University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXII.

They swarmed up the street towards Sherburn's
house, a-whooping and yelling
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.

[ILLUSTRATION]

sherburn steps out.

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 outgaze 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 day-time and you're not
behind him.

"Do I know you? I know you clear through. I 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 day-time, 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 onto 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.

[ILLUSTRATION]

a dead head.

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 staid, if I'd a 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 under-shirts, 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 stuck
out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and more, and the
ring-master going round and round the centre-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 ring-master
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 ring-master
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
onto his bridle trying to hold
him, and the drunk man
hanging onto his neck, and
his heels flying in the air every
jump, and the whole crowd
of people standing up shouting
and laughing till the 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

[ILLUSTRATION]

he shed seventeen suits.

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 agoing 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 ring-master he see how he had been fooled, and he was the sickest
ring-master 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 ring-master's
place, not for a thousand dollars. I don't know; there may be bullier
circuses than what that one was, but I never struck them yet. Anyways it was
plenty good enough for me; and wherever I run across it, it can have all of my
custom, every time.

Well, that night we had our show; but there warn't only about twelve
people there; just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the time, and
that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before the show was over,
but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads
couldn't come up to Shakspeare; what they wanted was low comedy—and may
be something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could
size their style. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping-paper and
some black paint, and drawed off some handbills and stuck them up all over the
village. The bills said: