"My stars! you forgot to try!"

It was late at night when Lazarus Graves and Captain Champion, returning from Pulaski City, where they had been hurrying matters into shape for the prosecution of Leggett, rode down the Susie and p.u.s.s.ie Pike toward Suez. Where the Widewood road forked off into the forest on their left they stopped, having unexpectedly come upon a third rider bound the other way. He seemed quite alone and stood by his horse in deep shade, tightening the girth and readjusting blanket and saddle. Champion laughed and predicted his own fate after death.

"Turn that freckled face o' yo's around here, Johnnie March; we ain't Garnet and Pettigrew, an' th' ain't nothin' the matteh with that saddle."

"Howdy, Cap'm," said John, as if too busy to look up.

"Howdy yo'seff! What new devilment you up to now? None? Oh, then we didn't see n.o.body slide off fum behine that saddle an' slip into the bushes. Who was it, John? Was it Johanna, so-called?"

"No, it was Leggett," said John.

"Oh, I reckon!" laughed the Captain.

"Come on," grumbled Graves, and they left him.

XXI.

MR. LEGGETT'S CHICKEN-PIE POLICY

THE youth whistled his charge out of the brush and moved on, sometimes in the saddle with the mulatto mounted behind, sometimes, where the way was steep, walking beside the tired horse. When both rode he had to bear a continual stream of tobacco-scented whisperings poured into his ear.

"Mr. March, that crowd wouldn't do me this a-way if they knowed the patri'tisms I feels to 'em. You see, it's they financialities incur the late rise in Clairwateh County scrip. Ya.s.s, seh; which I catch the fo'cas' o' they intentions in time to be infested in a good pa.s.sle of it myseff."

"So that now your school funds are all straight again?"

"Ezac'ly! all straight an' comp'ehensive. An' what sh.e.l.l we say then?

Sh.e.l.l we commit sin that grace may aboun'? Supposin' I has been too trancadillious; I say jis' _supposin'_ I may have evince a rather too wifely pretendencies; what does they care fo' that? No, seh, all they wants is to git shet o' me."

"And do you think they're wrong?"

"Mr. March, I does! Tha.s.s right where they misses it. Why, they _needs_ me, seh! I got a new policy, Mr. March. I 'llowed to espound it las'

week on the flo' of the house, same day the guvneh veto that bill we pa.s.s; ya.s.s, seh. The guvneh's too much like Gyarnit; he's faw the whole hawg or none. Tha.s.s not my way; my visions is mo' perspectral an' mo'

clairer. Seh? Wha'd you say?"

"Oh, nothing," laughed John. "Only a shudder of disgust."

"Ya.s.s, seh. Well, it is disgusting ev'm to me. You see, I discerns all these here New Dixie projeckin'. I behole how they all a-makin' they sun'ry chicken-pies, which notinstanin' they all diff'ent, yit they all alike, faw they all turnovers! Ya.s.s, seh, they all spreads hafe acrost the dish an' then tu'n back. I has been ent.i.tle Slick an' Slippery Leggett--an' yit what has I always espress myseff? Gen'le_men_, they must be sufficiend plenty o' chicken-pie to go round. An', Mr. March, if she don't _be_ round, she won't _go_ round. 'Tis true the scripter say, To them what hath sh.e.l.l be givened, an' to them what hath not sh.e.l.l be takened away that which seem like they hath; but the scripter's one thing an' chicken-pie's anotheh."

"Listen," whispered John, stopping the horse; and when Mr. Leggett would have begun again--"Oh, do shut your everlasting----"

"P-he-he-he-he!" t.i.ttered the mulatto under his breath. John started again and Leggett resumed.

"Whew! I'm that thusty! Ain't you got no sawt o' pain-killeh about yo'

clo'es? Aw! Mr. March, mos' sholy you is got some. No gen'leman ain't goin' to be out this time o' night 'ithout some sawt o'

corrective--Lawd! I wisht you had! Cayn't we stop som'er's an' git some?

Lawd! I wisht we could! I'm jest a-honin' faw some sawt o' wetness.

"But exhumin' my subjec', Mr. March, tha.s.s anotheh thing the scripters evince--that ev'y man shall be judge' by his axe. Ya.s.s, seh, faw of co'se ev'y man got his axe to grime. I got mine. You got yo's, ain't you?--Well, o' co'se. I respec' you faw it! Ya.s.s, seh; but right there the question arise, is it a public axe? An' if so, is it a good one? aw is it a private axe? aw is it both? Of co'se, ef a man got a good public axe to grime, he espec'--an' you espec' him--to bring his private axe along an' git hit grime at the same junction. Tha.s.s natchiul. Tha.s.s all right an' puffiely corrosive. On'y we must take tu'ns tunnin' the grime-stone. You grime my axe, I grime yo's. How does that strack you, Mr. March?"

John's reply was enthusiastic. "Why, it strikes me as positively mephitic."

"Mr. March, tha.s.s what it is! Tha.s.s the ve'y word! Now, sh.e.l.l me an' you fulfil the scripter--'The white man o' the mountains an' the Etheropium o' the valleys sh.e.l.l jine they han's an' the po' man's axe sh.e.l.l be grime'?' Ain't them words sweet? Ain't they jess pufficly syrupt.i.tious?

My country, 'tis of thee! Oh, Mr. March, ef you knowed how much patri'tism I got!--You hear them Suez fellehs say this is a white man's country an' cayn't eveh be a rich man's country till it is a white man's----"

"See here, now; I tell you for the last time, if you value your life you'd better make less noise."

"Ya.s.s, seh. Lawd, I cayn't talk; I'm that thusty I'm a-spitt'n'

cotton!--No, seh! White man ain't eveh goin' to lif hisseff up by holdin' niggeh down, an' that's the pyo chaotic truth; now, ain't it?"

"Best way is to hang the n.i.g.g.e.r up."

"Aw, Mr. March, you a-jokin'! You know I espress the truth. Ef you wants to make a rich country, you ain't got to make it a white man's country, naw a black man's country, naw yit mix the races an' make it n yaller man's country, much less a yaller woman's; no, seh! But the whole effulgence is jess this: you got to make it a po' man's country! Now, you accentuate yo' reflections on that, seh!--Seh?"

"I say that's exactly what Widewood is."

"No, seh! no, seh! I means a country what's good faw a po' man, an'

Widewood cayn't even be that 'ithout school-houses, seh! But tha.s.s what me an' you can make it, Mr. March. Why, tha.s.s the hence an' the whence that my const.i.tuents an' coefficients calls me School-house Leggett.

Some men cusses me that I has mix' the races in school. Well, supposin'

I has--a little; I'se mix' myseff. You cayn't neveh mix 'em hafe so fas'

in school as they mixes 'em out o' school. Yit tha.s.s not in the accawdeons o' my new policy. Mr. March, I'm faw the specie o' schools we kin git an' keep----"

John laughed again. "Oh, yes, you're sure to keep all the specie you get."

Mr. Leggett giggled. "Aw! I means that _kine_ o' school. An' jiss now that happ'm to be sep'ate schools. I neveh was hawgish like myfrien'

Gyarnit. Gyarnit's faw Rosemont an' State aid _toe_ Rosemont, an' faw nothin' else an' n.o.body else, fus', las', an' everlastin'. Tha.s.s jess why his projeckin' don't neveh eventuate, an' which it neveh will whilse I'm there to _pre_ventuate! Whoever hear him say, 'Mr. School-house Leggett, aw Mr. March, aw Mr. Anybody-in-G.o.d's-worl', pa.s.s yo' plate faw a piece o' the chicken pie?' What! you heard it? Oh, Mr. March, don't you be fool'! An' yit I favo's Rosemont----"

"Why, you've made it your standing threat to burst Rosemont wide open!"

"Ya.s.s, te-he! I has often prevaricate that intention. But Law'! that was pyo gas, Mr. March. I favors Rosemont, an' State aid _toe_ Rosemont--perwidin'--enough o' the said thereof to go round, an' the same size piece faw ev'y po' man's boy as faw ev'y rich man's boy. Of co's with gals it's diff'ent. Mr. March, you don't know what a frien'

you been a-dislikin'!"

"They say you're in favor of railroads."

"Why, o' co'se! An' puttickly the p.u.s.s.ie an' Susie an' Great South Railroad an' State mawgage bawns in accawdeons--perwidin!--one school-house, som'er's in these-yeh th'ee counties, faw ev'y five mile'

o' road they buil; an' a Leggettstown braynch road, ya.s.s, seh. An', Mr.

March, yit, still, mo'over, perwiddin' the movin' the capital to Suez, away fum the corrup' influence of Pulaski City. Faw, Mr. March, the legislatu'e will neveh be pyo anywher's else esceptin' in Suez, an' not evm myseff! Whew! I'm that thusty----"

XXII.