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The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, and me at them, for about a quarter of a minute: Three big men with guns pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray and about sixty, the other two thirty or more—all of them fine and handsome—and the sweetest old gray-headed lady,... |
“There; I reckon it’s all right. Come in.” |
As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor, and got together in a corner that was out of the range of the front windows—there warn’t none on the side. Th... |
“Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing’s as wet as he can be; and don’t you reckon it may be he’s hungry?” |
“True for you, Rachel—I forgot.” |
So the old lady says: |
“Betsy” (this was a nigger woman), “you fly around and get him something to eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you girls go and wake up Buck and tell him—oh, here he is himself. Buck, take this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him up in some of yours that’s dry.” |
Buck looked about as old as me—thirteen or fourteen or along there, though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn’t on anything but a shirt, and he was very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping and digging one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one. He says: |
“Ain’t they no Shepherdsons around?” |
They said, no, ’twas a false alarm. |
“Well,” he says, “if they’d a ben some, I reckon I’d a got one.” |
They all laughed, and Bob says: |
“Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you’ve been so slow in coming.” |
“Well, nobody come after me, and it ain’t right I’m always kept down; I don’t get no show.” |
“Never mind, Buck, my boy,” says the old man, “you’ll have show enough, all in good time, don’t you fret about that. Go ’long with you now, and do as your mother told you.” |
When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me where Mo... |
“Well, guess,” he says. |
“How’m I going to guess,” says I, “when I never heard tell of it before?” |
“But you can guess, can’t you? It’s just as easy.” |
“Which candle?” I says. |
“Why, any candle,” he says. |
“I don’t know where he was,” says I; “where was he?” |
“Why, he was in the dark! That’s where he was!” |
“Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?” |
“Why, blame it, it’s a riddle, don’t you see? Say, how long are you going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming times—they don’t have no school now. Do you own a dog? I’ve got a dog—and he’ll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kin... |
Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk—that is what they had for me down there, and there ain’t nothing better that ever I’ve come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They all smoked and talked, and I eat and talk... |
“Can you spell, Buck?” |
“Yes,” he says. |
“I bet you can’t spell my name,” says I. |
“I bet you what you dare I can,” says he. |
“All right,” says I, “go ahead.” |
“G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n—there now,” he says. |
“Well,” says I, “you done it, but I didn’t think you could. It ain’t no slouch of a name to spell—right off without studying.” |
I set it down, private, because somebody might want me to spell it next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was used to it. |
It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I hadn’t seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much style. It didn’t have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses in town. There warn’t no bed in the pa... |
Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock, made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of the parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other; and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn’t open their mouths nor look different nor interested. T... |
This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red and blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all around. It come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was some books, too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was a big family Bible full of pictures. One was... |
They had pictures hung on the walls—mainly Washingtons and Lafayettes, and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called “Signing the Declaration.” There was some that they called crayons, which one of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures... |
This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fe... |
ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC’D |
And did young Stephen sicken, |
And did young Stephen die? |
And did the sad hearts thicken, |
And did the mourners cry? |
No; such was not the fate of |
Young Stephen Dowling Bots; |
Though sad hearts round him thickened, |
’Twas not from sickness’ shots. |
No whooping-cough did rack his frame, |
Nor measles drear with spots; |
Not these impaired the sacred name |
Of Stephen Dowling Bots. |
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