"Wal, you thes let 'im loose thar; I hain't got no time to bauther."
"How'd the boys come out las' night down 't Moscow?"
"Aw, I don' know, un I don' keer, neither. You're a low-lived passel uh
loafers, all uh yeh, big _an'_ leetle."
"W'y, S'manthy! You wuz that sweet las' night."
S'manthy was in a hurry about something, but she showed her irregular
teeth as she disappeared around a corner of the cabin, looking back over
her shoulder to say:
"You'e a purty one, hainch yeh, now?"
Bob's face shone with delight as he went on up the run to look for the
bear's cubs. He succeeded in killing one of them and capturing the other
alive, but he had to take them and his wounded dog home afoot. It seemed
too great a venture to ask S'manthy to lend the horse a second time.
XIX
THE MYTH
Jake's leadership had received a severe blow, and Bob could hardly
believe that he would be able to muster a company again. But Hogan's
vindictiveness and persistence rendered it probable that he would not
rest in his present ridiculous position without making an effort to
redeem himself, even if he had to act with a small party.
"You see," Bob explained to Mason that Saturday night, "Jake's got the
most p'ison kind uv hold-on you ever seed. He's shore to try't over,
fust _or_ last."
"He won't let you fool him again," said Mason.
Bob smiled and picked up a chip, which he began to whittle as an aid to
reflection.
"It would be a juberous thing to try again. But I'm goin' to see Pete
Markham in the mornin'. He'll go apast h-yer to the camp-meetin', fer
he's a Methodis' by marriage,--that is, his wife's a member, un that
makes Pete feel 'z if he wuz a kind-uv a member-in-law. Un Pete knows
mighty well 't when the time comes roun' fer him to run fer office,
it'll be worth while to know pussidin' elders, un circus-riders, un
locus' preachers, un exhausters, un all sorts uv camp-meetin' people.
Pete's jes' as shore to go to camp-meetin' a Sunday mornin' 'z a bear is
to eat honey when he comes acrost a tumble-down bee-tree."
The next morning Bob stood in his shirt-sleeves leaning over Mrs.
Grayson's gate and watching the people that rode to the great Sunday
assembly at the Union camp-ground. Many a staid plow-horse, with
collar-marks on his shoulders, had been diligently curried and brushed
to transform him into a stylish saddle-nag; and many a young man, with
hands calloused by ax-helve and plow-handle, rode to-day in his Sunday
best with a blooming girl by his side, or behind him, and with the gay
heart of a troubadour in his breast. Fresh calico dresses, in which the
dominant tint was either a bright pink or a positive blue, were flaunted
with more pride than a princess feels in her lace and pearls. The woman
who has worked and schemed and skimped to achieve her attire knows the
real pleasure and victory of self-adornment.
The early comers of this Sunday-morning procession are, in the main,
Methodists going to eat bread and water with the brethren in the 9
o'clock love-feast assembly, to sing together the touching songs of
fellowship, and to tell, and to hear told, the stories of personal
trials and sorrows,--to taste the pleasure of being one of a great
company wrought to ecstasy by a common religious passion. But as the
summer sun mounts higher, the road is more and more thronged with a
miscellaneous company. For at 11 o'clock the presiding elder, a great
man of all the country round, will preach one of his favorite sermons,
and all the world--believers and scoffers, doctors and lawyers, and
judges and politicians--will be there to hear him marshal in new forms
the oft-repeated arguments in favor of the divine origin of
Christianity, or the truth of the Arminian system of Wesley, and to
admire the dramatic effect of his well-told anecdotes and the masterly
pathos of his peroration. The people no longer go in couples; there are
six and even ten in a group. And how well they sit their saddles! There
is no "rising to the trot," in the ungraceful fashion of New York and
Boston gentlemen and ladies who have put away the tradition of ancestors
of unrivaled horsemanship, to adopt from England an ugly custom
excusable only in a land of fox-hunting. You might find girls in their
teens in this company who ride with grace and dash over difficult roads,
and who could learn nothing worth their while from a riding-master,--for
to ride perfectly consists chiefly in riding as naturally and
unconsciously as one walks, and that is rarely given to any but those
that are to the saddle born. But besides saddle-horses there are wagons,
for wherever there is a prairie, wheels come early. One or two families
not yet out of a pioneer state of existence go creaking painfully along
in ox-carts; and there are barefoot boys skurrying afoot across fields
to save distance. Everybody feels bound to go. The attraction of a crowd
is proportioned to its greatness, like all other gravitation, and this
one will drain the country dry of people. Scarcely any one stays at
home, as you see. There are little children in the wagons and on the
croups of the saddle-horses, while some supernumerary ones are held in
place on the withers; it is in this way that the babies get their first
lessons in horsemanship. At half-past 10 o'clock the roads are beclouded
with dust that drifts to leeward, turning the green blades of the
corn-field to gray and grizzling the foliage of the trees. All along the
road there is the sound of voices in many keys--but all with a touch of
holiday buoyancy in them. There is that universal interchange of good
feeling which is only found in communities that have no lines of social
cleavage. Everybody is talking to everybody,--about the weather, the
crops, the latest weddings, the most recent deaths, and, above all, the
murder at the camp-meeting. To this topic every party drifts when the
Grayson farm-house comes in sight, if not before. Wild stories are
repeated of Tom's profligacy, and of the causes that led to the feud
between him and Lockwood. As the people come nearer to the house their
voices fall into a lower tone, and they ride by the front gate in almost
entire silence, scanning the house with eager curiosity, as though
trying to penetrate the chagrin of those within. They all nod to Bob; it
is the common and indispensable civility of the country. Bob nods to all
in turn and grunts in a friendly way at those with whom he is
acquainted; but to his best friends he gives a cheerful "Howdy!"
At length the deputy sheriff, Markham, appears, riding alongside of his
wife. She is also escorted on the other side by Magill, the county
clerk, who is saying the pleasantest things he can think of to her. When
Markham arrives at a point nearly opposite the gate, Bob does not nod,
but gives his head a significant jerk backward and to the left,--a
laconic invitation to stop a moment, rendered the more explicit by the
utterance in a low tone of a single word, "Pete!" Markham draws rein and
stops to hear what Bob has to say; and Mason, who has come out on the
porch at that moment, descends to the gate to talk with Magill and Mrs.
Markham, who have also pulled up. The whole five are presently engaged
in conversation in one group, while the horses amuse themselves by
thrusting their dusty noses through the cracks of the fence to nibble at
such blades of grass as are within their reach. The sight of the deputy
sheriff and the county clerk in front of the Grayson house piques yet
more the curiosity of the passers-by, who wonder what those privileged
folks can be talking about.
"You cannot do that," Markham said presently, in reply to a suggestion
that came from Mason. "It's no use talking to the sheriff about moving
Tom to Perrysburg. He's made up his mind not to move him; and if he did
move him, Perrysburg wouldn't be a safe place."
"The shairiff seems to have one eye on Broad Run, ainh Pate?" said
Magill chaffingly.
But Pete Markham neither smiled nor said anything in reply.
"It's a shame something can't be done for Tom," said Mason. "He's got a
right to a fair trial; and we think he's innocent."
"I'll do anything I can," said Markham, whose memory had been haunted by
the appealing face of Mrs. Grayson ever since his domiciliary visit in
search of Tom's pistol.
"I'm not caring much whether he's innocent or not, meself," said Magill.
"May be Lockwood aggravated 'im an' naded puttin' out of the way. All I
say is, Tom faced that crowd the other day like a man, an' he's a born
gintleman in me own istimation; an' I'd niver let a gintleman be hung by
a gang of blackguards, if I could help it."
"Broad Run don't vote for you, Magill," said Markham.
"You wouldn't ixpict it to vote for a man with a clane shirt on, now
would ye?"
"Well," said Bob, "I've been a-thinkin' that ef Pete could make people
b'lieve that they wuz another man wanted fer the shootin', it would sort
uh muddle Jake's plans fer a while, un by that time liker'n not Abe
Lincoln'll find out who the rale murderer is."
"Tell me what's the color of his hair, Pate?" said Magill. "Then I'll
help you foind him."
"Well," drawled Markham, turning a little sidewise in the saddle to rest
himself, and looking perfectly serious and secretive, "I haven't found
out about his hair,--he wore a straw hat, you know. But he was a
youngish fellow, with foxy whiskers under his chin."
"Middlin' small?" suggested Magill, with a faint pucker of drollery
about the corner of his mouth.
"Yes," said Markham, biting the butt of his beech switch meditatively.
"Ruther under the average, I should say, without being small."
"One eye a leetle crossed?" Bob McCord inquired, laughing.
"Right eye a little _out_," said Markham, waving his hand outwardly. "He
had quarreled with Lockwood a good while ago and owed him a grudge.
That's the man."
"Know his name?" put in Magill.
"N-o. That's one thing we're trying to find out. He come from off East
where Lockwood used to live. We've got to try to find if anybody knows
which way he went when he left the camp-meetin' that night, and if
anybody can tell just where he come from."
"Oh! I understand now what you're after," said Magill. "There'll be a
plinty will remimber the man when you come to spake about him. Don't you
say what you want him fer. L'ave all explinations to me. I'm not
responsible, an' I'll let out the saycrits of the shairiff's office."
The passers-by had grown visibly fewer in the last few minutes, and now
the belated ones rode for the most part in a rapid trot or a gallop.
Mrs. Markham began to warn her husband that there would not be a seat
left; so the horses' heads were drawn up, and the trio set forward with
a nod of good-bye to Bob and the schoolmaster.
Markham went to work in all seriousness to get information about the
imaginary young man with red whiskers under his chin and an outward cast
in one eye who had been seen on the ground the night of the murder.
Magill took occasion to remark that if the praycher 'd only 'a' known
what Markham was looking for, and all about the rale facts of the
murder, he mightn't have held Tom up for an awful warnin' to the young
that mornin'. But he supposed it did not matter whether you had the
roight fellow or the wrong one, if you were only praychin'. Some of
those who heard the clerk describe the smallish man with the red goatee
and one eye _out_ a little, thought they could remember having seen a
man answering to this description; but as they could not give any
information tending to secure his arrest, Magill did not think it worth
while communicating their knowledge to Markham. But he quoted their
sayings and surmises to the next persons he spoke to; so that, without
ever straining his conscience to the point of positively asserting the
substantive existence of such a red-whiskered young man with a squint,
he had almost come to believe in him by the time the day was over.
The story reached Broad Run in two or three forms before night, and
served to throw Jake's forlorn hope into confusion. But Magill did not
think best to leave the Broad Run people to the mercy of rumor in so
important a matter. He rode up to the grocery about half-past 5 in the
afternoon, and having hitched his horse to a neighboring dogwood, he
walked in with a good-evening to the group at the door. Going up to the
counter he called up the whole party to drink with him, as became an
Irish gentleman of generous spirit, who was, moreover, a prudent
politician. But Broad Run had never taken a fancy to Magill; there was
a ceremoniousness about his attempts to flatter them which did not
harmonize with their rough-and-ready ways. If he had said, "Come, boys,
liquor up!" they would have thought his manner perfect; but he bowed
blandly to Jake Hogan, and said, "Have something to drink, won't you?"
and so to the rest. They mentally condemned him as "too all-fired fine
in his ways and too much dressed up for a free country." But they did
not neglect the opportunity to drink at somebody else's expense. Jake
Hogan was the more ready to accept such hospitality because he had been
feeling a little depressed since his unlucky trip to Perrysburg. And now
this story which he had heard of another man who might be the murderer
had destroyed what chance he had of mustering a party for Moscow; for
Jake's most devoted partisans did not like to run any risk of hanging
the wrong man.
"Mr. Magill," said Jake, after he had turned his whisky-glass nearly to
the perpendicular in the endeavor to extract the last drop, "what's this
yer story about Tom's not being the ginooine murderer? I don't take no
stock in the yarn, fer my part."
"Well, it ain't best to say anything about it till they get the other
man," said Magill, assuming a close look. "I hear they're purty hot on
his track."
"What kind of a lookin' creetur wuzzy?" asked Bijy Grimes, an oldish man
with an effeminate chin and soft, fair cheeks which contrasted strangely
with his slovenly and unkempt appearance. Bijy had drunk his liquor, and
now sat resting on a keg with his mouth dropped wide open; it was a way
he had of listening.
"Well, I don't know anything only what I hear," said Magill. "I'm not
the shairiff, you know. The story goes that he was a man with a red
goatee--"
"Un what fer sized man?" asked Bijy.
"Rather under-sized, and with one eye a little walled," said Magill.
"I'm darned ef 't ain't the wery man I seed," said Bijy, who never
failed to know something about everything. "He wuz comin' towurds the
camp-meetin' that wery arternoon. Dern!" and he shut his mouth, and got
to his feet in excitement. "I kind-uh suspicioned 'im too," he added.
"Well, I don't know anything," said the clerk; "but if they catch that
stranger and prove it on him,--mind, I say, if they _prove_ it,--count
me for one that will help get the world rid of him by Broad Run law, as
they call it. But I've got to get on home, gintlemen. Good-bye,
gintlemen, and good luck to you all!" So saying, Magill bowed
respectfully.
The rest nodded their heads and said good-bye.
"He's too orful slick," said Jake, when Magill had gone. "Makes me kind
uv sick. Now I like a man ut talks out like a man, you know; without so
much dodrotted saf-sawder, un so on. He ain't none uh my kind, Magill
hain't."
XX
LINCOLN AND BOB
Fast by the "City Hotel" in Moscow stood a beech-tree, as we have said,
and under this tree were two or three benches. This umbrageous spot was
the cool and favorite loafing-place of the villagers, the trysting-place
for making bargains or meeting friends. The ground was beaten by many
feet to the hardness of a floor, and the village boys delighted to play
marbles in this convenient spot. Their cries of "rounses," "taw,"
"dubs," "back licks," and "vent" might often be heard there before and
after school hours. On one of these benches under the beech-tree Bob
McCord had an interview with Tom Grayson's lawyer, according to
appointment, on the day of Lincoln's return from court at Perrysburg.
"What's this about lynching Tom?" Lincoln inquired. "A lot of fellows
rode into Perrysburg looking for him last Thursday night."
"Yes," said Bob, with a hearty chuckle: "I put 'em onto that air track
myself. They wuz comin' down h-yer, but I made 'em think 't Tom wuz
moved to Perrysburg."
"Are they going to try it again?" asked Lincoln.
"Not right off; they're sort-uh discairaged like. A few uv 'em wuz
cocked un primed to come a Sunday night,--sech uv 'em as hadn't gin it
up arter ridin' over to Perrysburg,--but we fooled 'em ag'in. Pete
Markham, the depitty sher'f, jes' sidled over to camp-meetin' un let on
't he wuz a-lookin' fer somebody what knowed sumpin' about a young
feller weth red whiskers un one eye a leetle crossed, like. Magill, the
clerk, went over to camp-meetin' un down onto the Run, un gin it out on
the sly like zif he could n' keep in, that they'd diskivered the tracks
uv a young feller from another k-younty weth red whiskers, un so on,
that had done the shootin'. The story run like a perrary fire in a high
wind un sort-uh mixed 'em up in the'r minds, like. I've got it fixed so
as they can't come down unbeknownst to me; un ef wust _comes_ to wust,
w'y, I've got my eye sot onto a crowbar."
"A crowbar? What would you do with a crowbar, Bob?" asked Lincoln, with
a puzzled contraction of the brows. "You wouldn't try to whale the whole
crowd with it, would you?"
"W'y, Abe, I 'low ef a rale tight pinch comes, to try a tussle weth that
air jail. I don't know's I could prize out one uv them air iron grates,
but ef 't wuz to _come_ to that, I'd try to git Tom out uv harm's way.
You say the word un I'll find some way to let 'im out anyhow."
"No, no; don't do that. If he runs away he'll be caught, and then he'll
be sure to be lynched, or hanged. Let me try the law first, and then
it'll be time enough to use crow-bars afterward if I fail. Do you know
Dave Sovine?"
"When I see 'im. He's an ornery kind uv a cuss. I don't know 's he
rickollecks me."
"So much the better if he doesn't. You must get him to tell you all
about the shooting--his story of it. Get him to tell more than was
brought out at the inquest. Make him explain it, and find out if he's
going to clear out before the trial."
"I heern tell 't he won't talk," said Bob. "The prosecutin' attorney's
shut 'im up tight 'z bees-wax, they say."
Lincoln mused awhile. "If the prosecuting attorney has shut him up, you
must open him. Contrive some way to get his story and find out what he
means to do."
But it was not easy to encounter Dave in these days. Since he had
acquired notoriety, as the only witness of the murder, he had been
seized with an unprecedented diffidence, and kept himself out of public
gaze. The boys about the village conjectured that he was "laying low for
big game." Bob, however, had no objection to waiting for Sovine's
coming. He liked this lurking for prey as a cat likes the watching at a
mouse-hole. Besides, loafing of any sort suited Big Bob's genius. He
could sit astride a barrel on the shady side of a grocery for hours with
no sense of exhaustion. More than one day McCord had passed in this way,
when at last Dave Sovine came in sight, walking rather hurriedly and
circumspectly toward the center of the village. Bob was in the middle of
a hunting yarn which he was lazily telling to another loafer on the
next barrel as he whittled a bit of hickory stripped from one of the
hoops in front of him. Without betraying any excitement, he astonished
his companions by bringing the long-drawn story to an abrupt conclusion.
Then dismounting from his barrel he sauntered across the street in such
a way as to encounter Dave and to fall in with the direction in which
the latter was going.
"Hot day!" Bob said, as he intersected Dave's course at an acute angle.
"Yes," answered the other.
"How's the corn crap out your way?"
"Dunno," said Dave.
"Goin' to be in town long?" Bob persisted.
To this Dave made no response. He only turned off abruptly at the
street-corner and left Bob behind.
"A feller might as well try to git sugar-water by tappin' a dead
sycamore as to git anything out uv him," Bob said to himself, as he
turned and took the road toward Hubbard Township.
As he walks homeward over the level prairie, which west-wardly has no
visible limit, Bob can only think of one way to persuade Sovine to talk,
and that way is out of the reach of a man so impecunious as he. It is in
vain that you thrust your great fists down into the pockets of your
butternut trousers, Bob. You know before you grope in them that there is
no money there. You have felt of them frequently to-day and found them
empty; that is why you are going home thirsty. Money will not be
persuaded to remain in those pockets. Nevertheless, all the way home Bob
mechanically repeats the search and wonders how he will get money to
carry out his plan. He might go to Lincoln, but he has an instinctive
feeling that Lincoln is what he calls "high-toned," and that the lawyer
might see an impropriety in his new plan. By the time he passes into his
own cabin he knows that there is no other way but to get the money from
Mrs. Grayson. No easy task, Bob reflects. Mrs. Grayson has never shown
any readiness to trust Bob McCord's business skill.
But the next morning he takes the path to the Grayson house, walking
more and more slowly as he approaches it, with head dropped forward and
fists rammed hard into his pockets, while he whistles doubtfully and
intermittently. Now and then he pauses and looks off scrutinizingly.
These are the ordinary physical signs of mental effort in this man. In
seeking a solution of any difficulty he follows his habits. He searches
his pockets, he looks for tracks on the ground, he scans the woods.
He approaches the back of the Grayson house and is relieved to see
Barbara alone in the kitchen, spinning.
"You see, Barb'ry," he said, as he half ducked his head in entering the
door,--"you see, I'm in a fix."
"Won't you take a chair, Mr. McCord?" said Barbara, as she wound the
yarn she had been spinning on the spindle and then stopped the wheel.
"No, I'm 'bleeged to yeh, I won't sed down," he replied, holding
himself awkwardly as with a sense that indoors was not a proper or
congenial place for him.
"Abe Lincoln sot me a sum un I can't noways git the answer. He wanted me
to git out uh that air Dave Sovine a full account uh the lie he's
a-goin' to tell agin Tommy. But I can't git at it noways. The feller
won't talk to me. I've thought uv ketchin' 'im by himself un lickin' 'im
till 'e'd let it out, but I'm afeerd Abe 'u'd think ut that 'u'd flush
his game afore he wuz ready to shoot. They ain't on'y jest one other
way, un that's to gamble weth Dave un coax his secret that away. But you
see I'm so oncommonly pore this year 't I couldn't gamble at a cent a
game 'thout he'd trust me, un he wouldn't do that, I 'low."
After cross-questioning Bob a little, Barbara went into the sitting-room
to her mother and Bob went to the outer door to breathe the open air
while he waited. Barbara's mother positively refused to let go of a
dollar of her precious little hoard of silver.
"D' you think, Barb'ry, 't I'd let a shif'less kind uv a man like Big
Bob have my money to gamble it away to that Sovine? No, I won't, and
that's all there is about it. Dave got a lot uv my money a-gamblin' with
Tommy, an' he don't git no more uv it, that's as shore as my name's
Marthy Grayson. They don't no good come uv gamblin' noways, an' I can't
bear that Dave Sovine should git some more uv our money, an' him
a-tryin' to swear away Tommy's life."
Barbara stood still a minute to give her mother's indignation time to
spend itself. Then she said:
"Well, poor Tom'll have to die, I suppose, if you can't bring yourself
to give Bob something to help Abraham save him."
Mrs. Grayson stood for several seconds in self-conflict. Then she
replied, "Well, Barb'ry, you always _will_ have your way." Saying this
she turned irresolutely toward her money-drawer. "I s'pose I'd jest as
well give up first as last. How much does Bob want?"
"Ten dollars 'll be enough, he thinks."
"Ten dollars! Does he think I'm made out of money? Now, looky here,
Barb'ry; I'm not a-goin' to give him no sech amount. Here's five, an'
you tell him I won't spare another red cent."
Barbara took the silver pieces and went out to Bob.