第 22 页

a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms and hurrying him along.

He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he warn't hanging back any, but was

doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody sings out:

"Boggs!"

I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel Sherburn.

He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a pistol raised in

his right hand--not aiming it, but holding it out with the barrel tilted

up towards the sky. The same second I see a young girl coming on the

run, and two men with her. Boggs and the men turned round to see who

called him, and when they see the pistol the men jumped to one side, and

the pistol-barrel come down slow and steady to a level--both barrels

cocked. Boggs throws up both of his hands and says, "O Lord, don't

shoot!" Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers back, clawing at the

air--bang! goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards on to the

ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out. That young girl

screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws herself on her

father, crying, and saying, "Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him!" The

crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and jammed one another, with

their necks stretched, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to

shove them back and shouting, "Back, back! give him air, give him air!"

Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol on to the ground, and turned around

on his heels and walked off.

They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around just

the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good place

at the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They laid him

on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and opened another

one and spread it on his breast; but they tore open his shirt first, and

I seen where one of the bullets went in. He made about a dozen long

gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he drawed in his breath, and

letting it down again when he breathed it out--and after that he laid

still; he was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away from him,

screaming and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen, and very

sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared.

Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrouging and

pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look, but people that

had the places wouldn't give them up, and folks behind them was saying

all the time, "Say, now, you've looked enough, you fellows; 'tain't right

and 'tain't fair for you to stay thar all the time, and never give nobody

a chance; other folks has their rights as well as you."

There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe there

was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was

excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened,

and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows,

stretching their necks and listening. One long, lanky man, with long

hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a

crooked-handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs

stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around from

one place to t'other and watching everything he done, and bobbing their

heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their

hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with his

cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff where Sherburn had stood,

frowning and having his hat-brim down over his eyes, and sung out,

"Boggs!" and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and says "Bang!"

staggered backwards, says "Bang!" again, and fell down flat on his back.

The people that had seen the thing said he done it perfect; said it was

just exactly the way it all happened. Then as much as a dozen people got

out their bottles and treated him.

Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a

minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and

snatching down every clothes-line they come to to do the hanging with.

CHAPTER XXII.

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 on to 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

out-gaze 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 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 on to 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, a 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 noway understand. Why, I couldn't a thought of them in a year.

And by and by a drunk 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 towards 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