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, and there was nigger boys in every
tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence; and as soon as
the mob would get nearly to them they would break and skaddle back out
of reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared
most to death.
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 front wall of the crowd begins to
roll in like a wave.
Just then Sherburn steps out onto 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 outgaze him, but they couldn’t; they dropped their eyes and looked
sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed; not the pleasant
kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you are eating bread
that’s got sand in it.
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 thousand of
your kind—as long as it’s daytime and you’re not behind him.
“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, has stopped a stage full
of men in the daytime, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you
a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other
people—whereas you’re just _as_ brave, and no braver. Why don’t your
juries hang murderers? Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will
shoot them in the back, in the dark—and it’s just what they _would_ do.
“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—and if you hadn’t had
him to start you, you’d ’a’ taken it out in blowing.
“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 onto that
half-a-man’s coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big
things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s
what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in
them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their
officers. But a mob without any _man_ at the head of it is _beneath_
pitifulness. Now the thing for _you_ to do is to droop your tails and
go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching’s going to be done it
will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they’ll
bring their masks, and fetch a _man_ along. Now _leave_—and take your
half-a-man with you”—tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking
it when he says this.
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’ stayed if I wanted to, but I
didn’t want to.
I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the watchman
went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold
piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because
there ain’t no telling how soon you are going to need it, away from
home and amongst strangers that way. You can’t be too careful. I ain’t
opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain’t no other way,
but there ain’t no use in _wasting_ it on them.
It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever was
when they all come riding in, two and two, and gentleman and lady,
side by side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts, and no
shoes nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and
comfortable—there must ’a’ been twenty of them—and every lady with
a lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like
a gang of real sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost
millions of dollars, and just littered with diamonds. It was a powerful
fine sight; I never see anything so lovely. And then one by one they
got up and stood, and went a-weaving around the ring so gentle and
wavy and graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy and straight,
with their heads bobbing and skimming along, away up there under the
tent-roof, and every lady’s rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silky
around her hips, and she looking like the most loveliest parasol.
And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first
one foot out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more
and more, and the ringmaster going round and round the center pole,
cracking his whip and shouting “Hi!—hi!” and the clown cracking jokes
behind him; and by and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady
put her knuckles on her hips and every gentleman folded his arms, and
then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves! And so one after
the other they all skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow
I ever see, and then scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands
and went just about wild.
Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing things;
and all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people.
The ringmaster couldn’t ever say a word to him but he was back at him
quick as a wink with the funniest things a body ever said; and how
he ever _could_ think of so many of them, and so sudden and so pat,
was what I couldn’t no way understand. Why, I couldn’t ’a’ thought
of them in a year. And by and by a drunken man tried to get into the
ring—said he wanted to ride; said he could ride as well as anybody
that ever was. They argued and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn’t
listen, and the whole show come to a standstill. Then the people begun
to holler at him and make fun of him, and that made him mad, and he
begun to rip and tear; so that stirred up the people, and a lot of
men begun to pile down off of the benches and swarm toward the ring,
saying, “Knock him down! throw him out!” and one or two women begun to
scream. So, then, the ringmaster he made a little speech, and said he
hoped there wouldn’t be no disturbance, and if the man would promise
he wouldn’t make no more trouble he would let him ride if he thought
he could stay on the horse. So everybody laughed and said all right,
and the man got on. The minute he was on, the horse begun to rip and
tear and jump and cavort around, with two circus men hanging on to his
bridle trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to his neck,
and his heels flying in the air every jump, and the whole crowd of
people standing up shouting and laughing till tears rolled down. And at
last, sure enough, all the circus men could do, the horse broke loose,
and away he went like the very nation, round and round the ring, with
that sot laying down on him and hanging to his neck, with first one
leg hanging most to the ground on one side, and then t’other one on
t’other side, and the people just crazy. It warn’t funny to me, though;
I was all of a tremble to see his danger. But pretty soon he struggled
up astraddle and grabbed the bridle, a-reeling this way and that; and
the next minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle and stood! and
the horse a-going like a house afire, too. He just stood up there,
a-sailing around as easy and comfortable as if he warn’t ever drunk in
his life—and then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling them. He
shed them so thick they kind of clogged up the air, and altogether he
shed seventeen suits. And, then, there he was, slim and handsome, and
dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into that
horse with his whip and made him fairly hum—and finally skipped off,
and made his bow and danced off to the dressing-room, and everybody
just a-howling with pleasure and astonishment.
Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled, and he _was_ the
sickest ringmaster you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of his
own men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never
let on to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but
I wouldn’t ’a’ been in that ringmaster’s place, not for a thousand
dollars. I don’t know; there may be bullier circuses than what that one
was, but I never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty good enough
for _me_; and wherever I run across it, it can have all of _my_ custom
every time.
Well, that night we had _our_ show; but there warn’t only about twelve
people there—just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the
time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before
the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these
Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted
was low comedy—and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he
reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got
some big sheets of wrapping-paper and some black paint, and drawed off
some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said:
AT THE COURT HOUSE!
FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
_The World-Renowned Tragedians_
DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
AND
EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
_Of the London and Continental
Theatres_,
In their Thrilling Tragedy of
THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD,
OR
THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! !
_Admission 50 cents._
Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said:
LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED
“There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I don’t know
Arkansaw!”