When Jack's eggs didn't hatch he suspected me, for I had been so foolish as to predict that his eggs wouldn't hatch. And so he was sure I was responsible, although he didn't know how. In fact his mother had seen me enter the barn and had told Jack about it.
One day when I went to the pasture to get the hotel keeper's cows, I ran into Jack hunting ground squirrels with his dog. He set his dog chasing the cows and then ran away out of my reach.
The dog yelped at the cows heels and they galloped about the pasture in a panic. I shouted to Jack to call off his dog or there would be trouble the next time I met him. But Jack, who was out of reach, shouted encouragement instead. Round and round the cattle raced with that howling dog scaring them into fits. At last the dog tired of the fun and trotted off to join Jack, who was disappearing over the hill. I then tried to round up the cows and get them out of the pasture. But the brutes were wet with sweat and as wild as deer. I saw that they could not be milked in that condition and felt that Jack's conduct was outrageous. He had not only made trouble for me; he had injured the hotel keeper. There would be no milk that night fit to be used.
I started straight for Jack's home to tell his mother of his lawless act. As I went along, I turned the case over in my mind, and the case grew stronger and stronger all the time. Before Ireached Jack's door I had, satisfied myself that his mother would be shocked at the news and would at once cut a big switch to give Jack the licking he deserved.
But when I began to tell Mrs. Thomas of her son's crime, she sided with Jack and wouldn't listen to me. "Don't come to me with your troubles, you nasty little whiffet," she cried. "You started the whole thing when you sneaked in and ruined Jack's pigeon eggs. Now that you've got the worst of it you come here with your tattle-tales. You ought to be ashamed to show your face--" She had become so threatening that I turned and ran. My whole case had gone to pieces on her sharp tongue like a toy balloon pricked with a pin. I had been blowing it up until it got so big Icouldn't see anything else. It burst right in my face, and there wasn't even a scrap of rubber to tell where it had been.
This taught me one of the best lessons I ever learned. By looking only at his side of a case a man can kid himself into thinking that he is wholly right, that his cause is greater than himself and represents the rights of the entire community. But a counter-blast from the other side will deflate his balloon in a second and he'll come down to earth without even a parachute to soften the jolt when he lands.
I learned that blood is not only thicker than water, but it is thicker than curdled milk, and you can't line up a mother against her own child even if he chased the cows until they got so wild they gave strawberry pop instead of milk. Any argument that goes contrary to human nature has struck a snag before it is started.
A man must come into court with clean hands. I had started by rotting the other fellow's eggs and he finished by souring my milk. I wanted justice and I got it, but I didn't recognize it when it landed on me with all four feet. Chickens come home to roost, and my pigeons had found a nesting-place on my anatomy;and the spot they had chosen was right in the neck.
