CHAPTER XVIII
COL. GRANGERFORD was a gentleman, you see. He was a
gentleman all over; and so was his family. He was
well born, as the saying is, and that's worth as
much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow
Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of
the first aristocracy in our town; and pap he always
said it, too, though he warn't no more quality than
a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and
very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a
sign of red in it anywheres; he was clean shaved
every morning all over his thin face, and he had the
thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of
nostrils, and a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and
the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that
they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at
you, as you may say. His forehead was high, and his
hair was black and straight and hung to his
shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and every
day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full
suit from head to foot made out of linen so white it
hurt your eyes to look at it; and on Sundays he wore
a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it. He
carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it.
There warn't no frivolishness about him, not a bit,
and he warn't ever loud. He was as kind as he could
be -- you could feel that, you know, and so you had
confidence. Some-
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times he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he
straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the
lightning begun to flicker out from under his
eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first, and find
out what the matter was afterwards. He didn't ever
have to tell anybody to mind their manners --
everybody was always good-mannered where he was.
Everybody loved to have him around, too; he was
sunshine most always -- I mean he made it seem like
good weather. When he turned into a cloudbank it was
awful dark for half a minute, and that was enough;
there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week.
When him and the old lady come down in the morning
all the family got up out of their chairs and give
them good-day, and didn't set down again till they
had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard
where the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters
and handed it to him, and he held it in his hand and
waited till Tom's and Bob's was mixed, and then they
bowed and said, "Our duty to you, sir, and madam;"
and they bowed the least bit in the world and said
thank you, and so they drank, all three, and Bob and
Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and the
mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of
their tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we
drank to the old people too.
Bob was the oldest and Tom next -- tall, beautiful
men with very broad shoulders and brown faces, and
long black hair and black eyes. They dressed in
white linen from head to foot, like the old
gentleman, and wore broad Panama hats.
Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five,
and tall and proud and grand, but as good as she
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could be when she warn't stirred up; but when she
was she had a look that would make you wilt in your
tracks, like her father. She was beautiful.
So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a
different kind. She was gentle and sweet like a
dove, and she was only twenty.
Each person had their own nigger to wait on them --
Buck too. My nigger had a monstrous easy time,
because I warn't used to having anybody do anything
for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time.
This was all there was of the family now, but there
used to be more -- three sons; they got killed; and
Emmeline that died.
The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a
hundred niggers. Sometimes a stack of people would
come there, horseback, from ten or fifteen mile
around, and stay five or six days, and have such
junketings round about and on the river, and dances
and picnics in the woods daytimes, and balls at the
house nights. These people was mostly kinfolks of
the family. The men brought their guns with them. It
was a handsome lot of quality, I tell you.
There was another clan of aristocracy around there
-- five or six families -- mostly of the name of
Shepherdson. They was as high-toned and well born
and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The
Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same
steam-boat landing, which was about two mile above
our house; so sometimes when I went up there with a
lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the
Shepherdsons there on their fine horses.
One day Buck and me was away out in the woods
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hunting, and heard a horse coming. We was crossing
the road. Buck says:
"Quick! Jump for the woods!"
We done it, and then peeped down the woods through
the leaves. Pretty soon a splendid young man come
galloping down the road, setting his horse easy and
looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his
pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney
Shepherdson. I heard Buck's gun go off at my ear,
and Harney's hat tumbled off from his head. He
grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where
we was hid. But we didn't wait. We started through
the woods on a run. The woods warn't thick, so I
looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet, and
twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and
then he rode away the way he come -- to get his hat,
I reckon, but I couldn't see. We never stopped
running till we got home. The old gentleman's eyes
blazed a minute -- 'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged
-- then his face sort of smoothed down, and he says,
kind of gentle:
"I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why
didn't you step into the road, my boy?"
"The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take
advantage."
Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen
while Buck was telling his tale, and her nostrils
spread and her eyes snapped. The two young men
looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she
turned pale, but the color come back when she found
the man warn't hurt.
Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs
under the trees by ourselves, I says:
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"Did you want to kill him, Buck?"
"Well, I bet I did."
"What did he do to you?"
"Him? He never done nothing to me."
"Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?"
"Why, nothing -- only it's on account of the feud."
"What's a feud?"
"Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a
feud is?"
"Never heard of it before -- tell me about it."
"Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way: A man has a
quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that
other man's brother kills him; then the other
brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then
the cousins chip in -- and by and by everybody's
killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's
kind of slow, and takes a long time."
"Has this one been going on long, Buck?"
"Well, I should reckon! It started thirty year ago,
or som'ers along there. There was trouble 'bout
something, and then a lawsuit to settle it; and the
suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot
the man that won the suit -- which he would
naturally do, of course. Anybody would."
"What was the trouble about, Buck? -- land?"
"I reckon maybe -- I don't know."
"Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford
or a Shepherdson?"
"Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago."
"Don't anybody know?"
"Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other
old people; but they don't know now what the row was
about in the first place."
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"Has there been many killed, Buck?"
"Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don't
always kill. Pa's got a few buckshot in him; but he
don't mind it 'cuz he don't weigh much, anyway.
Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's
been hurt once or twice."
"Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?"
"Yes; we got one and they got one. 'Bout three
months ago my cousin Bud, fourteen year old, was
riding through the woods on t'other side of the
river, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was
blame' foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears
a horse a-coming behind him, and sees old Baldy
Shepherdson a-linkin' after him with his gun in his
hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and
'stead of jumping off and taking to the brush, Bud
'lowed he could outrun him; so they had it, nip and
tuck, for five mile or more, the old man a-gaining
all the time; so at last Bud seen it warn't any use,
so he stopped and faced around so as to have the
bullet holes in front, you know, and the old man he
rode up and shot him down. But he didn't git much
chance to enjoy his luck, for inside of a week our
folks laid him out."
"I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck."
"I reckon he warn't a coward. Not by a blame' sight.
There ain't a coward amongst them Shepherdsons --
not a one. And there ain't no cowards amongst the
Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep' up his
end in a fight one day for half an hour against
three Grangerfords, and come out winner. They was
all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse and got
behind a little woodpile, and kep' his horse before
him to stop the bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed
on their
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horses and capered around the old man, and peppered
away at him, and he peppered away at them. Him and
his horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled,
but the Grangerfords had to be fetched home -- and
one of 'em was dead, and another died the next day.
No, sir; if a body's out hunting for cowards he
don't want to fool away any time amongst them
Shepherdsons, becuz they don't breed any of that
kind."
Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile,
everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns
along, so did Buck, and kept them between their
knees or stood them handy against the wall. The
Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery
preaching -- all about brotherly love, and such-like
tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good
sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and
had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good
works and free grace and preforeordestination, and I
don't know what all, that it did seem to me to be
one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.
About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing
around, some in their chairs and some in their
rooms, and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and a dog
was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound
asleep. I went up to our room, and judged I would
take a nap myself. I found that sweet Miss Sophia
standing in her door, which was next to ours, and
she took me in her room and shut the door very soft,
and asked me if I liked her, and I said I did; and
she asked me if I would do something for her and not
tell anybody, and I said I would. Then she said
she'd forgot her Testament, and left it in the seat
at church between two
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other books, and would I slip out quiet and go there
and fetch it to her, and not say nothing to nobody.
I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the
road, and there warn't anybody at the church, except
maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the
door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time
because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't
go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is
different.
Says I to myself, something's up; it ain't natural
for a girl to be in such a sweat about a Testament.
So I give it a shake, and out drops a little piece
of paper with "Half-past two" wrote on it with a
pencil. I ransacked it, but couldn't find anything
else. I couldn't make anything out of that, so I put
the paper in the book again, and when I got home and
upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting
for me. She pulled me in and shut the door; then she
looked in the Testament till she found the paper,
and as soon as she read it she looked glad; and
before a body could think she grabbed me and give me
a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world,
and not to tell anybody. She was mighty red in the
face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it
made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal
astonished, but when I got my breath I asked her
what the paper was about, and she asked me if I had
read it, and I said no, and she asked me if I could
read writing, and I told her "no, only coarse-hand,"
and then she said the paper warn't anything but a
book-mark to keep her place, and I might go and play
now.
I went off down to the river, studying over this
thing, and pretty soon I noticed that my nigger was
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following along behind. When we was out of sight of
the house he looked back and around a second, and
then comes a-running, and says:
"Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll
show you a whole stack o' water-moccasins."
Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that
yesterday. He oughter know a body don't love
water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for
them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says:
"All right; trot ahead."
I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over
the swamp, and waded ankle deep as much as another
half-mile. We come to a little flat piece of land
which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes
and vines, and he says:
"You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars
Jawge; dah's whah dey is. I's seed 'm befo'; I don't
k'yer to see 'em no mo'."
Then he slopped right along and went away, and
pretty soon the trees hid him. I poked into the
place a-ways and come to a little open patch as big
as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a
man laying there asleep -- and, by jings, it was my
old Jim!
I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a
grand surprise to him to see me again, but it
warn't. He nearly cried he was so glad, but he
warn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me that
night, and heard me yell every time, but dasn't
answer, because he didn't want nobody to pick him up
and take him into slavery again. Says he:
"I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I
wuz a considable ways behine you towards de las';
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when you landed I reck'ned I could ketch up wid you
on de lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I
see dat house I begin to go slow. I 'uz off too fur
to hear what dey say to you -- I wuz 'fraid o' de
dogs; but when it 'uz all quiet agin I knowed you's
in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait
for day. Early in de mawnin' some er de niggers come
along, gwyne to de fields, en dey tuk me en showed
me dis place, whah de dogs can't track me on
accounts o' de water, en dey brings me truck to eat
every night, en tells me how you's a-gitt'n along."
"Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here
sooner, Jim?"
"Well, 'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we
could do sumfn -- but we's all right now. I ben
a-buyin' pots en pans en vittles, as I got a chanst,
en a-patchin' up de raf' nights when -- "
"What raft, Jim?"
"Our ole raf'."
"You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to
flinders?"
"No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal -- one
en' of her was; but dey warn't no great harm done,
on'y our traps was mos' all los'. Ef we hadn' dive'
so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night
hadn' ben so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben
sich punkin-heads, as de sayin' is, we'd a seed de
raf'. But it's jis' as well we didn't, 'kase now
she's all fixed up agin mos' as good as new, en we's
got a new lot o' stuff, in de place o' what 'uz
los'."
"Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim --
did you catch her?"
"How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods?
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No; some er de niggers foun' her ketched on a snag
along heah in de ben', en dey hid her in a crick
'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout
which un 'um she b'long to de mos' dat I come to
heah 'bout it pooty soon, so I ups en settles de
trouble by tellin' 'um she don't b'long to none uv
um, but to you en me; en I ast 'm if dey gwyne to
grab a young white genlman's propaty, en git a hid'n
for it? Den I gin 'm ten cents apiece, en dey 'uz
mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo' raf's 'ud
come along en make 'm rich agin. Dey's mighty good
to me, dese niggers is, en whatever I wants 'm to do
fur me I doan' have to ast 'm twice, honey. Dat
Jack's a good nigger, en pooty smart."
"Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here;
told me to come, and he'd show me a lot of
water-moccasins. If anything happens he ain't mixed
up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and
it 'll be the truth."
I don't want to talk much about the next day. I
reckon I'll cut it pretty short. I waked up about
dawn, and was a-going to turn over and go to sleep
again when I noticed how still it was -- didn't seem
to be anybody stirring. That warn't usual. Next I
noticed that Buck was up and gone. Well, I gets up,
a-wondering, and goes down stairs -- nobody around;
everything as still as a mouse. Just the same
outside. Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the
wood-pile I comes across my Jack, and says:
"What's it all about?"
Says he:
"Don't you know, Mars Jawge?"
"No," says I, "I don't."
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"Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has.
She run off in de night some time -- nobody don't
know jis' when; run off to get married to dat young
Harney Shepherdson, you know -- leastways, so dey
'spec. De fambly foun' it out 'bout half an hour ago
-- maybe a little mo' -- en' I tell you dey warn't
no time los'. Sich another hurryin' up guns en
hosses you never see! De women folks has gone for to
stir up de relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys
tuck dey guns en rode up de river road for to try to
ketch dat young man en kill him 'fo' he kin git
acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n dey's
gwyne to be mighty rough times."
"Buck went off 'thout waking me up."
"Well, I reck'n he did! Dey warn't gwyne to mix you
up in it. Mars Buck he loaded up his gun en 'lowed
he's gwyne to fetch home a Shepherdson or bust.
Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en you
bet you he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst."
I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By
and by I begin to hear guns a good ways off. When I
came in sight of the log store and the woodpile
where the steamboats lands I worked along under the
trees and brush till I got to a good place, and then
I clumb up into the forks of a cottonwood that was
out of reach, and watched. There was a wood-rank
four foot high a little ways in front of the tree,
and first I was going to hide behind that; but maybe
it was luckier I didn't.
There was four or five men cavorting around on their
horses in the open place before the log store,
cussing and yelling, and trying to get at a couple
of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank
alongside
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of the steamboat landing; but they couldn't come it.
Every time one of them showed himself on the river
side of the woodpile he got shot at. The two boys
was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they
could watch both ways.
By and by the men stopped cavorting around and
yelling. They started riding towards the store; then
up gets one of the boys, draws a steady bead over
the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his
saddle. All the men jumped off of their horses and
grabbed the hurt one and started to carry him to the
store; and that minute the two boys started on the
run. They got half way to the tree I was in before
the men noticed. Then the men see them, and jumped
on their horses and took out after them. They gained
on the boys, but it didn't do no good, the boys had
too good a start; they got to the wood-pile that was
in front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and
so they had the bulge on the men again. One of the
boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap
about nineteen years old.
The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As
soon as they was out of sight I sung out to Buck and
told him. He didn't know what to make of my voice
coming out of the tree at first. He was awful
surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him
know when the men come in sight again; said they was
up to some devilment or other -- wouldn't be gone
long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn't
come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed
that him and his cousin Joe (that was the other
young chap) would make up for this day yet. He said
his father and his two brothers
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was killed, and two or three of the enemy. Said the
Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck said his
father and brothers ought to waited for their
relations -- the Shepherdsons was too strong for
them. I asked him what was become of young Harney
and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across the river
and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck
did take on because he didn't manage to kill Harney
that day he shot at him -- I hain't ever heard
anything like it.
All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or
four guns -- the men had slipped around through the
woods and come in from behind without their horses!
The boys jumped for the river -- both of them hurt
-- and as they swum down the current the men run
along the bank shooting at them and singing out,
"Kill them, kill them!" It made me so sick I most
fell out of the tree. I ain't a-going to tell all
that happened -- it would make me sick again if I
was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore
that night to see such things. I ain't ever going to
get shut of them -- lots of times I dream about
them.
I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark,
afraid to come down. Sometimes I heard guns away off
in the woods; and twice I seen little gangs of men
gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned
the trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty
downhearted; so I made up my mind I wouldn't ever go
anear that house again, because I reckoned I was to
blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper
meant that Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres
at half-past two and run off; and I judged I ought
to told her father about that paper and the curious
way she acted, and then maybe he would a
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locked her up, and this awful mess wouldn't ever
happened.
When I got down out of the tree I crept along down
the river bank a piece, and found the two bodies
laying in the edge of the water, and tugged at them
till I got them ashore; then I covered up their
faces, and got away as quick as I could. I cried a
little when I was covering up Buck's face, for he
was mighty good to me.
It was just dark now. I never went near the house,
but struck through the woods and made for the swamp.
Jim warn't on his island, so I tramped off in a
hurry for the crick, and crowded through the
willows, red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that
awful country. The raft was gone! My souls, but I
was scared! I couldn't get my breath for most a
minute. Then I raised a yell. A voice not
twenty-five foot from me says:
"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise."
It was Jim's voice -- nothing ever sounded so good
before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard,
and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad
to see me. He says:
"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's
dead agin. Jack's been heah; he say he reck'n you's
ben shot, kase you didn' come home no mo'; so I's
jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de
mouf er de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove
out en leave soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for
certain you is dead. Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git
you back again, honey.
I says:
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"All right -- that's mighty good; they won't find
me, and they'll think I've been killed, and floated
down the river -- there's something up there that
'll help them think so -- so don't you lose no time,
Jim, but just shove off for the big water as fast as
ever you can."
I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below
there and out in the middle of the Mississippi. Then
we hung up our signal lantern, and judged that we
was free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to
eat since yesterday, so Jim he got out some
corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage
and greens -- there ain't nothing in the world so
good when it's cooked right -- and whilst I eat my
supper we talked and had a good time. I was powerful
glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to
get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no
home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so
cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel
mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.
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