BECK N ME: Springtime springing

BY JACK CROSSWELL
Ratchet Arnold ran into the barn singing.  He was wilder than a bluegrass fiddler dancing with a talking lizard on a television commercial.  So loud was he that he woke Old Blue Rosenbloom from his mid-morning nap.
“Have you lost your cotton picking mind?” said Beck, my ole Missouri mule.  “Didn’t you hear Blue snoring?”
“Let’s celebrate,” Ratchet said.  “She’s coming soon and I do want her to stick around for a long time.”
“If she’s coming,” said Ernie Musser, “I’d better tune up my fiddle.  Sometimes, people mistake me for Charlie Daniels.”
“Let me join the band,” said Larry McPeak.
“Who is ah coming?” said Wythe Albert.  “Nobody told me about us expecting company.”
“She’s just over the mountain heading this way,” Paul Brewster said.
“I see her,” said Tommy Jones, “and she’s mighty beautiful.  I’m already falling in love with her.”
“Far as I can tell,” said Mary Kegley, “she’s using the Wilderness Road.”
Greg Sayers said, “That’s the reason Coy McRoberts wanted to reroute the Wilderness Road from my store to his.”
“We’ll bake her a cake,” Price Crigger said.  “I like upside down pineapple cakes.”
“Not me,” said Cowboy Jack Vipperman.  “You have to stand on your head to eat them.”
Wythe said, “Won’t somebody tell me who is coming?”
“It’s none other than Sweet Spring Time,” said Gary Taylor.  “Can’t you feel it in the air?”
“I hope she puts Old Man Winter on the run,” Lori Meadows.  “Maybe the golden daffodils can pop up with their pretty blooms and salute her.”
Buster Blossom said, “Maybelle, my wife, says everybody ought to greet Sweet Spring Time with a song since she’s been so long in coming.”
“Maybelle is a big woman,” mumbled No Fenders McGee.
A retired lawman and journalist, and published novelist, Jack Crosswell lives in Cripple Creek.