It was Herb who first saw Janice Thomas, the art teacher, come in.
“She’s putting something up on the bulletin board,” Herb said.
“Wonder what it says,” said Doc.
“Might be something from school,” Herb said.
Steve is of a more practical way of thinking. “You ever thought about going over there and seeing what it is?”
Steve got up and walked over and read the poster. He came back.
“It’s an art show,” Steve said. “For anyone who wants to enter.”
“Haven’t had an art show here in a long time.”
“Those city guys who moved in the Johnson place, remember?”
“That was an art show?”
“Maybe.”
“You know,” Dud said, “there’s more than one way to do art. You take Jim Kennedy now. The way he can pick up a little stick with his backhoe. How many people can do that? I think that’s a kind of art.”
“You’re right, Dud,” said Herb. “You ever watch Grant when he’s fly fishing?”
The members of the Mule Barn truck stop’s philosophy counter and world-dilemma think tank nodded in agreement.
“Poetry, that is,” said Doc.
“Dang near magic, to my mind,” said Steve.
“How about the cream gravy here at the Mule Barn?” said Dud. “I don’t know what they put in it, but you could eat a cardboard box if it had that gravy on it.”
“I’ve never had better.”
“Then there’s Steve,” said Doc.
“Me?” said the cowboy.
“You boys ever see anyone put a better rein on a horse than Steve?”
Steve blushed. “Now come on!”
“It’s true, Steve.”
“That,” said Doc, “is art, too. Maybe art, maybe something like ballet almost, the way a horse moves when Steve’s trained him.”
“I guess there’s more than one kind of art in the world,” said Herb, “and I guess I personally know some artists.”
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Brought to you by “Ol’ Max Evans, the First Thousand Years” now available in a new edition from http://www.unmpress.com.
