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Chapter XVII.
IN about a minute somebody spoke out of a
window without putting his head out, and
says:
"Be done, boys!
Who's there?"
I says:
"It's me."
"Who's me?"
"George Jackson, sir."
"What do you want?"
"I don't want nothing, sir.
I only want to go along by, but the dogs
won't let me."
"What are you prowling around here this
time of night for--hey?"
"I warn't prowling around, sir, I fell
overboard off of the steamboat."
"Oh, you did, did you?
Strike a light there, somebody.
What did you say your name was?"
"George Jackson, sir.
I'm only a boy."
"Look here, if you're telling the truth you
needn't be afraid--nobody'll hurt you.
But don't try to budge; stand right where
you are.
Rouse out Bob and Tom, some of you, and
fetch the guns.
George Jackson, is there anybody with you?"
"No, sir, nobody."
I heard the people stirring around in the
house now, and see a light.
The man sung out:
"*** that light away, Betsy, you old
fool--ain't you got any sense?
Put it on the floor behind the front door.
Bob, if you and Tom are ready, take your
places."
"All ready."
"Now, George Jackson, do you know the
Shepherdsons?"
"No, sir; I never heard of them."
"Well, that may be so, and it mayn't.
Now, all ready.
Step forward, George Jackson.
And mind, don't you hurry--come mighty
slow.
If there's anybody with you, let him keep
back--if he shows himself he'll be shot.
Come along now.
Come slow; push the door open yourself--
just enough to squeeze in, d' you hear?"
I didn't hurry; I couldn't if I'd a wanted
to.
I took one slow step at a time and there
warn't a sound, only I thought I could hear
my heart.
The dogs were as still as the humans, but
they followed a little behind me.
When I got to the three log doorsteps I
heard them unlocking and unbarring and
unbolting.
I put my hand on the door and pushed it a
little and a little more till somebody
said, "There, that's enough--put your head
in."
I done it, but I judged they would take it
off.
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, and back of
her two young women which I couldn't see
right well.
The old gentleman says:
"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.
They held the candle, and took a good look
at me, and all said, "Why, HE ain't a
Shepherdson--no, there ain't any
Shepherdson about him."
Then the old man said he hoped I wouldn't
mind being searched for arms, because he
didn't mean no harm by it--it was only to
make sure.
So he didn't pry into my pockets, but only
felt outside with his hands, and said it
was all right.
He told me to make myself easy and at home,
and tell all about myself; but the old lady
says:
"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 *** 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
Moses was when the candle went out.
I said I didn't know; I hadn't heard about
it before, no way.
"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 kind of foolishness?
You bet I don't, but ma she makes me.
Confound these ole britches!
I reckon I'd better put 'em on, but I'd
ruther not, it's so warm.
Are you all ready?
All right.
Come along, old hoss."
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 *** woman, which was
gone, and the two young women.
They all smoked and talked, and I eat and
talked.
The young women had quilts around them, and
their hair down their backs.
They all asked me questions, and I told
them how pap and me and all the family was
living on a little farm down at the bottom
of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann run off
and got married and never was heard of no
more, and Bill went to hunt them and he
warn't heard of no more, and Tom and Mort
died, and then there warn't nobody but just
me and pap left, and he was just trimmed
down to nothing, on account of his
troubles; so when he died I took what there
was left, because the farm didn't belong to
us, and started up the river, deck passage,
and fell overboard; and that was how I come
to be here.
So they said I could have a home there as
long as I wanted it.
Then it was most daylight and everybody
went to bed, and I went to bed with Buck,
and when I waked up in the morning, drat it
all, I had forgot what my name was.
So I laid there about an hour trying to
think, and when Buck waked up I says:
"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 *** to turn, the same
as houses in town.
There warn't no bed in the parlor, nor a
sign of a bed; but heaps of parlors in
towns has beds in them.
There was a big fireplace that was bricked
on the bottom, and the bricks was kept
clean and red by pouring water on them and
scrubbing them with another brick;
sometimes they wash them over with red
water-paint that they call Spanish-brown,
same as they do in town.
They had big brass dog-irons that could
hold up a saw-log.
There was a clock on the middle of the
mantelpiece, with a picture of a town
painted on the bottom half of the glass
front, and a round place in the middle of
it for the sun, and you could see the
pendulum swinging behind it.
It was beautiful to hear that clock tick;
and sometimes when one of these peddlers
had been along and scoured her up and got
her in good shape, she would start in and
strike a hundred and fifty before she got
tuckered out.
They wouldn't took any money for her.
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.
They squeaked through underneath.
There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing
fans spread out behind those things.
On the table in the middle of the room was
a kind of a lovely crockery basket that had
apples and oranges and peaches and grapes
piled up in it, which was much redder and
yellower and prettier than real ones is,
but they warn't real because you could see
where pieces had got chipped off and showed
the white chalk, or whatever it was,
underneath.
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 Pilgrim's Progress, about a man
that left his family, it didn't say why.
I read considerable in it now and then.
The statements was interesting, but tough.
Another was Friendship's Offering, full of
beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn't
read the poetry.
Another was Henry Clay's Speeches, and
another was Dr.
Gunn's Family Medicine, which told you all
about what to do if a body was sick or
dead.
There was a hymn book, and a lot of other
books.
And there was nice split-bottom chairs, and
perfectly sound, too--not bagged down in
the middle and busted, like an old basket.
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 I ever
see before --blacker, mostly, than is
common.
One was a woman in a slim black dress,
belted small under the armpits, with bulges
like a cabbage in the middle of the
sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel
bonnet with a black veil, and white slim
ankles crossed about with black tape, and
very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and
she was leaning pensive on a tombstone on
her right elbow, under a weeping willow,
and her other hand hanging down her side
holding a white handkerchief and a
reticule, and underneath the picture it
said "Shall I Never See Thee More Alas."
Another one was a young lady with her hair
all combed up straight to the top of her
head, and knotted there in front of a comb
like a chair-back, and she was crying into
a handkerchief and had a dead bird laying
on its back in her other hand with its
heels up, and underneath the picture it
said "I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup
More Alas."
There was one where a young lady was at a
window looking up at the moon, and tears
running down her cheeks; and she had an
open letter in one hand with black sealing
wax showing on one edge of it, and she was
mashing a locket with a chain to it against
her mouth, and underneath the picture it
said "And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone
Alas."
These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but
I didn't somehow seem to take to them,
because if ever I was down a little they
always give me the fan-tods.
Everybody was sorry she died, because she
had laid out a lot more of these pictures
to do, and a body could see by what she had
done what they had lost.
But I reckoned that with her disposition
she was having a better time in the
graveyard.
She was at work on what they said was her
greatest picture when she took sick, and
every day and every night it was her prayer
to be allowed to live till she got it done,
but she never got the chance.
It was a picture of a young woman in a long
white gown, standing on the rail of a
bridge all ready to jump off, with her hair
all down her back, and looking up to the
moon, with the tears running down her face,
and she had two arms folded across her
breast, and two arms stretched out in
front, and two more reaching up towards the
moon--and the idea was to see which pair
would look best, and then scratch out all
the other arms; but, as I was saying, she
died before she got her mind made up, and
now they kept this picture over the head of
the bed in her room, and every time her
birthday come they hung flowers on it.
Other times it was hid with a little
curtain.
The young woman in the picture had a kind
of a nice sweet face, but there was so many
arms it made her look too spidery, seemed
to me.
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 fell down
a well and was drownded:
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.
Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots.
O no.
Then list with tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this cold world fly
By falling down a well.
They got him out and emptied him;
Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
In the realms of the good and great.
If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry
like that before she was fourteen, there
ain't no telling what she could a done by
and by.
Buck said she could rattle off poetry like
nothing.
She didn't ever have to stop to think.
He said she would slap down a line, and if
she couldn't find anything to rhyme with it
would just scratch it out and slap down
another one, and go ahead.
She warn't particular; she could write
about anything you choose to give her to
write about just so it was sadful.
Every time a man died, or a woman died, or
a child died, she would be on hand with her
"tribute" before he was cold.
She called them tributes.
The neighbors said it was the doctor first,
then Emmeline, then the undertaker--the
undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline
but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme
for the dead person's name, which was
Whistler.
She warn't ever the same after that; she
never complained, but she kinder pined away
and did not live long.
Poor thing, many's the time I made myself
go up to the little room that used to be
hers and get out her poor old scrap-book
and read in it when her pictures had been
aggravating me and I had soured on her a
little.
I liked all that family, dead ones and all,
and warn't going to let anything come
between us.
Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the
dead people when she was alive, and it
didn't seem right that there warn't nobody
to make some about her now she was gone; so
I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself,
but I couldn't seem to make it go somehow.
They kept Emmeline's room trim and nice,
and all the things fixed in it just the way
she liked to have them when she was alive,
and nobody ever slept there.
The old lady took care of the room herself,
though there was plenty of ***, and she
sewed there a good deal and read her Bible
there mostly.
Well, as I was saying about the parlor,
there was beautiful curtains on the
windows: white, with pictures painted on
them of castles with vines all down the
walls, and cattle coming down to drink.
There was a little old piano, too, that had
tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was
ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies
sing "The Last Link is Broken" and play
"The Battle of Prague" on it.
The walls of all the rooms was plastered,
and most had carpets on the floors, and the
whole house was whitewashed on the outside.
It was a double house, and the big open
place betwixt them was roofed and floored,
and sometimes the table was set there in
the middle of the day, and it was a cool,
comfortable place.
Nothing couldn't be better.
And warn't the cooking good, and just
bushels of it too!