University of Virginia Library

23. XXIII.
HE FOUND HE WOULD.

Several years ago Bill McCracken lived
in Peru, Indiana. [We were in Peru several
years ago, and it was a nice place we
don't think.] Mr. McCracken was a
screamer, and had whipped all the recognized
fighting men on the Wabash. One
day somebody told him that Jack Long,
blacksmith at Logansport, said he would
give him (McCracken) a protracted fir of
sickness if he would just come down there
and smell of his bones. The McCracken
at once laid in a stock of provisions, consisting
of whiskey in glass and chickens in
the shell, and started for Logansport. In a
few days he was brought home in a bunged-up
condition, on a cot-bed. One eye was
gouged out, a portion of his nose was
chawed off, his left arm was in a sling, his

head was done up in old rag, and he was
pretty badly off himself. He was set down
in the village bar-room, and turning to the
crowd he, in a feeble voice, said, hot tears
bedewing his face the while, “Boys, you
know Jack Long said if I'd come down to
Loginsput he'd whale h—ll out of me; and,
boys, you know I didn't believe it, but I've
been down thar and I found he would.”

He recovered after a lapse of years and
led a better life. As he said himself, he returned
from Logansport a changed man.