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Chapter V.
I HAD shut the door to.
Then I turned around and there he was.
I used to be scared of him all the time, he
tanned me so much.
I reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a
minute I see I was mistaken--that is, after
the first jolt, as you may say, when my
breath sort of hitched, he being so
unexpected; but right away after I see I
warn't scared of him worth bothring about.
He was most fifty, and he looked it.
His hair was long and tangled and greasy,
and hung down, and you could see his eyes
shining through like he was behind vines.
It was all black, no gray; so was his long,
mixed-up whiskers.
There warn't no color in his face, where
his face showed; it was white; not like
another man's white, but a white to make a
body sick, a white to make a body's flesh
crawl--a tree-toad white, a fish-belly
white.
As for his clothes--just rags, that was
all.
He had one ankle resting on t'other knee;
the boot on that foot was busted, and two
of his toes stuck through, and he worked
them now and then.
His hat was laying on the floor--an old
black slouch with the top caved in, like a
lid.
I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-
looking at me, with his chair tilted back a
little.
I set the candle down.
I noticed the window was up; so he had
clumb in by the shed.
He kept a-looking me all over.
By and by he says:
"Starchy clothes--very.
You think you're a good deal of a big-bug,
DON'T you?"
"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.
"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says
"You've put on considerable many frills
since I been away.
I'll take you down a peg before I get done
with you.
You're educated, too, they say--can read
and write.
You think you're better'n your father, now,
don't you, because he can't?
I'LL take it out of you.
Who told you you might meddle with such
hifalut'n foolishness, hey?--who told you
you could?"
"The widow.
She told me."
"The widow, hey?--and who told the widow
she could put in her shovel about a thing
that ain't none of her business?"
"Nobody never told her."
"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle.
And looky here--you drop that school, you
hear?
I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put
on airs over his own father and let on to
be better'n what HE is.
You lemme catch you fooling around that
school again, you hear?
Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't
write, nuther, before she died.
None of the family couldn't before THEY
died.
I can't; and here you're a-swelling
yourself up like this.
I ain't the man to stand it--you hear?
Say, lemme hear you read."
I took up a book and begun something about
General Washington and the wars.
When I'd read about a half a minute, he
fetched the book a whack with his hand and
knocked it across the house.
He says:
"It's so.
You can do it.
I had my doubts when you told me.
Now looky here; you stop that putting on
frills.
I won't have it.
I'll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch
you about that school I'll tan you good.
First you know you'll get religion, too.
I never see such a son."
He took up a little blue and yaller picture
of some cows and a boy, and says:
"What's this?"
"It's something they give me for learning
my lessons good."
He tore it up, and says:
"I'll give you something better--I'll give
you a cowhide."
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a
minute, and then he says:
"AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though?
A bed; and bedclothes; and a look'n'-glass;
and a piece of carpet on the floor--and
your own father got to sleep with the hogs
in the tanyard.
I never see such a son.
I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o'
you before I'm done with you.
Why, there ain't no end to your airs--they
say you're rich.
Hey?--how's that?"
"They lie--that's how."
"Looky here--mind how you talk to me; I'm
a-standing about all I can stand now--so
don't gimme no sass.
I've been in town two days, and I hain't
heard nothing but about you bein' rich.
I heard about it away down the river, too.
That's why I come.
You git me that money to-morrow--I want
it."
"I hain't got no money."
"It's a lie.
Judge Thatcher's got it.
You git it.
I want it."
"I hain't got no money, I tell you.
You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell you the
same."
"All right.
I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle,
too, or I'll know the reason why.
Say, how much you got in your pocket?
I want it."
"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want
that to--"
"It don't make no difference what you want
it for--you just shell it out."
He took it and bit it to see if it was
good, and then he said he was going down
town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had
a drink all day.
When he had got out on the shed he put his
head in again, and cussed me for putting on
frills and trying to be better than him;
and when I reckoned he was gone he come
back and put his head in again, and told me
to mind about that school, because he was
going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't
drop that.
Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge
Thatcher's and bullyragged him, and tried
to make him give up the money; but he
couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the
law force him.
The judge and the widow went to law to get
the court to take me away from him and let
one of them be my guardian; but it was a
new judge that had just come, and he didn't
know the old man; so he said courts mustn't
interfere and separate families if they
could help it; said he'd druther not take a
child away from its father.
So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit
on the business.
That pleased the old man till he couldn't
rest.
He said he'd cowhide me till I was black
and blue if I didn't raise some money for
him.
I borrowed three dollars from Judge
Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk,
and went a-blowing around and cussing and
whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up
all over town, with a tin pan, till most
midnight; then they jailed him, and next
day they had him before court, and jailed
him again for a week.
But he said HE was satisfied; said he was
boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for
HIM.
When he got out the new judge said he was
a-going to make a man of him.
So he took him to his own house, and
dressed him up clean and nice, and had him
to breakfast and dinner and supper with the
family, and was just old pie to him, so to
speak.
And after supper he talked to him about
temperance and such things till the old man
cried, and said he'd been a fool, and
fooled away his life; but now he was a-
going to turn over a new leaf and be a man
nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped
the judge would help him and not look down
on him.
The judge said he could hug him for them
words; so he cried, and his wife she cried
again; pap said he'd been a man that had
always been misunderstood before, and the
judge said he believed it.
The old man said that what a man wanted
that was down was sympathy, and the judge
said it was so; so they cried again.
And when it was bedtime the old man rose up
and held out his hand, and says:
"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take
a-hold of it; shake it.
There's a hand that was the hand of a hog;
but it ain't so no more; it's the hand of a
man that's started in on a new life, and'll
die before he'll go back.
You mark them words--don't forget I said
them.
It's a clean hand now; shake it--don't be
afeard."
So they shook it, one after the other, all
around, and cried.
The judge's wife she kissed it.
Then the old man he signed a pledge--made
his mark.
The judge said it was the holiest time on
record, or something like that.
Then they tucked the old man into a
beautiful room, which was the spare room,
and in the night some time he got powerful
thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof
and slid down a stanchion and traded his
new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb
back again and had a good old time; and
towards daylight he crawled out again,
drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the
porch and broke his left arm in two places,
and was most froze to death when somebody
found him after sun-up.
And when they come to look at that spare
room they had to take soundings before they
could navigate it.
The judge he felt kind of sore.
He said he reckoned a body could reform the
old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he
didn't know no other way.