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About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along, but they didn’t come from high enough up the river; but at last there was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted to go four or five mile they was boo... |
“If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry ’em, can’t it?” |
So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down when they see the yawl a-coming, and when the king says: |
“Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher’ Mr. Peter Wilks lives?” they give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say, “What d’ I tell you?” Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle: |
“I’m sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he did live yesterday evening.” |
Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an to smash, and fell up against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and says: |
“Alas, alas, our poor brother—gone, and we never got to see him; oh, it’s too, too hard!” |
Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn’t drop a carpet-bag and bust out a-crying. If they warn’t the beatenest lot, them two frauds, that ever I struck. |
Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all about his brother’s last moments, and the king he told it all over again on his hands to the duke, and both of ... |
CHAPTER XXV. |
The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. The windows and dooryards was full; and every minut... |
“Is it them?” |
And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say: |
“You bet it is.” |
When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane was red-headed, but that don’t make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his arms, a... |
Then the king he hunched the duke private—I see him do it—and then he looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so then him and the duke, with a hand across each other’s shoulder, and t’other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there, everybody dropping back to give them room, and ... |
Well, by-and-by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long journey of four thousand mile, but it’s a tria... |
And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over in the crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church letting out. Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and hogwash I never see it freshen up things s... |
Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying yonder could speak he knows who he would name,... |
Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town a-hunting together—that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to t’other world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer Bell was away up to Louisville on business. But the rest was on hand, and so they all come and shook hands with the king and... |
So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pretty much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts of little things that happened one time or another in the town, or to George’s family, or to Peter. And he always let on that Peter wrote him the things; but that was a lie: he got ev... |
Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling-house and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard (which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and land (worth about seven thousand), and ... |
“Oh, this ain’t bully nor noth’n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Bilji, it beats the Nonesuch, don’t it?” |
The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the king says: |
“It ain’t no use talkin’; bein’ brothers to a rich dead man and representatives of furrin heirs that’s got left is the line for you and me, Bilge. Thish yer comes of trust’n to Providence. It’s the best way, in the long run. I’ve tried ’em all, and ther’ ain’t no better way.” |
Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes out four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king: |
“Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen dollars?” |
They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it. Then the duke says: |
“Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake—I reckon that’s the way of it. The best way’s to let it go, and keep still about it. We can spare it.” |
“Oh, shucks, yes, we can spare it. I don’t k’yer noth’n ’bout that—it’s the count I’m thinkin’ about. We want to be awful square and open and above-board here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer money up stairs and count it before everybody—then ther’ ain’t noth’n suspicious. But when the dead man says ther’s six thou... |
“Hold on,” says the duke. “Le’s make up the deffisit,” and he begun to haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket. |
“It’s a most amaz’n’ good idea, duke—you have got a rattlin’ clever head on you,” says the king. “Blest if the old Nonesuch ain’t a heppin’ us out agin,” and he begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them up. |
It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear. |
“Say,” says the duke, “I got another idea. Le’s go up stairs and count this money, and then take and give it to the girls.” |
“Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It’s the most dazzling idea ’at ever a man struck. You have cert’nly got the most astonishin’ head I ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther’ ain’t no mistake ’bout it. Let ’em fetch along their suspicions now if they want to—this’ll lay ’em out.” |
When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around the table, and the king he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a pile—twenty elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin to swell himself up for another spe... |
“Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by them that’s left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that’s left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he would a done more generous by ’em if h... |
Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the hands off of them frauds, saying all the time: |
“You dear good souls!—how lovely!—how could you!” |
Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that; and before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside, and stood a-listening and looking, and not saying anything; and nobody saying anything to him either, because t... |
“—they bein’ partickler friends o’ the diseased. That’s why they’re invited here this evenin’; but tomorrow we want all to come—everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it’s fitten that his funeral orgies sh’d be public.” |
And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the duke he couldn’t stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper, “obsequies, you old fool,” and folds it up, and goes to goo-gooing and reaching it over people’s heads to h... |
“Poor William, afflicted as he is, his heart’s aluz right. Asks me to invite everybody to come to the funeral—wants me to make ’em all welcome. But he needn’t a worried—it was jest what I was at.” |
Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca’m, and goes to dropping in his funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And when he done it the third time he says: |
“I say orgies, not because it’s the common term, because it ain’t—obsequies bein’ the common term—but because orgies is the right term. Obsequies ain’t used in England no more now—it’s gone out. We say orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing you’re after more exact. It’s a word that’s made u... |
He was the worst I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, “Why, doctor!” and Abner Shackleford says: |
“Why, Robinson, hain’t you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks.” |
The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says: |
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