“I have been whetting the old hellion’s appetite,” he said, and I knew
by the expression on his face that he was referring to Judge Kingsley.
“I have had half a dozen fellows from the back districts drive one old
skate after another into his dooryard, and inside of an hour he’ll have
a chance to inspect a few more skeletons and bone-piles. By nightfall
he’ll be hungry for a peek at something which doesn’t look as if it
would have to be pushed on casters by iron reins. Oh, he’s hungry! He’ll
swallow this one.”
More than ever was I coming to understand into what complicated and
precious gears I had flung my trig--and what the consequences to me were
likely to be.
“Now come out into the harness-room,” commanded my uncle. “I want you to
have a look at the Queen of Sheby.”
I had never seen “Squealing John” Runnels, but that this was he I had
no doubt. He sat on an upturned grain-bucket with his skirts pulled
up about him, wore a woman’s broad hat of dingy black felt, and a veil
partly draped his face; he was smoking a corn-cob pipe.
“I’ll be cussed if I see any good sense in being titrivated out like
this the whole afternoon,” he complained, in tones as strident as a
scolding woman’s. “It’s getting on to my nerves.”
“You’ve got to get used to ’em, you old fool,” barked my uncle, “I
don’t propose to have you forgetting yourself. It would be just like
you, right in the middle of that dicker-talk, to prill up your dress and
reach into your pants pocket for a plug of tobacco. Now get up and let
me see you practise walking; and forget that you’re wearing pants.”
Runnels went grunting and limping around the room, whining like a teased
quill-pig. His feet were pinched into women’s shoes. My uncle seemed to
see much humor in this exhibition, but I couldn’t find any. It looked to
me only like a grotesque sham, and pitiful, too, for I knew it was not
going to succeed. “Squealing John” appeared to be of the same opinion.
He kept complaining that he would not be able to fool a sharp man like
the judge, and asked, anxiously, what the law penalty was when a man
dressed up like a woman.
“I’m a good mind to let ye foreclose and be shet of the thing,” he said,
facing my uncle and cracking together his bony little fists. “All that
will come of this trick is that I’ll be took up and sent to jail. I’m
a good mind to go to the judge and tell him how I’m persecuted and
hectored and see if he won’t take up that bill o’ sale.”
“I’ll kill you if you do--I’ll kill anybody else who blows on me and
my plans: Now, Queen of Sheby, remember that this is my champion
performance. I ain’t in any frame of mind to be trifled with.”
He went to the oat-bin and brought in his bottle.
“You need to be teaed up a little so that you’ll have some courage, you
old angleworm.”
After the two of them had swallowed stiff drinks my uncle turned on me.
“I have half a mind to dress you up instead of Runnels, son. Your face
is smooth and you’ve got nerve enough to act the thing out right.”
“I’ll not turn any such trick,” I said. I was angry in a moment. So was
he.
“You will if I tell you to.”
“I won’t; and I’ll say further that I don’t think much of this business,
anyway.”
“Nor I--and that’s two against one,” declared Runnels, the tip of his
thin nose beginning to glow as if new courage had hung out a banner.
Liquor had also given my uncle’s temper an edge of its own; he cuffed
Runnels until that lamenting “lady’s” hat fell off. I jumped up and ran
away into the fields, for I knew that Uncle Deck was merely warming
up on “Squealing John”; as chief mutineer, I was ticketed for the real
bout. I lurked about in the pine grove till after sunset. Then I stole
back into the village with all the stealth of a criminal.