Until Simon entered his seventeenth year he lived with his father, an
old "hard-shell" Baptist preacher, who, though very pious and remarkably
austere, was very avaricious. The old man reared his boy--or endeavored
to do so--according to the strictest requisitions of the moral law. But
he lived, at the time to which we refer, in Middle Georgia, which was
then newly settled; and Simon, whose wits were always too sharp for his
father's, contrived to contract all the coarse vices incident to such a
region. He stole his mother's roosters to fight them at Bob Smith's
grocery, and his father's plow-horses to enter them in "quarter" matches
at the same place. He pitched dollars with Bob Smith himself, and could
"beat him into doll rags" whenever it came to a measurement. To crown
his accomplishments, Simon was tip-top at the game of "old sledge,"
which was the fashionable game of that era, and was early initiated in
the mysteries of "stocking the papers." The vicious habits of Simon
were, of course, a sore trouble to his father, Elder Jedediah. He
reasoned, he counseled, he remonstrated, and he lashed; but Simon was an
incorrigible, irreclaimable devil. One day the simple-minded old man
returned rather unexpectedly to the field, where he had left Simon and
Ben and a negro boy named Bill at work. Ben was still following his
plow, but Simon and Bill were in a fence corner, very earnestly engaged
at "seven up." Of course the game was instantly suspended as soon as
they spied the old man, sixty or seventy yards off, striding towards
them.
It was evidently a "gone case" with Simon and Bill; but our hero
determined to make the best of it. Putting the cards into one pocket, he
coolly picked up the small coins which constituted the stake, and fobbed
them in the other, remarking, "Well, Bill, this game's blocked; we'd as
well quit."
"But, Mass Simon," remarked the boy, "half dat money's mine. Ain't you
gwine to lemme hab 'em?"
"Oh, never mind the money, Bill; the old man's going to take the bark
off both of us; and besides, with the hand I helt when we quit, I should
'a' beat you and won it all, any way."
"Well, but Mass Simon, we nebber finish de game, and de rule--"
"Go to the devil with your rule!" said the impatient Simon. "Don't you
see daddy's right down upon us, with an armful of hickories? I tell you,
I helt nothin' but trumps, and could 'a' beat the horns off a
billy-goat. Don't that satisfy you? Somehow or another, you're d--d hard
to please!" About this time a thought struck Simon, and in a low
tone--for by this time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand--he
continued, "But may be daddy don't know, _right down sure_, what we've
been doin'. Let's try him with a lie--'twon't hurt, noway: let's tell
him we've been playin' mumble-peg."
Bill was perforce compelled to submit to this inequitable adjustment of
his claim to a share of the stakes; and of course agreed to swear to
the game of mumble-peg. All this was settled, and a pig driven into the
ground, slyly and hurriedly, between Simon's legs as he sat on the
ground, just as the old man reached the spot. He carried under his left
arm several neatly-trimmed sprouts of formidable length, while in his
left hand he held one which he was intently engaged in divesting of its
superfluous twigs.
"Soho, youngsters!--_you_ in the fence corner, and the _crap_ in the
grass. What saith the Scriptur', Simon? 'Go to the ant, thou sluggard,'
and so forth and so on. What in the round creation of the yearth have
you and that nigger been a-doin'?"
Bill shook with fear, but Simon was cool as a cucumber, and answered his
father to the effect that they had been wasting a little time in the
game of mumble-peg.
"Mumble-peg! mumble-peg!" repeated old Mr. Suggs. "What's that?"
Simon explained the process of _rooting_ for the peg: how the operator
got upon his knees, keeping his arms stiff by his sides, leaned forward,
and extracted the peg with his teeth.
"So you git _upon your knees_, do you, to pull up that nasty little
stick! You'd better git upon 'em to ask mercy for your sinful souls and
for a dyin' world. But let's see one o' you git the peg up now."
The first impulse of our hero was to volunteer to gratify the curiosity
of his worthy sire, but a glance at the old man's countenance changed
his "notion," and he remarked that "Bill was a long ways the best hand."
Bill, who did not deem Simon's modesty an omen very favorable to
himself, was inclined to reciprocate, compliments with his young
master; but a gesture of impatience from the old man set him instantly
upon his knees, and, bending forward, he essayed to lay hold with his
teeth of the peg, which Simon, just at that moment, very wickedly pushed
a half inch further down. Just as the breeches and hide of the boy were
stretched to the uttermost, old Mr. Suggs brought down his longest
hickory, with both hands, upon the precise spot where the tension was
greatest. With a loud yell, Bill plunged forward, upsetting Simon, and
rolled in the grass, rubbing the castigated part with fearful energy.
Simon, though overthrown, was unhurt; and he was mentally complimenting
himself upon the sagacity which had prevented his illustrating the game
of mumble-peg for the paternal amusement, when his attention was
arrested by the old man's stooping to pick up something--what is it?--a
card upon which Simon had been sitting, and which, therefore, had not
gone with the rest of the pack into his pocket. The simple Mr. Suggs had
only a vague idea of the pasteboard abomination called _cards_; and
though he decidedly inclined to the opinion that this was one, he was by
no means certain of the fact. Had Simon known this he would certainly
have escaped; but he did not. His father, assuming the look of extreme
sapiency, which is always worn by the interrogator who does not desire
or expect to increase his knowledge by his questions, asked:
"What's this, Simon?"
"The Jack-a-dimunts," promptly responded Simon, who gave up all as lost
after this _faux pas_.
"What was it doin' down thar, Simon, my sonny?" continued Mr. Suggs, in
an ironically affectionate tone of voice.
"I had it under my leg, thar to make it on Bill, the first time it come
trumps," was the ready reply.
"What's trumps?" asked Mr. Suggs, with a view of arriving at the import
of the word.
"Nothin' ain't trumps now," said Simon, who misapprehended his father's
meaning, "but _clubs_ was, when you come along and busted up the game."
A part of this answer was Greek to the Reverend Mr. Suggs, but a portion
of it was full of meaning. They had, then, most unquestionably, been
"throwing" cards, the scoundrels! the "oudacious" little hellions!
"To the 'mulberry' with both on ye, in a hurry," said the old man
sternly. But the lads were not disposed to be in a "hurry," for the
"mulberry" was the scene of all formal punishment administered during
work hours in the field. Simon followed his father, however, but made,
as he went along, all manner of "faces" at the old man's back;
gesticulated as if he were going to strike him between the shoulders
with his fists, and kicking at him so as almost to touch his coat tail
with his shoe. In this style they walked on to the mulberry-tree, in
whose shade Simon's brother Ben was resting.
It must not be supposed that, during the walk to the place of
punishment, Simon's mind was either inactive, or engaged in suggesting
the grimaces and contortions wherewith he was pantomimically expressing
his irreverent sentiments toward his father. Far from it. The movements
of his limbs and features were the mere workings of habit--the
self-grinding of the corporeal machine--for which his reasoning half was
only remotely responsible. For while Simon's person was thus, on its own
account "making game" of old Jed'diah, his wits, in view of the
anticipated flogging, were dashing, springing, bounding, darting about,
in hot chase of some expedient suitable to the necessities of the case;
much after the manner in which puss--when Betty, armed with the broom,
and hotly seeking vengeance for pantry robbed or bed defiled, has closed
upon her the garret doors and windows--attempts all sorts of impossible
exits, to come down at last in the corner, with panting side and glaring
eye, exhausted and defenseless. Our unfortunate hero could devise
nothing by which he could reasonably expect to escape the heavy blows of
his father. Having arrived at this conclusion and the "mulberry" about
the same time, he stood with a dogged look, awaiting the issue.
The old man Suggs made no remark to any one while he was sizing up
Bill,--a process which, though by no means novel to Simon, seemed to
excite in him a sort of painful interest. He watched it closely, as if
endeavoring to learn the precise fashion of his father's knot; and when
at last Bill was swung up a-tiptoe to a limb, and the whipping
commenced, Simon's eye followed every movement of his father's arm; and
as each blow descended upon the bare shoulders of his sable friend, his
own body writhed and "wriggled" in involuntary sympathy.
"It's the devil, it is," said Simon to himself, "to take such a
wallopin' as that. Why, the old man looks like he wants to git to the
holler, if he could,--rot his old picter! It's wuth, at the least,
fifty cents--je-e-miny, how that hurt!--yes, it's wuth three-quarters of
a dollar to take that 'ere lickin'! Wonder if I'm 'predestinated,' as
old Jed'diah says, to git the feller to it? Lord, how daddy blows! I do
wish to God he'd bust wide open, the durned old deer-face! If 'twa'n't
for Ben helpin' him, I b'lieve I'd give the old dog a tussel when it
comes to my turn. It couldn't make the thing no wuss, if it didn't make
it no better. 'Drot it! what do boys have daddies for anyhow? 'Tain't
for nuthin' but jist to beat 'em and work 'em. There's some use in
mammies. I kin poke my finger right in the old 'oman's eye, and keep it
thar; and if I say it ain't thar, she'll say so, too. I wish she was
here to hold daddy off. If 'twa'n't so fur I'd holler for her, anyhow.
How she would cling to the old fellow's coat-tail!"
Mr. Jedediah Suggs let down Bill and untied him. Approaching Simon,
whose coat was off, "Come, Simon, son," said he, "cross them hands; I'm
gwine to correct you."
"It ain't no use, daddy," said Simon.
"Why so, Simon?"
"Jist bekase it ain't. I'm gwine to play cards as long as I live. When I
go off to myself, I'm gwine to make my livin' by it. So what's the use
of beatin' me about it?"
Old Mr. Suggs groaned, as he was wont to do in the pulpit, at this
display of Simon's viciousness.
"Simon," said he, "you're a poor ignunt creetur. You don't know nothin',
and you've never been nowhars. If I was to turn you off, you'd starve in
a week."
"I wish you'd try me," said Simon, "and jist see. I'd win more money in
a week than you can make in a year. There ain't nobody round here kin
make seed corn off o' me at cards. I'm rale smart," he added with great
emphasis.
"Simon! Simon! you poor unlettered fool. Don't you know that all
card-players and chicken-fighters and horse-racers go to hell? You
crack-brained creetur, you! And don't you know that them that plays
cards always loses their money, and--"
"Who wins it all, then, daddy?" asked Simon.
"Shet your mouth, you imperdent, slack-jawed dog! Your daddy's a-tryin'
to give you some good advice, and you a-pickin' up his words that way. I
knowed a young man once, when I lived in Ogletharp, as went down to
Augusty and sold a hundred dollars' worth of cotton for his daddy, and
some o' them gambollers got him to drinkin', and the _very first_ night
he was with 'em they got every cent of his money."
"They couldn't get my money in a _week_," said Simon. "Anybody can git
these here green feller's money; them's the sort I'm a-gwine to watch
for myself. Here's what kin fix the papers jist about as nice as
anybody."
"Well, it's no use to argify about the matter," said old Jed-diah. "What
saith the Scriptur'? 'He that begetteth a fool, doeth it to his sorrow.'
Hence, Simon, you're a poor, misubble fool,--so cross your hands!"
"You'd jist as well not, daddy; I tell you I'm gwine to follow playin'
cards for a livin', and what's the use o' bangin' a feller about it? I'm
as smart as any of 'em, and Bob Smith says them Augusty fellers can't
make rent off o' me."
The Reverend Mr. Suggs had once in his life gone to Augusta; an extent
of travel which in those days was a little unusual. His consideration
among his neighbors was considerably increased by the circumstance, as
he had all the benefit of the popular inference that no man could visit
the city of Augusta without acquiring a vast superiority over all his
untraveled neighbors, in every department of human knowledge. Mr. Suggs,
then, very naturally, felt ineffably indignant that an individual who
had never seen any collection of human habitations larger than a
log-house village--an individual, in short, no other or better than Bob
Smith--should venture to express an opinion concerning the manners,
customs, or anything else appertaining to, or in any wise connected
with, the _Ultima Thule_ of backwoods Georgians. There were two
propositions which witnessed their own truth to the mind of Mr. Suggs:
the one was that a man who had never been at Augusta could not know
anything about that city, or any place, or anything else; the other,
that one who _had_ been there must, of necessity, be not only well
informed as to all things connected with the city itself, but perfectly
_au fait_ upon all subjects whatsoever. It was therefore in a tone of
mingled indignation and contempt that he replied to the last remark of
Simon.
"_Bob Smith_ says, does he? And who's _Bob Smith_? Much does _Bob Smith_
know about Augusty! He's _been thar_, I reckon! Slipped off yerly some
mornin', when nobody warn't noticin', and got back afore night! It's
_only_ a hundred and fifty mile. Oh, yes, _Bob Smith_ knows _all_ about
it! _I_ don't know nothin' about it! _I_ ain't never been to
Augusty--_I_ couldn't find the road thar, I reckon--ha, ha!
_Bob_--_Sm-ith_! If he was only to see one of them fine gentlemen in
Augusty, with his fine broadcloth, and bell-crown hat, and shoe-boots
a-shinin' like silver, he'd take to the woods and kill himself
a-runnin'. Bob Smith! That's whar all your devilment comes from, Simon."
"Bob Smith's as good as anybody else, I judge; and a heap smarter than
some. He showed me how to cut Jack," continued Simon, "and that's more
nor some people can do, if they _have_ been to Augusty."
"If Bob Smith kin do it," said the old man, "I kin, too. I don't know it
by that name; but if it's book knowledge or plain sense, and Bob kin do
it, it's reasonable to s'pose that old Jed'diah Suggs won't be bothered
_bad_. Is it any ways similyar to the rule of three, Simon?"
"Pretty similyar, daddy, but not adzactly," said Simon, drawing a pack
from his pocket to explain. "Now, daddy," he proceeded, "you see these
here four cards is what we call the Jacks. Well, now, the idee is, if
you'll take the pack and mix 'em all up together, I'll take off a passel
from the top, and the bottom one of them I take off will be one of the
Jacks."
"Me to mix 'em fust?" said old Jed'diah.
"Yes."
"And you not to see but the back of the top one, when you go to 'cut,'
as you call it?"
"Jist so, daddy."
"And the backs all jist' as like as kin be?" said the senior Suggs,
examining the cards.
"More alike nor cow-peas," said Simon.
"It can't be done, Simon," observed the old man, with great solemnity.
"Bob Smith kin do it, and so kin I."
"It's agin nater, Simon; thar ain't a man in Augusty, nor on top of the
yearth, that kin do it!"
"Daddy," said our hero, "ef you'll bet me--"
"What!" thundered old Mr. Suggs. "_Bet_, did you says?" and he came down
with a _scorer_ across Simon's shoulders. "Me, Jed-diah Suggs, that's
been in the Lord's sarvice these twenty years,--_me_ bet, you nasty,
sassy, triflin', ugly--"
"I didn't go to say _that_, daddy; that warn't what I meant adzactly. I
went to say that ef you'd let me off from this her maulin' you owe me,
and _give me_ 'Bunch,' if I cut Jack, I'd _give you_ all this here
silver, ef I didn't,--that's all. To be sure, I allers knowed _you_
wouldn't _bet_."
Old Mr. Suggs ascertained the exact amount of the silver which his son
handed him, in an old leathern pouch, for inspection. He also, mentally,
compared that sum with an imaginary one, the supposed value of a certain
Indian pony, called "Bunch," which he had bought for his "old woman's"
Sunday riding, and which had sent the old lady into a fence corner the
first and only time she ever mounted him. As he weighed the pouch of
silver in his hand, Mr. Suggs also endeavored to analyze the character
of the transaction proposed by Simon. "It sartinly _can't_ be nothin'
but _givin_', no way it kin be twisted," he murmured to himself. "I
_know_ he can't do it, so there's no resk. What makes bettin'? The resk.
It's a one-sided business, and I'll jist let him give me all his money,
and that'll put all his wild sportin' notions out of his head."
"Will you stand it, daddy?" asked Simon, by way of waking the old man
up. "You mought as well, for the whippin' won't do you no good; and as
for Bunch, nobody about the plantation won't ride him but me."
"Simon," replied the old man, "I agree to it. Your old daddy is in a
close place about payin' for his land; and this here money--it's jist
eleven dollars, lacking of twenty-five cents--will help out mightily.
But mind, Simon, ef anything's said about this hereafter, remember, you
_give_ me the money."
"Very well, daddy; and ef the thing works up instid o' down, I s'pose
we'll say you give _me_ Bunch, eh?"
"You won't never be troubled to tell how you come by Bunch; the thing's
agin nater, and can't be done. What old Jed'diah Suggs knows, he knows
as good as anybody. Give me them fix-ments, Simon."
Our hero handed the cards to his father, who, dropping the plow-line
with which he had intended to tie Simon's hands, turned his back to that
individual, in order to prevent his witnessing the operation of
_mixing_. He then sat down, and very leisurely commenced shuffling the
cards, making, however, an exceedingly awkward job of it. Restive
_kings_ and _queens_ jumped from his hands, or obstinately refused to
slide into the company of the rest of the pack. Occasionally a sprightly
_knave_ would insist on _facing_ his neighbor; or, pressing his edge
against another's, half double himself up, and then skip away. But Elder
Jed'diah perseveringly continued his attempts to subdue the refractory,
while heavy drops burst from his forehead, and ran down his cheeks. All
of a sudden an idea, quick and penetrating as a rifle-ball, seemed to
have entered the cranium of the old man. He chuckled audibly. The devil
had suggested to Mr. Suggs an _impromptu_ "stock," which would place the
chances of Simon, already sufficiently slim in the old man's opinion,
without the range of possibility. Mr. Suggs forthwith proceeded to cut
all the _picter ones_, so as to be certain to include the _Jacks_, and
place them at the bottom, with the evident intention of keeping Simon's
fingers above these when he should cut. Our hero, who was quietly
looking over his father's shoulders all the time, did not seem alarmed
by this disposition of the cards; on the contrary, he smiled, as if he
felt perfectly confident of success, in spite of it.
"Now, daddy," said Simon, when his father had announced himself ready,
"narry one of us ain't got to look at the cards, while I'm a-cuttin'; if
we do, it'll spile the conjuration."
"Very well."
"And another thing: you've got to look me right dead in the eye, daddy;
will you?"
"To be sure,--to be sure," said Mr. Suggs; "fire away."
Simon walked up close to his father, and placed his hand on the pack.
Old Mr. Suggs looked in Simon's eye, and Simon returned the look for
about three seconds, during which a close observer might have detected a
suspicious working of the wrist of the hand on the cards, but the elder
Suggs did not remark it.
"Wake snakes! day's a-breakin'! Rise, Jack!" said Simon, cutting half a
dozen cards from the top of the pack, and presenting the face of the
bottom one for the inspection of his father.
It was the Jack of hearts!
Old Mr. Suggs staggered back several steps, with uplifted eyes and
hands!
"Marciful master!" he exclaimed, "ef the boy hain't! Well, how in the
round creation of the--! Ben, did you ever? To be sure and sartain,
Satan has power on this yearth!" and Mr. Suggs groaned in very
bitterness.
"You never seed nothin' like that in _Augusty_, did ye, daddy?" asked
Simon, with a malicious wink at Ben.
"Simon, how _did_ you do it?" queried the old man, without noticing his
son's question.
"Do it, daddy? Do it? 'Tain't nothin'. I done it jist as easy
as--shootin'."
Whether this explanation was entirely, or in any degree, satisfactory to
the perplexed mind of Elder Jed'diah Suggs can not, after the lapse of
the time which has intervened, be sufficiently ascertained. It is
certain, however, that he pressed the investigation no farther, but
merely requested his son Benjamin to witness the fact that, in
consideration of his love and affection for his son Simon, and in order
to furnish the donee with the means of leaving that portion of the State
of Georgia, he bestowed upon him the impracticable pony, Bunch.
"Jist so, daddy; jist so; I'll witness that. But it 'minds me mightily
of the way mammy _give_ old Trailler the side of bacon last week. She
a-sweepin' up the h'a'th; the meat on the table; old Trailler jumps up,
gethers the bacon, and darts! Mammy arter him with the broom-stick as
fur as the door, but seein' the dog has got the start, she shakes the
stick at him, and hollers, 'You sassy, aigsukkin', roguish, gnatty,
flop-eared varmint! take it along! take it along! I only wish 'twas full
of a'snic, and ox-vomit, and blue vitrul, so as 'twould cut your interls
into chitlins!' That's about the way you give Bunch to Simon."
"Oh, shuh, Ben," remarked Simon, "I wouldn't run on that way. Daddy
couldn't help it; it was _predestinated_: 'Whom he hath, he will,' you
know," and the rascal pulled down the under lid of his left eye at his
brother. Then addressing his father, he asked, "War'n't it, daddy?"
"To be sure--to be sure--all fixed aforehand," was old Mr. Suggs' reply.
"Didn't I tell you so, Ben?" said Simon. "_I_ knowed it was all fixed
aforehand," and he laughed until he was purple in the face.
"What's in ye? What are ye laughin' about?" asked the old man wrothily.
"Oh, it's so funny that it could all 'a' been _fixed aforehand_!" said
Simon, and laughed louder than before. The obtusity of the Reverend Mr.
Suggs, however, prevented his making any discoveries. He fell into a
brown study, and no further allusion was made to the matter.
It was evident to our hero that his father intended he should remain but
one more night beneath the paternal roof. What mattered it to Simon?
He went home at night; curried and fed Bunch; whispered confidentially
in his ear that he was the "fastest piece of hossflesh, accordin' to
size, that ever shaded the yearth;" and then busied himself in preparing
for an early start on the morrow.
Old Mr. Suggs' big red rooster had hardly ceased crowing in announcement
of the coming dawn, when Simon mounted the intractable Bunch. Both were
in high spirits: our hero at the idea of unrestrained license in future;
and Bunch from a mesmerical transmission to himself of a portion of his
master's deviltry. Simon raised himself in the stirrups, yelled a
tolerably fair imitation of the Creek war-whoop, and shouted:
"I'm off, old stud! Remember the Jack-a-hearts!"
Bunch shook his little head, tucked down his tail, ran sideways, as if
going to fall, and then suddenly reared, squealed, and struck off at a
brisk gallop.