Those Times And These E-Book

Irvin S. Cobb

• Herausgeber: Cobb Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A classic work of fiction featuring Judge Priest, dramatic and compelling, using a wealthy of precisely rendered detail to evoke a powerful mood.Cobb joined the staff of the magazine Saturday Evening Post during 1911, and covered the Great War for the magazine. At the same time, he wrote a book about his experiences, published during 1915, titled Paths Of Glory. After a second visit to France to cover the Great War, Cobb publicized the achievements of the unit known as theHarlem Hellfighters, most notably, Croix de Guerre recipients Henry Lincoln Johnson and Needham Roberts. His article "Young Black Joe," published on August 24, 1918 in theSaturday Evening Post and later republished in Cobb's book, The Glory of the Coming, highlighted the discipline and courage displayed by black American soldiers fighting in Europe during World War I. The three-page article and half-page photograph reached a national audience of more than two million readers, and was widely reprinted in the black press.

Leseprobe

THOSE TIMES AND THESE

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Irvin S Cobb

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This book is a work of fiction; its contents are wholly imagined.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. EX-FIGHTIN’ BILLY

CHAPTER II. AND THERE WAS LIGHT

CHAPTER III. MR. FELSBURG GETS EVEN

CHAPTER IV. THE GARB OF MEN

CHAPTER V. THE CURE FOR LONESOMENESS

CHAPTER VI. THE FAMILY TREE

CHAPTER VII. HARK! FROM THE TOMBS

CHAPTER VIII. CINNAMON SEED AND SANDY BOTTOM

CHAPTER IX. A KISS FOR KINDNESS

CHAPTER X. THE START OF A DREAM

CHAPTER I. EX-FIGHTIN’ BILLY

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TO ME AND TO THOSE of my generation, Judge Priest was always Judge Priest. So he was also to most of the people of our town and our county and our judicial district. A few men of his own age—mainly men who had served with him in the Big War—called him Billy, right to his face, and yet a few others, men of greater age than these, spoke of him and to him as William, giving to the name that benignant and most paternal air which an octogenarian may employ in referring to one who is ten or fifteen years his junior.

I was a fairly sizable young person before ever I found out that once upon a time among his intimates the Judge had worn yet another title. Information upon this subject was imparted to me one summery afternoon by Sergeant Jimmy Bagby as we two perched in company upon the porch of the old boat-store.

I don’t know what mission brought Sergeant Bagby three blocks down Franklin Street from his retail grocery establishment, unless it was that sometimes the boat-store porch was cool while the rest of the town baked. That is to say, it was cool by comparison. Little wanton breezes that strayed across the river paid fluttering visits there before they struck inland to perish miserably of heat prostration.

For the moment the Sergeant and I had the little wooden balcony to ourselves, nearly everybody else within sight and hearing having gone down the levee personally to enjoy the small excitement of seeing the stem-wheel packet Emily Foster land after successfully completing one of her regular triweekly round trips to Clarksburg and way landings.

At the blast of the Emily Foster’s whistles as she rounded to and put her nose upstream preparatory to sliding in alongside the wharf, divers coloured persons of the leisure class had roused from where they napped in the shady lee of freight piles and lined up on the outer gunwales of the wharf-boat ready to catch and make fast the head-line when it should be tossed across the intervening patch of water into their volunteer hands.

Two town hacks and two town drays had coursed down the steep gravelled incline, with the draymen standing erect upon the jouncing springless beds of their drays as was their way. In the matter of maintaining a balance over rough going and around abrupt turns, no chariot racers of old could have taught them anything. Only Sergeant Bagby and I, of all in the immediate vicinity, had remained where we were. The Sergeant was not of what you could exactly call a restless nature, and I, for the moment, must have been overcome by one of those fits of languor which occasionally descend upon the adolescent manling. We two bided where we sat.

With a tinkle of her engine bells, a calling out of orders and objurgations in the professionally hoarse, professionally profane voice of her head mate and a racking, asthmatic coughing and sighing and pounding from her exhaust pipes, the Emily Foster had found her berth; and now her late passengers came streaming up the slant of the hill—a lanky timberman or two, a commercial traveller—most patently a commercial traveller—a dressy person who looked as though he might be an advance agent for some amusement enterprise, and a family of movers, burdened with babies and bundles and accompanied by the inevitable hound dog. The commercial traveller and the suspected advance agent patronised the hacks—fare twenty-five cents anywhere inside the corporate limits—but the rest entered into the city afoot and sweating. At the very tail of the procession appeared our circuit judge, he being closely convoyed by his black house-boy, Jeff Poindexter, who packed the master’s bulging and ancient valise with one hand and bore a small collection of law books under his other arm.

Looking much like a high-land terrapin beneath the shelter of his venerable cotton umbrella, Judge Priest toiled up the hot slant. Observed from above, only his legs were visible for the moment. We knew him, though, by his legs—and also by Jeff and the umbrella. Alongside the eastern wall of the boat-store, nearmost of all buildings to the water-front, he halted in its welcome shadows to blow and to mop his streaming face with a vast square of handkerchief, and, while so engaged, glanced upward and beheld his friend, the Sergeant, beaming down upon him across the whittled banister rail.

“Hello, Jimmy!” he called in his high whine.

“Hello, yourself!” answered the Sergeant. “Been somewheres or jest traveling round?”

“Been somewheres,” vouchsafed the newly returned; “been up at Livingstonport all week, settin’ as special judge in place of Judge Given. He’s laid up in bed with a tech of summer complaint and I went up to git his docket cleaned up fur him. He’s better now, but still puny.”

“You got back ag’in in time to light right spang in the middle of a warm spell,” said Sergeant Bagby.

“Well,” stated Judge Priest, “it ain’t been exactly whut you’d call chilly up the river, neither. The present thaw appears to be gineral throughout this section of the country.” He waved a plump arm in farewell and slowly departed from view beyond the side wail of the boat-store.

“Looks like Judge Priest manages to take on a little more flesh every year he lives,” said the Sergeant, who was himself no lightweight, addressing the remark in my direction. “You wouldn’t scursely think it to see him waddlin’ ‘long, a to tin’ all that meat on his bones; but once’t upon a time he was mighty near ez slim ez his own ramrod and was commonly known ez little Fightin’ Billy. You wouldn’t, now, would you?”

The question I disregarded. It was the disclosure he had bared which appealed to my imagination and fired my curiosity. I said: “Mr. Bagby, I never knew anybody ever called Judge Priest that?”

“No, you natchelly wouldn’t,” said the Sergeant—"not onless you’d mebbe overheared some of us old fellers talkin’ amongst ourselves sometimes, with no outsiders present. It wouldn’t hardly be proper, ever’thing considered, to be referrin’ in public to the presidin’ judge of the first judicial district of the State of Kintucky by sech a name ez that. Besides which, he ain’t little any more. And then, there’s still another reason.”

“How did they ever come to call him that in the first place?” I asked.

“Well, young man, it makes quite a tale,” said the Sergeant. With an effort he hauled out his big silver watch, looked at its face, and then wedged it back into a hidden recess under one of the overlapping creases of his waistband.

“He acquired that there title at Shiloh, in the State of Tennessee, and by his own request he parted from it some three years and four months later on the banks of the Rio Grande River, in the Republic of Mexico, I bein’ present in pusson on both occasions. But ef you’ve got time to listen I reckin I’ve got jest about the time to tell it to you.”

“Yes, sir—if you please.” With eagerness, I hitched my cane-bottomed chair along the porch floor to be nearer him. And then as he seemed not to have heard my assent, I undertook to prompt him. “Er—what were you and Judge Priest doing down in Mexico, Mr. Bagby?”

“Tryin’ to git out of the United States of America fur one thing.” A little grin, almost a shamefaced grin, I thought, broke his round moist face up into fat wrinkles. He puckered his eyes in thought, looking out across the languid tawny river toward the green towhead in midstream and the cottonwoods on the far bank, a mile and more away. “But I don’t marvel much that you never heared the full circumstances before. Our bein’ down in Mexico together that time is a fact we never advertised ‘round for common consumption—neither one of us.”

He withdrew his squinted gaze from the hot vista of shores and water and swung his body about to face me, thereafter punctuating his narrative with a blunted forefinger.

“My command was King’s Hell Hounds. There ought to be a book written some of these days about whut all King’s Hell Hounds done en-durin’ of the unpleasantness—it’d make mighty excitin’ readin’. But Billy and a right smart chance of the other boys frum this place, they served throughout with Company B of the Old Regiment of mounted infantry. Most of the time frum sixty-one to sixty-five I wasn’t throwed with ‘em, but jest before the end came we were all consolidated—whut there was remainin’ of us—under General Nathan Bedford Forrest down in Mississippi. Fur weeks and months before that, we knowed it was a hopeless fight we were wagin’, but somehow we jest kept on. I reckin we’d sort of got into the fightin’ habit. Fellers do, you know, sometimes, when the circumstances are favourable, ez in this case.

“Well, here one mornin’ in April, came the word frum Virginia that Richmond had fallen, and right on top of that, that Marse Robert had had to surrender. They said, too, that Sherman had Johnston penned off somewheres down in the Carolinas, we didn’t know exactly where, and that Johnston would have to give up before many days passed. In fact, he had already give up a week before we finally heared about it. So then accordin’ to our best information and belief, that made us the last body of organised Confederates on the east bank of the Mississippi River. That’s a thing I was always mighty proud of. I’m proud of it yit.

“All through them last few weeks the army was dwindlin’ away and dwindlin’ away. Every momin’ at roll-call there’d be a few more absentees. Don’t git me wrong—I wouldn’t call them boys deserters. They’d stuck that long, doin’ their duty like men, but they knowed good and well—in fact we all knowed—’twas only a question of time till even Forrest would have to quit before overpowerin’ odds and we’d be called on to lay down the arms we’d toted fur so long. Their families needed ‘em, so they jest quit without sayin’ anything about it to anybody and went on back to their homes. This was specially true of some that lived in that district.

“But with the boys frum up this way it was different. In a way of speakin’, we didn’t have no homes to go back to. Our State had been in Northern hands almost frum the beginnin’ and some of us had prices on our heads right that very minute on account of bein’ branded ez guerrillas. Which was a lie. But folks didn’t always stop to sift out the truth then. They were prone to shoot you first and go into the merits of the case afterward. Anyway, betwixt us and home there was a toler’ble thick hedge of Yankee soldiers—in fact several thick hedges. You know they called one of our brigades the Orphan Brigade. And there were good reasons fur callin’ it so—more ways than one.

“I ain’t never goin’ to furgit the night of the fifth of May. Somehow the tidin’s got round amongst the boys that the next mornin’ the order to surrender was goin’ to be issued. The Yankee cavalry general, Wilson—and he was a good peart fighter, too—had us completely blocked off to the North and the East, but the road to the Southwest was still open ef anybody cared to foller it. So that night some of us held a little kind of a meetin’—about sixty of us—mainly Kintuckians, but with a sprinklin’ frum other States, too.

“Ez I remember, there wasn’t a contrary voice raised when ‘twas suggested we should try to make it acrost the big river and j’ine in under Kirby Smith, who still had whut was left of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi.

“Billy Priest made the principal speech. ‘Boys,’ he says, ‘South Carolina may a-started this here war, but Kintucky has undertook the contract to close it out. Somewheres out yonder in Texas they tell me there’s yit a consid’ble stretch of unconquered Confederate territory. Speakin’ fur myself I don’t believe I’m ever goin’ to be able to live comfortable an’ reconciled under any other flag than the flag we’ve fit to uphold. Let’s us-all go see ef we can’t find the place where our flag still floats.’

“So we all said we’d go. Then the question ariz of namin’ a leader. There was one man that had been a captain and a couple more that had been lieutenants, but, practically unanimously, we elected little Billy Priest. Even ef he was only jest a private in the ranks we all knowed it wasn’t fur lack of chances to go higher. After Shiloh, he’d refused a commission and ag’in after Hartsville. So, in lessen no time a-tall, that was settled, too.

“Bright and early next day we started, takin’ our guns and our hosses with us. They were our hosses anyway; mainly we’d borrowed ‘em off Yankees, or anyways, off Yankee sympathisers on our last raid Northward and so that made ‘em our pussonal property, the way we figgered it out. ‘Tennyrate we didn’t stop to argue the matter with nobody whutsoever. We jest packed up and we put out—and we had almighty little to pack up, lemme tell you.

“Ez we rid off we sung a song that was be-ginnin’ to be right fashionable that spring purty near every place below Mason and Dixon’s line; and all over the camp the rest of the boys took it up and made them old woodlands jest ring with it. It was a kind of a farewell to us. The fust verse was likewise the chorus and it run something like this:

Oh, I’m a good old rebel, that’s jest whut I am; And fur this land of freedom I do not give a dam’, I’m glad I fit ag’in her, I only wish’t we’d won, And I don’t ax your pardon fur anything I’ve done.

“And so on and so forth. There were several more verses all expressin’ much the same trend of thought, and all entirely in accordance with our own feelin’s fur the time bein’.

“Well, boy, I reckin there ain’t no use wastin’ time describin’ the early stages of that there pilgrimage. We went ridin’ along livin’ on the land and doin’ the best we could. We were young fellers, all of us, and it was springtime in Dixie—you know whut that means—and in spite of everything, some of the springtime got into our hearts, too, and drove part of the bitterness out. The country was all scarified with the tracks of war, but nature was doin’ her level best to cover up the traces of whut man had done. People along our route had mighty slim pickin’s fur themselves, but the sight of an old grey jacket was still mighty dear to most of ‘em and they divided whut little they had with us and wish’t they had more to give us. We didn’t need much at that—a few meals of vittles fur the men and a little fodder fur our hosses and we’d be satisfied. We’d reduced slow starvation to an exact ‘science long before that. Every man in the outfit was hard ez nails and slim ez a blue racer.

“Whut Northern forces there was East of the river we dodged. In fact we didn’t have occasion to pull our shootin’-irons but once’t, and that was after we’d cros’t over into Louisiana. There wasn’t any organised military force to regulate things and in the back districts civil government had mighty near vanished altogether. People had went back to fust principles—wild, reckless fust principles they were, too. One day an old woman warned us there was a gang of bushwhackers operatin’ down the road a piece in the direction we were headin’—a mixed crowd of deserters frum both sides, she said, who’d jined in with some of the local bad characters and were preyin’ on the country, hariyin’ the defenceless, and terrorism’ women and children and raisin’ hob ginerally. She advised us that we’d better give ‘em a wide berth.

“But Billy Priest he throwed out scouts and located the gang, and jest before sunrise next mornin’ we dropped in on ‘em, takin’ ‘em by surprise in the camp they’d rigged up in a live-oak thicket in the midst of a stretch of cypress slashes.

“And when the excitement died down ag’in, quite a number of them bushwhackers had quit whackin’ permanently and the rest of ‘em were tearin’ off through the wet woods wonderin’, between jumps, whut had hit ‘em. Ez fur our command, we accumulated a considerable passel of plunder and supplies and a number of purty fair hosses, and went on our way rejoicin’. We hadn’t lost a man, and only one man wounded.

“When we hit the Texas border, news was waitin’ fur us. They told us ef we aimed to ketch up with the last remainders of the army we’d have to hurry, because Smith and Shelby, with whut was left of his Missoury outfit, and Sterlin’ Price and Hindman with some of his Arkansaw boys and a right smart sprinklin’ of Texans had already pulled up stakes and were headed fur old Mexico, where the natives were in the enjoyable midst of one of their regular revolutions.

“With the French crowd and part of the Mexicans to help him, the Emperor Maximilian was tryin’ to hang onto his onsteady and topplin’ throne, whilst the Republikins or Liberals, as they called themselves, were tryin’ with might and main to shove him off of it. Ef a feller jest natchelly honed fur an opportunity to indulge a fancy fur active hostilities, Mexico seemed to offer a very promisin’ field of endeavour.

“It didn’t take us long to make up our minds whut course we’d follow. Billy Priest put the motion. ‘Gentlemen,’ he says, ‘it would seem the Southern Confederacy is bent and determined on gittin’ clear out frum under the shad-der of the Yankee government. It has been moved and seconded that we foller after her no matter where she goes. All in favour of that motion will respond by sayin’ Aye—contrary-wise, No. The Ayes seem to have it and the Ayes do have it and it is so ordered, unanimously. By fours! Forward, march!’

“That happened in the town of Corsicana in the early summer-time of the year. So we went along acrost the old Lone Star State, headin’ mighty nigh due West, passin’ through Waco and Austin and San Antonio, and bein’ treated mighty kindly by the people wheresoever we passed. And ez we went, one of the boys that had poetic leanin’s, he made up a new verse to our song. Let’s see, son, ef I kin remember it now after all these years.”

The Sergeant thought a bit and then lifting his voice in a quavery cadence favoured me with the following gem:

I won’t be reconstructed; I’m better now than them; And fur a carpet-bagger I don’t give a dam; So I’m off fur the frontier, fast ez I kin go, I’ll purpare me a weepon and head fur Mexico.

“It was the middle of July and warm enough to satisfy the demands of the most exactin’ when we reached the Rio Grande, to find out Shelby’s force had done crossed over after buryin’ their battle-flag in the middle of the river, wrapped up in a rock to hold it down. On one side was cactus and greasewood and a waste of sandy land, that was already back in the Union or mighty soon would be. On the other side was more cactus and more grease-wood and more sandy loam, but in a different country. So, after spendin’ a few pleasant hours at the town of Eagle Pass, we turn’t our backs to one country and cros’t over to the other, alookin’ fur the Confederacy wherever she might be. I figgered it out I was tellin’ the United States of America good-by furever. I seem to remember that quite a number of us kept peerin’ back over our shoulders toward the Texas shore. They tell me the feller that wrote ‘Home Sweet Home’ didn’t have any home to go to but he writ the song jest the same. Nobody didn’t say nothin’, though, about weakenin’ or turnin’ back.

“Very soon after we hit Mexican soil we run into one of the armies—a Liberal army, this one was, of about twelve hundred men, and its name suited it to a T. The officers were liberal about givin’ orders and the men were equally liberal about makin’ up their minds whether or not they’d obey. Also, ez we very quickly discovered, the entire kit and caboodle of ‘em were very liberal with reguards to other folks’ property and other folks’ lives. We’d acquired a few careless ideas of our own concernin’ the acquirin’ of contraband plunder durin’ the years immediately precedin’, but some of the things we seen almost ez soon ez we’d been welcomed into the hospitable but smelly midst of that there Liberal army, proved to us that alongside these fellers we were merely whut you might call amatoors in the confiscatin’ line.

“I wish’t I had the words to describe the outfit so ez you could see it the way I kin see it this minute. This purticular army was made up of about twelve hundred head, includin’ common soldiers. I never saw generals runnin’ so many to the acre before in my life. The Confederacy hadn’t been exactly destitute in that respect but—shuckins!—down here you bumped into a brigadier every ten feet. There was a considerable sprinklin’ of colonels and majors and sech, too; and here and there a lonesome private. Ef you seen a dark brown scarycrow wearin’ fur a uniform about enough rags to pad a crutch with, with a big sorry straw hat on his head and his feet tied up in bull hides with his bare toes peepin’ coyly out, and ef he was totin’ a flint lock rifle, the chances were he’d be a common soldier. But ef in addition to the rest of his regalia he had a pair of epaulettes sewed onto his shoulders you mout safely assume you were in the presence of a general or something of that nature. I ain’t exaggeratin’—much. I’m only tryin’ to make you git the picture of it in your mind.

“Well, they received us very kindly and furnished us with rations, sech ez they were—mostly peppers and beans and a kind of batter-cake that’s much in favour in them parts, made out of corn pounded up fine and mixed with water and baked ag’inst a hot rock. Ef a man didn’t keer fur the peppers, he could fall back on the beans, thus insurin’ him a change of diet, and the corn batter-cakes were certainly right good-tastin’.

“Some few of our dark-complected friends kin make a stagger at speakin’ English, so frum one of ‘em Billy inquires where is the Confederacy? They explains that it has moved on further South but tells us that first General Shelby sold ‘em the artillery he’d fetched with him that fur to keep it frum failin’ into the Yankees’ hands. Sure enough there’re the guns—four brass field-pieces. Two of ‘em are twelve-pounders and the other two are four-teen-pounders. The Mexicans are very proud of their artillery and appear to set much store by it.

“Well, that evenin’ their commandin’ general comes over to where we’ve made camp, accompanied by his coffee-coloured staff, and through an interpreter he suggests the advisability of our j’inin’ in with them, he promisin’ good pay and offerin’ to make us all high-up officers. He seems right anxious to have us enlist with his glorious forces right away. In a little while it leaks out why he’s so generous with his promises and so wishful to see us enrolled beneath his noble banner. He’s expectin’ a call inside of the next forty-eight hours frum the Imperials that’re reported to be movin’ up frum the South, nearly two thousand strong, with the intention of givin’ him battle.

“Billy Priest, speakin’ fur all of us, says he’ll give him an answer later. So the commandin’ general conceals his disappointment the best he kin and retires on back to his own headquarters, leavin’ us to discuss the proposition amongst ourselves. Some of the boys favour thro win’ in with the Liberals right away, bein’ hongry fur a fight, I reckin, or else sort of dazzled by the idea of becomin’ colonels and majors overnight. But Billy suggests that mebbe we’d better jest sort of hang ‘round and observe the conduct and deportment of these here possible feller warriors of our’n whilst they’re under hostile fire. ‘Speakin’ pusson-ally,’ he says, ‘I must admit I ain’t greatly attracted to them ez they present themselves to the purview of my gaze in their ca’mmer hours. Before committin’ ourselves, s’posen we stand by and take a few notes on how they behave themselves in the presence of an enemy. Then, there’ll be abundant time to decide whether we want to stay a while with these fellers or go long about our business of lookin’ fur the Southern Confederacy.’

“That sounded like good argument, so we let Billy have his way about it, and we settled down to wait. We didn’t have long to wait. The next day about dinner-time, here come the Imperial army, advancin’ in line of battle. The Liberals moved out acrost the desert to meet ‘em and we-all mounted and taken up a position on a little rise close at hand, to observe the pur-ceedin’s.

“Havin’ had consider’ble experience in sech affairs, I must say I don’t believe I ever witnessed such a dissa’pintin’ battle ez that one turn’t out to be. The prevailin’ notion on both sides seemed to be that the opposin’ forces should march bravely toward one another ontil they got almost within long range and then fur both gangs to halt ez though by simultaneous impulse, and fire at will, with nearly everybody shootin’ high and wide and furious. When this had continued till it become mutually bore-some, one side would charge with loud cheers, ashootin’ ez it advanced, but prudently slowin’ down and finally haltin’ before it got close enough to inflict much damage upon the foe or to suffer much damage either. Havin’ accomplished this, the advancin’ forces would fall back in good order and then it was time fur the other side to charge. I must say this in justice to all concerned—there was a general inclination to obey the rules ez laid down fur the prosecution of tie kind of warfare they waged. Ez a usual thing, I s’pose it would be customary fur the battle to continue ez described until the shades of night descended and then each army would return to its own base, claimin’ the victory. But on this occasion something in the nature of a surprise occurred that wasn’t down on the books a-tall.

“Right down under the little rise where us fellers sat waitin’, stood them four guns that the Liberals bought off of Shelby. Ef brass cannons have feelin’s—and I don’t know no reason why they shouldn’t have—them cannons must have felt like something was radically wrong. The crews were loadin’ and firin’ and swabbin’ and loadin’ and firin’ ag’in—all jest ez busy ez beavers. But they plum overlooked one triflin’ detail which the military experts have always reguarded ez bein’ more or less essential to successful artillery operations. They forgot to aim in the general direction at the enemy. They done a plentiful lot of cheerin’, them gun crews did, and they burnt up a heap of powder and they raised a powerful racket and hullabaloo, but so fur ez visible results went they mout jest ez well have been bombardin’ the clear blue sky of heaven.

“Well, fur quite a spell we stayed up there on the brow of the hill, watchin’ that there engagement. Only you couldn’t properly call it an engagement—by rights it wasn’t nothin’ but a long distance flirtation. Now several of our boys had served one time or another with the guns. There was one little feller named Vince Hawley, out of Lyon’s Battery, that had been one of the crack gunners of the Western Army. He held in ez long ez he could and then he sings out:

“‘Boys, do you know whut’s ailin’ them pore mistreated little field-pieces down yonder? Well, I’ll tell you. They’re Confederate guns, born, bred, and baptised; and they’re cravin’ fur Confederate hands to pet ‘em. It mout be this’ll be the last chance a Southern soldier will ever git to fire a Southern gun. Who’ll go ‘long with me fur one farewell sashay with our own cannons?’

“In another minute eight or ten of our command were pilin’ off their horses and tearin’ down that little hill behind Vince Hawley and bustin’ in amongst the Mexies and laying violent but affectionate hands on one of the twelve-pounders. Right off, the natives perceived whut our fellers wanted to do and they fell back and gave ‘em elbow-room. Honest, son, it seemed like that field-piece recognised her own kind of folks, even ‘way off there on the aidge of a Mexican desert, and strove to respond to their wishes. The boys throwed a charge into her and Hawley sighted her and then—kerboom—off she went!

“Off the Imperial forces went, too. The charge landed right in amongst their front ranks ez they were advancin’—it happened to be their turn to charge—takin’ ‘em absolutely by surprise. There was a profound scatteration and then spontaneous-like the enemy seemed to come to a realisation of the fact that the other side had broke all the rules and was actually tryin’ to do ‘em a real damage. With one accord they turned tail and started in the general direction of the Isthmus of Panama. Ef they kept up the rate of travel at which they started, they arrived there inside of a week, too—or mebbe even sooner. I s’pose it depended largely on whether their feet held out.

“Hawley and his gang run the gun forward to the crest of a little swale ready to give the retreatin’ forces another treatment in case they should rally and re-form, but a second dose wasn’t needed. Howsomever, before the squad came back, they scouted acrost the field to see whut execution their lone charge had done. Near to where the shell had busted they gathered up six skeered soldiers—fellers that had dropped down, skeered but unhurt, when the smash come and had been layin’ there in a hollow in the ground, fearin’ the worst and hopin’ fur the best. So they brung ‘em back in with ‘em and turned ‘em over to the Liberals ez prisoners of war.

“The rest of us were canterin’ down on the flat by now. We arrived in time to observe that some of the victorious Liberals were engaged in lashin’ the prisoners’ elbows together with ropes, behind their backs, and that whut looked like a firin’ squad was linin’ up conveniently clos’t by. Billy Priest went and located a feller that could interpret after a fashion and inquired whut was the idea. The interpreter feller explained that the idea was to line them six prisoners up and shoot ‘em to death.

“‘Boys,’ says Billy, turnin’ to us, ‘I’m afeared we’ll have to interfere with the contemplated festivalities. Our friends are too gently-inclined durin’ the hostilities and too blame’ bloodthirsty afterward to suit me. Let us bid an adieu to ‘em and purceed upon our way. But first,’ he says, ‘let us break into the picture long enough to save those six poor devils standin’ over there in a row, all tied up like beef-critters fur the butcher.’

“So we rid in betwixt the condemned and the firin’ squad and by various devices such ez drawin’ our carbines and our six-shooters, we made plain our purpose. At that a wave of disappointment run right through the whole army. You could see it travellin’ frum face to face under the dirt that was on said faces. Even the prisoners seemed a trifle put-out and downcasted. Later we found out why. But nobody offered to raise a hand ag’inst us.

“‘All right then,’ says Billy Priest, ‘so fur so good. And now I think we’d better be resumin’ our journey, takin’ our captives with us. I’ve got a presentiment,’ he says, ‘that they’d probably enjoy better health travellin’ along with us than they would stayin’ on with these here Liberals.’

“‘How about them four field-pieces?’ says one of the boys, speakin’ up. ‘There’s plenty of hosses to haul ‘em. Hadn’t we better take them along with us, too? They’ll git awful lonesome bein’ left in such scurvy company—poor little things!’

“‘No,’ says Billy, ‘I reckin that wouldn’t be right. The prisoners are our’n by right of capture, but the guns ain’t. These fellers bought ‘em off Shelby’s brigade and they’re entitled to keep ‘em. But before we depart,’ he says, ‘it mout not be a bad idea to tinker with ‘em a little with a view to sort of puttin’ ‘em out of commission fur the time bein’. Our late hosts mout take a notion to turn ‘em on us, ez we are goin’ away frum ‘em and there’s a bare chance,’ he says, ‘that they might hit some of us—by accident.’

“So we tinkered with the guns and then we moved out in hollow formation with the six prisoners marchin’ along in the middle and not a soul undertakin’ to halt us ez we went. On the whole them Liberals seemed right pleased to get shet of us. But when we’d gone along fur a mile or so, one of the Mexicans flopped down on his knees and begin to jabber. And then the other five follered suit and jabbered with him. After ‘while it dawned on us that they were beggin’ us to kill ‘em quick and not torture ‘em, they thinkin’ we’d only saved ‘em frum bein’ shot in order to do something much more painful to ‘em at our leisure. So then four or five of the boys dropped down off their mounts and untied ‘em and faced ‘em about so the open country was in front of ‘em and give ‘em a friendly kick or two frum behind ez a notice to ‘em to be on their way. They lit out into the scrub and were gone the same ez ef they’d been so many Molly Cottontails.

“Fur upward of a week then, we moved along, headin’ mighty nigh due South. Considerin’ that the country was supposed to be in the midst of civil war we saw powerful few evidences of it ez we rode through. Life fur the humble Mexican appeared to be waggin’ along about ez usual, but was nothin’ to brag about, at that. We seen him ploughin’ amongst the prevalent desolation with a forked piece of wood, one fork bein’ hitched to a yoke of oxen and the other fork bein’ shod with a little strip of rusty iron. We seen him languidly gatherin’ his wheat, him goin’ ahead and pullin’ it up out of the ground, roots and all and pilin’ it in puny heaps, and then the women cornin’ along behind him and tyin’ it in little bunches with strings. Another place we seen him and his women folks threshin’ grain by beatin’ it with sticks and dependin’ on the wind to help ‘em winnow the wheat from the chaff jest ez it is written ‘twas done in the Bible days. We seen him in his hours of ease, fightin’ his chicken-cock against some other feller’s game-bird, and gamblin’ and scratchin’ his flea-bites and the more we seen of him the less we seemed to keer fur him. He mout of been all right in his way, but he wasn’t our kind of folks; I reckin that was it.

“And he repaid the compliment by not appearin’ to keer very deeply fur us strangers neither, but the women seemed to take to us, mightily. They’d come out to us frum their little dried mud cabins bringin’ us beans and them flat batter-cakes of their’n and even sometimes milk and butter. Also they gave us roughage fur our hosses and wouldn’t take pay fur none of it, indicatin’ by signs that it was all a free gift. Whut between the grazin’ they got and the dried fodder the women gave us, our hosses took on flesh and weren’t sech ga’nted crowbaits ez they had been.

“Seven days of traversin’ that miser’ble land and then, son, we ran smack into the Imperial scouts and found we’d arrived within less ‘en a day’s march of the city of Monterey. Purty soon out come a detachment of cavalry to meet us and inquire into our business and a most Godforsaken lookin’ bunch they were, but with ‘em they had half a dozen Confederates—Missoury boys, all of ‘em exceptin’ one, him bein’ frum Louisiana; and these here Missoury fellers told us some news. It seemed that after Shelby and Price and Hindman got to Monterey their little army had split in two, most of its members headin’ off toward the City of Mexico with no purticular object in view so fur ez anybody knowed but jest filled with a restless cravin’ to stay in the saddle and keep movin’, and the rest strikin’ Westward toward the Pacific Coast.

“But about two hundred of ‘em had stayed behind and enlisted at Monterey, havin’ been given a bounty of six hundred dollars apiece and a promise of one hundred dollars a month in pay ef they’d fight fur Maximilian. The delegation that had rode out to meet us now were part and parcel of that two hundred. They seemed tickled to death to see us and they bragged about the money they were gittin’, but ef you watched ‘em kind of clos’t you could tell, mighty easy, they weren’t exactly overjoyed and carried away with enthusiasm over their present jobs. They told us in confidence that the French officers in their army were fine soldiers and done the best they could with the material they had, but that the rank and file were small potatoes and few in the hill. In fact, we gathered frum remarks let fall here and there that after servin’ ez a Confederate fur a period of years and fightin’ ag’inst husky fellers frum Indiana or Kansas or Michigan or somewheres up that way, bein’ a soldier of fortune with the Imperials and fightin’ ag’inst the Liberals was, comparatively speakin’, a mighty tame pursuit—that you’d probably live longer so doin’, but you wouldn’t have anywheres near the excitement. On top of all that, though, they extended a cordial invitation to us to go on back to Monterey with ‘em and enlist under the Maximilian government.

“Some of our outfit seemed to sort of lean toward the proposition and some to sort of lean ag’inst it, without exactly statin’ their reasons why and wherefore. But amongst us all there wasn’t a man but whut relied mighty implicit on Billy Priest’s judgment, and besides which, you’ve got to remember, son, that discipline had come to be a sort of an ingrained habit with us. We’d got used to lookin’ to our leaders to show us the way and give us our orders and then we’d try to obey ‘em, spite of hell and high water. That’s the way it had been with us for four long years and that’s the way it still was with us. So under the circumstances, with sentiment divided ez it was, we-all waited to see how Billy Priest felt, because ez I jest told you, we imposed a heap of confidence in his views on purty near any subject you mout mention. The final say-so bein’ put up to him, he studied a little and then he said to the Missoury boys that hearin’ frum them about the Confederacy havin’ split up into pieces had injected a new and a different aspect into the case and in his belief it was a thing that needed thinkin’ over and mebbe sleepin’ on. Accordin’ly, ef it was all the same to them, he’d like to wait till next mornin’ before comin’ to a definite decision and he believed that in this his associates would concur with him. That was agreeable to the fellers that had brung us the invitation, or ef it wasn’t they let on like it was anyhow, and so we left the matter standin’ where it was without further argument on their part.

“They told us good-by and expressed the hope that they’d see us next day in Monterey and then they rid on back to headquarters to report progress on the part of the committee on new members and to ask further time, I s’pose. Ez fur us, we went into camp right where we was.

“Most of us suspicioned that after we’d fed the hosses and et our supper Billy would call a sort of caucus and git the sense of the meetin’, but he didn’t take no steps in that direction and of course nobody else felt qualified to do so. After a while the fires we’d lit to cook our victuals on begin to die down low and the boys started to turn in. There wasn’t much talkin’ or singin’, or skylarkin’ round, but a whole heap of thinkin’ was goin’ on—you could feel it in the air. I was layin’ there on the ground under my old ragged blankets with my saddle fur a pillow and the sky fur my bed canopy, but I didn’t drop right off like I usually done. I was busy ponderin’ over in my mind quite a number of things. I remember how gash’ly and on-earthly them old cactus plants looked, loomin’ up all ‘round me there in the darkness and how strange the stars looked, a-shinin’ overhead. They didn’t seem like the same stars we’d been used to sleepin’ under before we come on down here into Mexico. Even the new moon had a different look, ez though it was another moon frum the one that had furnished light fur us to go possum-huntin’ by when we were striplin’ boys growin’ up. This here one was a lonesome, strange, furreign-lookin’ moon, ef you git my meanin’? Anyhow it seemed so to me.

“Somebody spoke my name right alongside of me, and I tum’t over and raised up my head and there was Billy Priest hunkered down. He had a little scrap of dried greasewood in his hand and he was scratchin’ with it in the dirt in a kind of an absent-minded way.

“‘You ain’t asleep yet, Jimmy?’ he says to me.

“‘No,’ I says, ‘I’ve been layin’here, study-in’.’

“‘That so?’ he says. ‘Whut about in particular?’

“‘Oh nothin’ in particular,’ I says, ‘jest studyin’.’

“He don’t say anything more fur a minute; jest keepin’ on makin’ little marks in the dirt with the end of his stick. Then he says to me: “‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I’ve been doin’ right smart thinkin’ myself.’

“‘Have you?’ I says.

“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I have. I’ve been thinkin’ that whilst peppers make quite spicy eatin’ and beans are claimed to be very nourishin’ articles of food, still when taken to excess they’re liable to pall on the palate, sooner or later.’

“‘They certainly are,’ I says.

“‘Let’s see,’ he says. ‘This is the last week in July, ain’t it? Back in God’s country, the first of the home-grown watermelons oughter be comin’ in about now, oughten they? And in about another week from now they’ll be pickin’ those great big stripedy rattlesnake melons that grow in the river bottoms down below town, won’t they?’

“‘Yes,’ I says, ‘they will, ef the season ain’t been rainy and set ‘em back.’

“‘Let us hope it ain’t,’ he says, and I could hear his stick scratchin’ in the grit of that desert land, makin’ a scrabblin’ itchy kind of sound.

“‘Jimmy Bagby,’ he says, ‘any man’s liable to make a mistake sometimes, but that don’t necessarily stamp him ez a fool onlessen he sticks to it too long after he’s found out it is a mistake.’

“‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I can’t take issue with you there.’”

“‘F’r instance now,’ he says, ‘you take a remark which I let fall some weeks back touch-in’ on flags. Well I’ve been thinkin’ that remark over, Jimmy, and I’ve about come to the conclusion that ef a man has to give up the flag he fout under and can’t have it no longer, he mout in time come to be equally comfortable in the shadder of the flag he was born under. He might even come to love ‘em both, mighty sincerely—lovin’ one fur whut it meant to him once’t and fur all the traditions and all the memories it stands fur, and lovin’ the other fur whut it may mean to him now and whut it’s liable to mean to his children and their children.’

“‘But Billy,’ I says, ‘when all is said and done, we fit in defence of a constitutional principle.’

“‘You bet we did,’ he says; ‘but it’s mostly all been said and it’s practically all been done. I figger it out this way, Jimmy. Reguardless of the merits of a given case, ef a man fights fur whut he thinks is right, so fur ez he pussonally is concerned, he fights fur whut is right. I ain’t expectin’ it to happen yit awhile, but I’m willin’ to bet you something that in the days ahead both sides will come to feel jest that way about it too.’

“‘Do you think so, Billy?’ I says.

“‘Jimmy,’ he say, ‘I don’t only think so—I jest natchelly knows so. I feel it in my bones.’

“‘Then I persume you must be correct,’ I says.

“He waits a minute and then he says: ‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I don’t believe I’d ever make a success ez one of these here passenger-pigeons. Now, a passenger-pigeon ain’t got no regular native land of his own. He loves one country part of the time and another country part of the time, dividin’ his seasons betwixt ‘em. Now with me I’m afraid it’s different.’

“‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I’ve about re’ch the conclusion that I wasn’t cut out to be a passenger-pigeon, neither.’

“He waits a minute, me holdin’ back fur him to speak and wonderin’ whut his next subject is goin’ to be. Bill Priest always was a master one to ramble in his conversations. After a while he speaks, very pensive:

“‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘ef a man was to git up on a hoss, say to-morrow momin’ and ride along right stiddy he’d jest about git home by hog-killin’ time, wouldn’t he?’

“‘Jest about,’ I says, ‘ef nothin’ serious happened to delay him on the way.’

“‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘the spare ribs and the chitterlin’s would jest about be ripe when he arrove back.’

“I didn’t make no answer to that—my mouth was waterin’ so I couldn’t speak. Besides there didn’t seem to be nothin’ to say.

“‘The fall revivals ought to be startin’ up about then, too,’ he says, ‘old folks gittin’ religion all over ag’in and the mourners’ bench overflowin’, and off in the back pews and in the dark comers young folks flirtin’ with one another and holdin’ hands under cover of the hymn-books. But all the girls we left behind us have probably got new beaux by now, don’t you reckin?’

“‘Yes, Billy,’ I says, ‘I reckin they have and I don’t know ez I could blame ‘em much neither, whut with us streakin’ ‘way off down here like a passel of idiots.’

“He gits up and throws away his stick.

“‘Well, Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I’m powerful glad to find out we agree on so many topics. Well, good night,’ he says.

“‘Good night,’ I says, and then I rolled over and went right off to sleep. But before I dropped off I ketched a peep of Billy Priest, squattin’ down alongside one of the other boys, and doubtless fixin’ to read that other feller’s thoughts like a book the same ez he’d jest been readin’ mine.

“Well, son, the next mornin’ at sun-up we were all up, too. We had our breakfast, sech ez it was, and broke camp and mounted and started off with Billy Priest ridin’ at the head of the column and me stickin’ clos’t beside him. I didn’t know fur sure whut was on the mind of anybody else in that there cavalcade of gentlemen rangers, but I was mighty certain about whut I aimed to do. I aimed to stick with Billy Priest; that’s whut. Strange to say, nobody ast any questions about whut we were goin’ to do with reguards to them Imperalists waitin’ there fur us in Monterey. You never saw such a silent lot of troopers in your life. There wasn’t no singin’ nor laughin’ and mighty little talkin’. But fur half an hour or so there was some good, stiddy lopin’.

“Presently one of the boys pulled out of line and spurred up alongside of our chief.

“‘S’cuse me, commander,’ he says, ‘but it begins to look to me like we were back trackin’ on our own trail.’

“Billy looks at him, grinnin’ a little through his whiskers. We all had whiskers on our faces, or the startin’s of ‘em.

“‘Bless my soul, I believe you’re right!’ says Billy. ‘Why, you’ve got the makin’s of a scout in you.’

“‘But look here,’ says the other feller, still sort of puzzled-like, ‘that means we’re headin’ due North, don’t it?’

“‘It means I’m headin’ North,’ says Billy, and at that he quit grinnin’. ‘But you, nor no one else in this troop don’t have to fol-ler along onlessen you’re minded so to do. Every man here is a free agent and his own boss. And ef anybody is dissatisfied with the route I’m takin’ and favours some other, I’d like fur him to come out now and say so. It won’t take me more’n thirty seconds to resign my leadership.’

“‘Oh, that’s all right,’ says the other feller, ‘I was merely astin’ the question, that’s all. I ain’t dissatisfied. I voted fur you ez commander fur the entire campaign—not fur jest part of it. I was fur you when we elected you, and I’m fur you yit.’

“And with that he wheeled and racked along back to his place. Purty soon Billy looked over his shoulder along the column and an idea struck him. Not fur behind him Tom Moss was joggin’ along with his old battered banjo swung acrost his back. Havin’ toted that there banjo of his’n all through the war he’d likewise brought it along with him into Mexico. He had a mighty pleasin’ voice, too, and the way he could sing and play that song about him bein’ a good old rebel and not carin’ a dam’ made you feel that he didn’t care a dam’, neither. Billy beckoned to him and Tom rid up alongside and Billy whispered something in his ear. Tom’s face all lit up then and he on-slung his banjo frum over his shoulder and throwed one laig over his saddle-bow and hit the strings a couple of licks and reared his head back and in another second he was singin’ at the top of his voice. But this time he wasn’t singin’ the song about bein’ a good old rebel. He was singin’ the one that begins:

The sun shines bright on my Old Kintucky Home; ‘Tis Summer, the darkies are gay, The corn tops are ripe and the medders are in bloom, And the birds make music all the day.’

“In another minute everybody else was singin’, too—singin’ and gallopin’. Son, you never in your whole life seen so many hairy, ragged, rusty fellers on hoss-back a-tear in’ along through the dust of a strange land, actin’ like they were all in a powerful hurry to git somewheres and skeered the gates would be shut before they arrived. Boy, listen: the homesickness jest popped out through my pores like perspiration.