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All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in front, and the country people hitched their horses to the awning-posts. There was empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawnin... |
“Gimme a chaw ’v tobacker, Hank.” |
“Cain’t; I hain’t got but one chaw left. Ask Bill.” |
Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he ain’t got none. Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world, nor a chaw of tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by borrowing; they say to a fellow, “I wisht you’d len’ me a chaw, Jack, I jist this minute give Ben Thompson the last cha... |
“You give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister’s cat’s grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you’ve awready borry’d off’n me, Lafe Buckner, then I’ll loan you one or two ton of it, and won’t charge you no back intrust, nuther.” |
“Well, I did pay you back some of it wunst.” |
“Yes, you did—’bout six chaws. You borry’d store tobacker and paid back nigger-head.” |
Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw they don’t generly cut it off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw with their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in two; then sometimes the one that owns... |
“Here, gimme the chaw, and you take the plug.” |
All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn’t nothing else but mud—mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, and two or three inches deep in all the places. The hogs loafed and grunted around everywheres. You’d see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come lazying along the street and whollop her... |
On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the bank, and they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in. The people had moved out of them. The bank was caved away under one corner of some others, and that corner was hanging over. People lived in them yet, but it was dangersome, because sometimes... |
The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the wagons and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time. Families fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat them in the wagons. There was considerable whisky drinking going on, and I seen three fights. By-and-by somebody sings out... |
“Here comes old Boggs!—in from the country for his little old monthly drunk; here he comes, boys!” |
All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was used to having fun out of Boggs. One of them says: |
“Wonder who he’s a-gwyne to chaw up this time. If he’d a-chawed up all the men he’s ben a-gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he’d have considerable ruputation now.” |
Another one says, “I wisht old Boggs ’d threaten me, ’cuz then I’d know I warn’t gwyne to die for a thousan’ year.” |
Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an Injun, and singing out: |
“Cler the track, thar. I’m on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins is a-gwyne to raise.” |
He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty year old, and had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him and laughed at him and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he’d attend to them and lay them out in their regular turns, but he couldn’t wait now because he’d come to town to kill old Colonel ... |
He see me, and rode up and says: |
“Whar’d you come f’m, boy? You prepared to die?” |
Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says: |
“He don’t mean nothing; he’s always a-carryin’ on like that when he’s drunk. He’s the best naturedest old fool in Arkansaw—never hurt nobody, drunk nor sober.” |
Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and bent his head down so he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells: |
“Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you’ve swindled. You’re the houn’ I’m after, and I’m a-gwyne to have you, too!” |
And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his tongue to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and going on. By-and-by a proud-looking man about fifty-five—and he was a heap the best dressed man in that town, too—steps out of the store, and the crowd drops back on each side to... |
“I’m tired of this, but I’ll endure it till one o’clock. Till one o’clock, mind—no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once after that time you can’t travel so far but I will find you.” |
Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody stirred, and there warn’t no more laughing. Boggs rode off blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street; and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get hi... |
“Go for his daughter!—quick, go for his daughter; sometimes he’ll listen to her. If anybody can persuade him, she can.” |
So somebody started on a run. I walked down street a ways and stopped. In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his horse. He was a-reeling across the street towards me, bare-headed, with a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms and hurrying him along. He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and... |
“Boggs!” |
I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel Sherburn. He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a pistol raised in his right hand—not aiming it, but holding it out with the barrel tilted up towards the sky. The same second I see a young girl coming on the run, and two men with her. Bogg... |
Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol onto the ground, and turned around on his heels and walked off. |
They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around just the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good place at the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They laid him on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and opened another one and spread it on his breast... |
Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrouging and pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look, but people that had the places wouldn’t give them up, and folks behind them was saying all the time, “Say, now, you’ve looked enough, you fellows; ’tain’t right and ’tain’t fair for you to s... |
There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe there was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened, and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows, stretching their necks and listening. One lon... |
Well, by-and-by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and snatching down every clothes-line they come to, to do the hanging with. |
CHAPTER XXII. |
They swarmed up towards Sherburn’s house, a-whooping and raging like Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and tromped to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling it ahead of the mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way; and every window along the road was full of women’s heads, ... |
They swarmed up in front of Sherburn’s palings as thick as they could jam together, and you couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise. It was a little twenty-foot yard. Some sung out “Tear down the fence! tear down the fence!” Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and smashing, and down she goes, and the fron... |
Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his little front porch, with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly ca’m and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the wave sucked back. |
Sherburn never said a word—just stood there, looking down. The stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eye slow along the crowd; and wherever it struck the people tried a little to out-gaze him, but they couldn’t; they dropped their eyes and looked sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughe... |
Then he says, slow and scornful: |
“The idea of you lynching anybody! It’s amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because you’re brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man’s safe in the hands of ten... |
“Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man’s a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man all by himself, ... |
“So they always acquit; and then a man goes in the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is, that you didn’t bring a man with you; that’s one mistake, and the other is that you didn’t come in the dark and fetch your masks. You brought part of a man—Buck Harkness, there—an... |
“You didn’t want to come. The average man don’t like trouble and danger. You don’t like trouble and danger. But if only half a man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts ‘Lynch him! lynch him!’ you’re afraid to back down—afraid you’ll be found out to be what you are—cowards—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to ... |
The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and went tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking tolerable cheap. I could a staid if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. |
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