LICKSKILLET HAS A SENSATION.
Though this is a true and faithful chronicle of the adventures of our
friend Benjamin Cleveland, so closely have his affairs now become
linked with the destiny of another that we must temporarily leave him,
and turn to the hamlet of Lickskillet.
When the Evangelist arrived with his horse late the previous afternoon,
he found the village to consist of a single straggling street, lined
by country stores, in front of which were hitched a few farm teams and
country wagons. The Evangelist was stared at after the usual bucolic
fashion. His immediate business being the disposal of his equine
property, he rode up to a long, low, weather-stained building, bearing
the legend, "Livery, board and sale stable," in skeleton characters on
a board that decorated a pole. Half a dozen loungers greeted his advent
with a stolid stare.
Horton rode into the building and dismounting, propounded the question:
"Does anybody know of anybody that wants to buy a horse?"
Another stare, more dense in its stupidity and stolidity, greeted the
query.
"If they do, here's a solid good work horse I'll sell cheap," continued
he.
At this information a man, who had been engaging his time and attention
in company with an intelligent jack knife, upon a shingle, arose, and
allowing his hand and knife to pare away at the wood after their own
inclination, walked slowly around the horse and observed him with a
critical eye.
"Whar'd ye get him?" he asked.
"Bought him of a man up the road," replied Horton. "I got him at a
bargain, and I'll sell him at one."
"How much?" asked the man.
"I'll sell him for fifty dollars, cash," said the Evangelist.
The man stared at Horton a full minute without speaking, slowly running
his eye from the Evangelist's head to his feet and up again several
times. Then, still whittling, he walked to the barn door, where he
turned and gave a sly wink to one of the stolid men present; which
pantomimic piece of activity seemed to create some little sensation
among the human stolidity present.
One after another they arose, and slowly walking around the horse, eyed
him from head to tail, then giving Horton a final examination, passed
quietly out of the door, until the latter found himself left alone with
his horse.
This situation lasted but a few moments, for the man who first went out
shortly returned, still whittling, and commenced interrogating him.
"Whar did ye kum frum? Whar air ye goin'? How long ye hed the animyle?
Wot ye want to sell it fur? How'd he kum to be rid so hard?" and
numerous other questions were asked and duly answered. Having finished
his category, the stable-keeper--for it was the owner and proprietor of
the "livery"--remarked:
"Looks mighty 'spicious!"
"What looks suspicious?" asked Horton.
"Oh, nothing," replied the man with a tone and look indicating that his
yahoo mind was one immense volume of doubt.
The Evangelist was puzzled. He could see nothing strange about the
matter, and so expressed himself. If a man wanted a good horse cheap,
there was the animal--and if he did not, he could let it alone. A
liberty of action that would no doubt have powerfully impressed the
"'spicious" man were it not that the attention of both was suddenly
diverted into other channels. There were heard the murmur of many
voices, and the shuffling of many feet on the street, and half a
hundred men, picked up from farmers' wagons, trading stores and
adjacent fields, rushed into the stable and surrounded Horton and
the horse. While he was staring in astonishment at this influx of
purchasers, a lank, sandy-complexioned man stepped from the crowd and
taking one look at the horse, exclaimed:
"That's him! Whoa, Bob!"
The animal immediately recognizing the voice and name, turned his head
and greeted the sandy man with a neigh.
At this Horton stepped back in astonishment, but the next instant was
felled to the stable floor by a blow on the head, and three men pounced
upon him, crying out:
"No you don't, you scoundrel! You're too late! We've got ye and'll keep
ye! You bet!"
"Gentlemen," cried the Evangelist so soon as he could recover breath,
"What in the name of Heaven does all this mean?"
"Mean!" exclaimed half a dozen voices, while a score of angry eyes
glared vengefully upon him; "Mean? Why it means ye're gone up, ye whelp
of a hoss thief!"
"I am no thief!" he indignantly replied. "That horse is my property,
and I came by him honestly."
"Ye lie!" shouted he of the sandy complexion, who was now holding
'Bob.' "Ye lie! Ye stole that hoss outer my cow lot night afore last,
I kem from Spoonerville down the town-line rud or I'd hev cot ye on
the way, an' ef I hed the county ud hev been saved the expense of yer
trial!" And giving utterance to this dark shadowing of a vengeful
purpose the sandy man glared upon Horton.
"Gentlemen it is _false_! I--" commenced the Evangelist, but the sandy
man, unable to reach him with his hands and hold his horse at the same
time, gave the poor captive a vicious kick in the stomach, exclaiming:
"Ye mean to tell me _I lie_, ye dirty, hoss thief!"
One would have thought that in that crowd some voice had been found
to call "shame" at the cowardly act of striking a man held from self
defence by the hands of others. But the agricultural sense of honor
is somewhat like the agricultural habits of life--somewhat narrowed by
limited associations. Had the good feelings of the crowd been appealed
to they would all have rushed after a leader like a flock of sheep,
probably. It being the opposite, Horton was kicked and cuffed to their
heart's content, as though each had a private grievance to attend to.
They then stood him on his feet and demanded that he give an account of
himself.
Thoroughly frightened and suffering much pain from the harsh treatment
he had received, and fearing a repetition of it that seemed to indicate
itself in the lowering looks surrounding him, the poor unfortunate
Evangelist humbled his tone, and gave a truthful statement of himself
and the manner in which he had obtained possession of the horse.
Briefly he stated who he was and did not try to palliate the crime of
being a tramp. Then he related how, while in company with Ben, he had
traded a watch for the horse with a farmer's boy who lived in Bonfield,
and had brought the animal in town to sell it; leaving his comrade back
on the road, to come after him on the morrow.
"A likely story!"
"Did he think to stuff that down their throats?"
"A man without money having watches to give for horses! Too thin!"
"Where was his partner?"
"Selling another horse somewhere, probably!"
"He said he was a tramp, and what was a tramp but a hoss thief!"
And they laughed at his statements in derision. The tide was netting
strong against the Evangelist. It became a perfect torrent when the
sandy complexioned man called upon another sandy-complexioned man,
with sandy hair and sandy beard and sandy clothes, and small sandy
blue eyes, and hard sandy hands (honest, no doubt, but very ragged at
the finger ends and very dirt-grimed) and a sandy voice, and sandy
appearance generally from his heel to his occiput, to come take a good
"squar" look at Horton, and see if he was not the man he had seen
loafing around in the vicinity of Spoonerville? And this sandiest of
all sandy men, feeling himself elevated to a consequential position,
felt it incumbent upon his new notoriety to aver that Horton was the
man; compromising with some slight qualms of conscience with the
codicil that "leastways he _luks_ mighty sight like him." That settled
it. And all his wild protestations could not change the decision of the
crowd that immediately transformed the luckless Evangelist from a tramp
into a horse thief.
By this time a man who was duly authorized to act as town marshal
appeared on the scene, and with a deal of importance seized Horton's
person in the majestic name of the Law! and conveyed his seizure,
followed by the crowd, to the village lockup. A small plank box, twelve
feet by twelve feet in all of its dimensions, without a window, and
principally used for the occasional cooling off of some obstreperous
bucolics who on coming to town became surcharged with the staff of life
in a liquid form. Into this hole, standing solitary and alone in the
centre of the village common, he was thrown, and the door closed with
a bang. The rusty key grated in the rusty lock, the rusty crowd outside
gave some rusty whoops and yells, and then went off pawing the air as
men who had done great deeds. It was as though, in some far off Hindoo
village, the tiger that had been fattening his ribs upon the natives
had at last been caught and caged. Everybody, save that poor battered
and bruised form on the floor of the village lockup, was triumphant!
And now of what use is a triumph unless we celebrate it? And what is
the great American method of celebrating triumphs? From the nabob who
in gilded apartments gracefully nods his head to his brother nabob,
as he remarks: "I congratulate you" before sending the soul of sunny
France gurgling down his pink throat, down to the ragged effigy who
leans against the sour-smelling fetid bar and cracks his glass against
the glass of his brother effigy, with: "Here's luck, d--n your soul!"
as he pitches the scorching tanglefoot down his red hot gullet, we
Americans have our own method of celebrating triumphs. We get drunk.
So these Lickskilletonians celebrated in the hour of their triumph.
Stiff, sore, bruised, battered and bleeding, the Evangelist struggled
to his feet and staggering to a narrow, iron-barred slit in the side
of the village lockup, looked out. The sun was creeping to bed among
the purple hills of the horizon. Already it had nearly disappeared;
all save a narrow disk, that with a red, autumnal glow was bidding the
world good-night. Long and earnestly he gazed upon the glowing west,
painted with red and purple and russet, and trimmed with silver and
gold. With its woods and meadows and vales, painted by God's own hand.
With its fading lights, its deepening shadows, its soft grey of coming
twilight. Long he gazed, until the shadows had swallowed up the light,
and the grey of twilight was lost in the dusk of night. Then he flung
himself on the floor, and sleep came with a soft and soothing balm to
anoint his wounds; his eyes filled with that last glow--_his last_--of
his Creator's sunlight.