"Just let me trim a certain amount of foolishness out of you, and you'll make a fine man--a _fine_ man, William," he'd say. And perhaps you think that small thin gentleman didn't know how to make a hickory bite! He could get every tender spot, by instinct.

Well, he met young Mr. Anker, as I was saying, and asked him what ailed him. Algy explained the foul way I treated him, careful not to let the tale lose anything.

"Ah!" says Sammy, "and what was this for?"

"For nothing at all--not a thing!"

Sammy looks at him from under his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows. "I've often longed to thrash you for that same reason," says he, and marches on.

But lovely Peter! Father handed me back my mistreating Algy with interest on the investment. Pheeew! And talk! I was the most cowardly brute in the country--to a.s.sault and batter a poor, nice, gentlemanly little boy--a great big hulking scoundrel like myself--why, it pa.s.sed all crimes in history. Old Uncle Nero scratching the fiddle, while the fire-insurance companies tore their hair, was a public benefactor compared to me.

That pa.s.sed. I was only hindered, not stopped, in my reckless career of Village Pride. I'm a kind of determined cuss. But Fate sprung a stuffed deck on me. I did a piece of reforming really worth doing, but it cost me my home. Moreover, I was perfectly innocent of the intention. Don't it beat the devil? To tell it longhand, the play come up like this:

We had a party in our town who deserved a statue in the Hall--Mary Ann McCracken by name. She was a Holy Terror. Never before nor since have I seen anything like Mary Ann. I reckon she had about sixty years to her credit, and two hundred pounds to show for 'em. She ran a dairy up on the hill, doing her own milking and delivering, with only one long-suffering man to help out. I always remember that man walking around with one hand flying in the air, talking to himself, but when Miss Mary Ann said in her ba.s.s voice, "Pete! You Pete!" "Yessum, yessum!" says Pete as polite as possible.

The old lady used to bend slowly toward you, as if taking aim with her nose, and she fired her remarks through and through you. She'd sprung a plank somewhere, and had a little list to the side, but not at all enough so she couldn't take care of her own business and any other body's that come her way. When she went by father's house she used to roar, "Hark, froom the toomb--a doooleful sound!" because she hated everything concerning father's church, from the cellar to the lightning-rod. One day she was talking to mother, that she happened to like, snorting scornful, as was her custom, when father had the bad luck to appear on the scene.

"Adele Delatter," says Mary Ann, "what made you marry that man?"

pointing a finger at father like a horse-pistol. "What made you marry him, heh? heh? Don't you answer me. Hunh. He ain't got blood in his veins at all; he turns decent vittels to vinegar. Hah. His mother's milk curddled in his stummick." She humped up her back and shook both fists.

"He orter married _me_!" says she; "I'd 'a' fixed him! He'd orter married ME!" She b'iled over entirely and galloped for the gate. "I'd wring his cussed neck, if I stayed a minute longer!" she hollers. When she got in the wagon she rumbled and "pah'd" and "humphed." Then she stuck her red face out and yelled, "Orter married me. _I'd_ give him all the h.e.l.l he needed! Pah, pish, yah! Git out o' here, Jacky hoss, before you take to singin' hymns!"

She's the only human being I ever met that did just exactly what he, she, or it sweetly d.a.m.ned pleased to do. In that way, she's restful to remember. Most of us have got to copper, once in a while; but nothing above, below, nor between ever made her hedge a mill.

Well, I was walking home from Sunday-school with Miss. .h.i.tty one Sunday, trying to get points on my new system, when who should we see bearin'

down the street, all sails set and every gun loaded, but Miss Mary Ann McCracken! The first blast she give us was:

"Ha, Mehitabel! Gallivantin' around with the boys, now that the men's give out, hey?"

Poor little Miss. .h.i.tty was flummexed fool-hardy. She stuttered out some kind of answer, instead of breakin' for home.

"Oh, my! my! my!" says Mary Ann, not paying the least attention to Miss. .h.i.tty's remarks. "My!" says she, "you'd ought to shuck them clothes.

What you wastin' your time on boys fur? You was always hombly, Hitty; yes, but you're clean--I'll say that for you--you're _clean_. You stand some chance yet. You git married and shuck them clothes--_but shuck them clothes anyhow_!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'You git married and shuck them clothes'"]

You could have heard her to Willet's Mountain. And away she flew.

Miss. .h.i.tty cried all the way home. I did my best to comfort her, but Mary Ann jabbed deep. She was child entirely when we reached her front door, and she turned to me just like a child.

"_Must_ I wear different clothes, Will?" she says.

"Not a darn bit," says I. "Not for all the jealous, pop-eyed old Jezebels in ten townships."

She stood a moment, relieved, but still doubtful. "I don't know but what I _should_," she said. Then I got in the argument that went every time, on every question, in those parts. "Why, Miss. .h.i.tty!" I says, "how you talk! Think of the cost of it!"

She was so grateful she threw both arms and her parasol around my neck and kissed me then and there. "I won't!" she says, stamping her foot, "I won't! I won't!" and she swept into the house real spirited, like a high-strung mouse.

So it come I was Miss. .h.i.tty's champion.

Algy Anker happened to see Miss. .h.i.tty kiss me, and, of course, I heard from it. All the gay wags in town took a fly out of me. Even old Eli led me mysteriously to one side and whispered he believed in helping young fellers, so, when I was getting my outfit--he winked--why, he'd make a big reduction in tinware. I stood most of the gaffing pretty well, although I couldn't stop at any place without adding to the collection of rural jokes, but at last one man stepped over the line that separates a red-head from war.

There was always a crowd of country loafers around the tavern. A city loafer ain't like a country loafer. The city loafer is a blackguard that ain't got a point in his favor, except that he's different from the country loafer.

One day I had to go by the tavern and I see Mick Murphy tilted back in his chair, hat over eyes, thumbs in suspenders; big neck busting his shirt open, big legs busting through the pants' legs, big feet busting through the ends of his curved-up shoes, and a week's growth of pig-bristles busting out of his red face. Mick was the bold bully of the rough crowd--fellers from twenty to twenty-five. He worked till he got money enough to buy whisky, then he got drunk and licked somebody.

The course of such lads is pretty regular. Mick was about a year from robbing hen-roosts. Next to hen-roosts comes holding up the lone farmer.

Then the gang gets brash entirely, two or three are killed, and the rest land in the pen. You wouldn't believe hardly what kiddish minds these ignorant, hulking brutes have sometimes, nor how, sometimes, they come to the front, big, bigger than life-size. A painter wouldn't waste a minute putting down Mick Murphy as a thing of beauty. Little bits of eyes, near hid with whisky bloat; big puffy lips, stained with tobacco juice till they looked like the blood was coming through; dirty-handed, dirty-clothed, and dirty-mouthed--yah! And still--well, when I remember how that bulldozer went up a burning flight of stairs, tore a burning door off with them big dirty hands, and brought a little girl down through a wallow of flames, taking the coat off his back to wrap around her, and how the pride of the man come out when the mother stumbled toward him, calling on G.o.d to reward him, and he straightened under the pain and said, "Ah, that's all right, ledy! 'F your ol' man'll stand a drink an' a new shirt we'll call it square." The son-of-a-gun never left his bed for six weeks--why, he was broiled all down one side--why, when I remember that, I can't call up such a disgust for old Mick.

As I said, I see Mick Murphy leaning back in his chair at the tavern. Of course, he had a word to say about me and Miss. .h.i.tty. Now, the bare sight of Mick used to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck and growls boil inside of me. I just naturally disliked that man. So I sa.s.sed him plenty. He got mad and threatened to slap my face. I sa.s.sed him more, and he _did_ slap my face. In one twenty-fifth of a second I caught him on his rum-bouquet and sent him plumb off his feet--not bad for a sixteen-year-old, when you consider the other party was an accomplished rough-houser. Yes, sir, he went right down, clean, more from the quickness than the stuff behind the blow, as I hadn't anywheres near grew into my strength yet. The tavern crowd set up a roar, and then jumped to interfere, for Mick he roared, too, and made to pull me apart.

The onlookers wouldn't stand for it. They weren't such high-toned gents, but a contest between a leggy kid and a powerful man looked too far off the level.

"You run," says one fellow to me. "We'll hold him." But hanged if I was going to run. My thoughts was a mix, as usual in such cases--most of it hardly thinking at all, and the rest a kind of white-hot wish to damage something, and a desire to hustle away from there before I got hurt.

Then, too, it had reached the limit about Miss. .h.i.tty--I sure wasn't going to stand hearing her name mishandled by tavern loafers. Yet the princ.i.p.al cause for my staying was my anxiety to leave. That big, bellowing Irishman, dragging a half-dozen men to get at me, blood streaming down his face, and his expression far from agreeable, put a crimp in my soul, and don't you forget it. But I understood that this was my first man's-size proposition, and if I didn't take my licking like a man I never could properly respect myself afterward. So whilst my legs were pleading, "Come, Willie, let's trot and see mother--it will be pleasanter," I raked my system for sand and stood pat.

I knew a trick or two about a.s.saulting your fellow-man as well as Mick, when you come to that. Fighting is really as good an education for fighting as sparring is, and perhaps a little better. It ain't so much a question of how you make your props and parries, as how much damage you inflict upon the party of the second part.

"Let him come!" I says. "What you holding him for, 's if he was a ragin'

lion or something? Let go of him!"

"You skip, you darn fool," says my first friend. "He'll eat you raw."

"Well, it will be my funeral," I says. "If you will see he don't put me down and gouge my eye out, I'll take him as he comes."

Gouging was a great trick with that gang,--I feared it more than death itself.

Just at that minute old Eli drove up. "What in tarnation's this?" says he. When he found out, he tried to make me go home, but all this advice I didn't want had made me more determined. I got crying mad. "Gol-ding it all to thunder!" says I, hopping up and down. "You see me fair play and turn him loose, Eli. I want one more swat at him,--just let me hit him once more, and I'll go home."

Eli was a tall, round-shouldered man, who looked like a cross between a prosperous minister and a busted lawyer. He had a consumptive cough, and an easy, smoothing way with his hands, always sort of apologizing.

Several men had been led astray by these appearances, and picked a quarrel with Eli. Two weeks in bed was the average for making that mistake.

He looked at me with his head sideways, pulling his chin whisker.

"Billy," says he, "I hev experienced them sentiments myself. It sh.e.l.l be as you say." He went to his wagon, and drew out a muzzle-loading pistol from under the seat. The pistol was loaded with buckshot, and four fingers of powder to push it, as every one around knew. He walked up to Mick and put the touch of a cold, gray, Yankee eye on him. "Young man,"

he says, "I ain't for your clawin', chawin', kickin' style of conductin'

a row, so I tell you this: you fight that boy fair, or I'll mix buckshot with your whisky.--Turn your bullock loose!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'You fight that boy fair'"]

The men let go of him, and he come.

Fortunately, I remember every detail of that sc.r.a.p, clear as crystal. I led with my left, and Mick countered with his chin. A thunderstorm hit me in the left ear. Kerbang, kerswot. Scurry-scurry, biff-biff-biff.

Somebody hit somewhere. Somebody with a pain in the neck. No time to find out who it is. Zip, smash, rip; more pains; streaks of fire on the horizon; must have run aground. Roar-roar-b.u.mp,--ah, bully for you, Billy! Slam him, Mick! Hit him again, sonny! You got him! Now you got him! Aaaay-hooray!

Here we go, b.u.mping over the ties. Right over the edge of the trestle,--bing! C'm' off'n him, you big black whelp, aggh! le' go! Twist his thumb! Kick the brute! Get up, boy! Roooor swishz.--Where in thunder did the big black thing come from? Never mind. No time to stop. Lovely Peter! How she rolls! Who's sick?--Mick, probably. Lightning struck, that time.... Again ... Mmmmmmearrrrr ... dark ... dark. Raining ice-water! He's all right! Give him a little air! Somebody crying, "I did the best I could by him, Eli; g-gu-gug-gol-darn him!" More light.

Daybreak, and here I am again, on the ground, wet to the hide, the bucket they emptied on me alongside, and Eli holding my head up. And what's the thing opposite, with one eye swelled shut, and a mouth the size of a breakfast-roll?--Why, it's Mick!

"Did he lick me, Eli?" says I.

Eli laughed kind of nervous. "Neither you, nor him, nor me, will ever know," says he. "He's willing to call it a draw."