went through the crowd that now surrounded the blacksmith shed closely. The blacksmith squinted at the gong hammer.
“Yes,” he said, after a minute. “I remember cutting that piece of iron for Bone Breaker, myself. That must have been eight-ten years ago. Before that they were sounding their gong with just a chunk of wood.”
He turned to face Bill. Behind and above the singed fur of the blacksmith’s broad right shoulder, Bill saw the face of the Hill Bluffer looking at him expectantly.
“So I guess you really were down in outlaw territory last night, were you, Pick-and-Shovel?” said the blacksmith. “How did you do it?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Bill. The crowd around the shed had quieted down, and Bill realized that something more than an ordinary relating of the night’s activities was expected. This was not a time for modesty. Modesty, in fact, was not considered highly among the Dilbians—except as a cloak for secretive boasting. The Dilbians were like good fishermen, who made it a rule always to exaggerate the size, weight, and number of their catch.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “You all know how that valley is. High cliffs all the way around it, the only entrance blocked up by the stockade. And the gates in the middle of the stockade barred shut at sundown. You wouldn’t think a fly could get into that valley. But I did. But I’m not boasting about it. You know why?”
He waited for somebody to ask him why. The blacksmith obliged.
“Why, Pick-and-Shovel?” asked Flat Fingers.
“Because it was easy for a Shorty like me,” Bill said, keeping in mind the reaction to his climb shown by the Hill Bluffer on the way back to the village. “Even if it would be hard for a real man, the fact that it was easy for me makes it something that I don’t need to feel particularly proud about. You asked me how I got into the valley? I’ll tell you in just two or three words how I got into that valley. I climbed down one of the cliffs until I was on the valley floor. And when I was ready to leave again, I climbed back up that cliff!”
There was a moment’s absolute silence and then a gratifying mutter of incredulity from the audience. Bill interrupted it with an upheld hand.
“No, no—” he said. “As I say, I’m not particularly proud of it. Well, then, you may say—I could be a little puffed up over having walked into that outlaw camp all alone, with nobody to help me in case I was discovered. How many of you would like to do that, especially after dark?”
Bill paused for an answer. But no volunteers from the audience spoke up to say that they would have enjoyed such an excursion.
“But again,” went on Bill, after a moment, “I can’t take any credit for that either.”
There was a hum of amazement at this new statement that abruptly suggested to Bill the rather ludicrous picture of the base droning of a swarm of enormous bumblebees. He waited for it to die down before he continued.
“No, I can’t feel very proud about that,” he said. “Because I really wasn’t worried about going in among those outlaws all by myself to get this gong handle you see hanging there. You see, I knew that if I ran into any of them, I could handle him with no trouble at all.”
“What if you ran into a whole bunch of them?” demanded a voice from the crowd. “How about that, Pick-and-Shovel?”
“That didn’t bother me either,” replied Bill. “I could’ve handled any number I might’ve run into.” There was a slight stir in the ranks of the crowd directly before him, and he saw the incredibly rotund form of More Jam unobtrusively squeezing into the front rank. “We Shorties know these things. That’s why I’m not afraid to face Bone Breaker in a duel. That’s why, in spite of the fact that we’re so much smaller than real men and Fatties, we Shorties don’t have to take a back seat to anybody. It’s because of what we know. And it was because of what I knew that it didn’t bother me to go into that valley and bring that gong handle out.”
Bill stopped. The crowd around the shed, he could now see from his superior position on top of the barrel, was as large or larger than it had been the day before when he had lifted weights with the blacksmith. They were all staring at him in fascinated interest. He let them stare, waiting for the question that one of them must ask if he was to go on. Finally, it was More Jam in the front rank who put it to him.
“That sounds mighty interesting, Pick-and-Shovel,” said More Jam mildly. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind telling us what it is you Shorties know that makes so much difference in handling outlaws? Because,” went on More Jam, looking back over his shoulder briefly at his fellow villagers for a moment, and then turning back to Bill, “I don’t ’spose most of the real active men around here would like to admit it, but an old fat, decrepit man like myself doesn’t mind letting it out. We haven’t been able to handle those outlaws, when you get right down to it. They come in a gang all at once upon some single farmer, and there’s not much one man can do against a crowd. We never know when they’re coming, and by the time we get together to go after them, they’re back safe in their valley. So we’ve just about given up trying to handle them. But you say, Pick-and-Shovel, that there is a way? Maybe you’d like to tell us what that way is?”
“Well,” answered Bill, “as you know, we Shorties have an agreement with the Fatties not to go talking out of turn about things back on our home world. If the Fatties don’t talk out of turn we don’t—and vice versa. So that kind of stops me from telling you plain out what I know.”
“You mean, Pick-and-Shovel,” More Jam’s voice held a strangely silky note that rang a sharp warning bell in the back of Bill’s head, “you know something that would help us, here in this village, and you’re refusing to tell us what it is?”
“Sorry,” said Bill. A low mutter of annoyance began in the crowd, and deepened toward anger. Bill hurried hastily on. “I’ve given my word not to—just like all the Shorties and Fatties that come here to know you people. But”—Bill paused, took a deep breath, mentally kicked the Human-Hemnoid Non-Interference Treaty out of the window, and borrowed a page from Anita’s book, as he had observed her in Outlaw Valley through the crack in the hide curtain—“let me tell you all a story about my grandfather.”
Chapter 21
“It all began because of a story there used to be among us Shorties—” Bill had barely gotten his first words out, when he was interrupted.
“I’ll just bet it did!” cried someone in the front of the crowd—and looking down, Bill saw several females standing in a group there, together. He recognized the speaker as Thing-or-Two, flanked by the tall form of Perfectly Delightful. “And
it’s another story you’re going to be telling us all now, we can bet on that too. It’s a shame, that’s what it is—an absolute shame, the way the men of this village stand around and let the wool be pulled over their eyes by Shorties like you, with no regard for customs and manners and traditions! Why don’t some of you speak up and tell this Shorty what he can do with his stories?”
“You shut up!” snapped a new female voice! Looking, Bill saw that Sweet Thing had appeared beside More Jam and was now looking around his enormous stomach at the older Dilbian female, like a rat terrier growling around the edge of a half-opened door at an intruder. “You just can’t wait to get me out of the Inn, so you and Tin Ear can move in on Daddy. Well, I’m not leaving! You let Pick-and-Shovel talk—”
“Did you hear her!” shrieked Thing-or-Two, turning to the crowd. “Did you hear what she said to me—me, a woman old enough to be her mother! This is what things have come to! It’s a good thing I’m not her mother, I’d—”
“You’d what?” demanded Sweet Thing belligerently, starting around her father toward the older woman. More Jam interposed a heavy arm.
“Now, now, daughter,” he rumbled peaceably. “Manners, manners …”
Still growling, but complying, Sweet Thing allowed herself to be pushed back to the opposite side of More Jam.
“At the same time,” went on More Jam, lifting his voice over that of Thing-or-Two, as she began to speak again, “as I remember it, Pick-and-Shovel was about to tell us something. And I guess I’m probably speaking for most of us when I say that, since he did something pretty interesting in going down into Outlaw Valley to get that gong handle, we ought to at least listen to what he has to say now. Besides, it sounds kind of interesting.”
“Well,” Bill began, “as I was starting to say, this whole thing came about because of a story we Shorties have. It concerns a sort of Cobbly we Shorties used to have—they’ve nearly all disappeared nowadays, back where I come from, but we used to have them. The story’s about this Cobbly and three brothers.”
The crowd had stilled amazingly. Bill was suddenly conscious of all eyes being fixed on him with the particular type of open, fascinated gaze he had occasionally seen in children hearing a story or watching a play.
“This Cobbly—” he stopped to clear his throat, then went on, “had one real powerful habit. He was able to blow rocks—even big boulders—right out of his way. He could even puff hard enough to blow a tree down, the way a storm might do. Well, these three brothers started out to set up their own home. None of them was married yet, so they headed off into the woods, and each one of them picked himself a place to build a house.”
Bill paused for a moment to see if he still had the rapt attention of his audience. Gazing down at them, he decided that if anything it was more rapt than ever. He went on.
“You see, they all knew about the Cobbly who lived in this wood, and could blow down trees and things like that, so they were all particularly concerned to build a Cobbly-proof house.”
Bill took a breath.
“Well, the first brother was the laziest of the bunch. He thought it would be good enough if he just took a lot of twigs and small branches, wove them together, and made himself a house that way. So he went to work and ran himself up a house in about a day and a half. The only thing he did that didn’t call for light branches was to put a stout bar on the inside of the front door—a bar anchored to two doorposts that were set deep in the earth.
“ ‘Let’s see that Cobbly break through that bar!’ he said, and rolled himself up for the night.
“ ‘Meanwhile, the other two brothers, not having finished their building, had gone back to the nearest village where they’d be safe. Well, the moon came up, and the Cobbly came out and prowled around the woods, and pretty soon he smelled the brother in his house and he chuckled to himself— because our type of Cobblies used to like to eat people alive, taking their time at it.”
Bill uttered this last sentence in the most impressive and blood-curdling tone that he could manage. He was gratified to receive in answer a sort of low moan of suspense and terror, particularly from the females in the crowd.
“Yes,” went on Bill, in an even firmer and more impressive tone of voice, “this Cobbly was just as hungry as a Cobbly had ever been. So he went up to the door of the house made of woven branches and he tried to open the door—”
Another, somewhat louder, low moan of suspense and anguish from the crowd before him.
“But the door held—” said Bill.
There was a grunt, almost of disappointment, from the crowd this time.
“But the Cobbly,” said Bill, fixing his audience with his best glittering eye, “wasn’t stopped by that. He knocked at the door—” Bill reached up and sounded his knuckles against a log rafter overhead. The crowd of village Dilbians shivered.
“He knocked again. And again,” said Bill. “Finally the sound of his knocking woke the brother who was inside the house.
“ ‘Who’s that, knocking?’ asked the brother.
“ ‘It’s just a late traveler, asking if you can’t put me up for the night,’ answered the Cobbly—”
There was a new moan of excitement from the crowd at the duplicity of this answer. Bill continued.
“ ‘You can’t fool me,’ answered the brother. ‘I know you’re the Cobbly that lives in these woods, and that you’d like to get in so that you could eat me up. But I’ve put too stout a bar on my door, and you can’t get through it. And I’m not going to let you in, either. So go about your business, and let me sleep.’
“ ‘Let me in, I tell you!’ shouted the Cobbly at that. ‘Let me in—or I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house over!’
“At that, the first brother was very much afraid, and he covered his head with his blanket. But the Cobbly outside began to huff and puff—and before you could wink, he’d blown the house over, snatched up the first brother and eaten him!”
The crowd groaned.
“Well,” went on Bill. “The Cobbly, full after the meal he’d just had, went home to sleep until the next night. That next night he went hunting again. The third brother had not yet finished building and he’d gone back into town. But the second brother had finished building his house. And he’d built a pretty good house of logs. So when the Cobbly came up and tested that door, he knew by the feel of it that there was no point even in trying to break in that way. So he called out to the second brother, just as he’d called out to the first, saying he was a traveler who’d like to be put up for the night.
“ ‘You can’t fool me!’ shouted the second brother. ‘I know you’re the Cobbly who lives in this woods and who’s already eaten one of my brothers. But you can’t get in at my front door.’
“ ‘In that case,’ answered the Cobbly, ‘I’ll just have to huff and puff until I blow your house down, too.’
“ ‘You can’t blow down a house made of logs!’ cried the second brother—but in spite of his brave words, he was afraid, and he covered up his head with his blanket just like the first brother had done.
“Meanwhile the Cobbly took a big lung full of air and began to huff, and puff, and huff, and puff—until at last, bang—a log flew out of the wall in front of him, and then another, and then another—and the next thing you knew he’d blown to pieces the house made of logs, and he got in and gobbled up the second brother!”
The groan that arose from the crowd at this point in the story was the deepest and most sincere tribute that tale had received so far.
“The next night,” said Bill, and paused dramatically, “the Cobbly went hunting again. He hunted and he hunted, and though he was sure the third brother was there in the forest, he couldn’t seem to find where his house had been built. At last, a little ray of light shining out through the darkness led him to it. It was no wonder the Cobbly hadn’t been able to recognize it as a house. He had passed it two or three times already. Because this house was made—” Bill paused again and his aud
ience held its breath, “of stone!”
For a long moment the villagers continued to hold their breath in automatic anticipation. But then, slowly, expressions of puzzlement grew on their faces. They began to breath again. Many of them were casting sidelong glances at each other, and a muttering began which spread through the whole group. Finally, from the rear somebody spoke up.
“Did you say of stone, Pick-and-Shovel?”
“That’s right,” said Bill.
“You mean, of pieces of rock?” asked More Jam from the front ranks.
“That’s exactly right,” replied Bill. “The third brother made his walls by starting with large boulders at the bottom, and working up to smaller and smaller rocks, fitting them together as he went and packing them tight with wet clay that dried hard after a little while. He bedded his rafters in the stone walls at each end and then built a roof of heavy timbers sloping down from a rooftree mounted on four posts lined up and sunk in the earth inside.”
As far as Bill knew, no Dilbian had ever thought of making a house with walls of stone. Apparently, he noted now as he watched and listened from the top of his barrel, the idea was equally as novel to the villagers. It took some little time for the buzzings of incredulity and amazement to die down. But at last, they all quieted like interested children, and he saw their eyes were back on him once again.
“Go on, Pick-and-Shovel,” said More Jam. “Here the third brother was inside his house made of stone, and there was a Cobbly outside knowing he was in there. What happened next?”
“Well, I suppose you can guess,” said Bill, “that Cobbly just didn’t turn around and go away and leave the third brother alone.”