CHAPTER XXI
IT was after sun-up now, but we went right on and
didn't tie up. The king and the duke turned out by
and by looking pretty rusty; but after they'd jumped
overboard and took a swim it chippered them up a
good deal. After breakfast the king he took a seat
on the corner of the raft, and pulled off his boots
and rolled up his britches, and let his legs dangle
in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his
pipe, and went to getting his Romeo and Juliet by
heart. When he had got it pretty good him and the
duke begun to practice it together. The duke had to
learn him over and over again how to say every
speech; and he made him sigh, and put his hand on
his heart, and after a while he said he done it
pretty well; "only," he says, "you mustn't bellow
out Romeo! that way, like a bull -- you must say it
soft and sick and languishy, so -- R-o-o-meo! that
is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of
a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a
jackass."
Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that
the duke made out of oak laths, and begun to
practice the sword fight -- the duke called himself
Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced
around the raft was grand to see. But by and by the
king tripped and fell overboard, and after that they
took a rest, and had a talk about all kinds
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of adventures they'd had in other times along the
river.
After dinner the duke says:
"Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class
show, you know, so I guess we'll add a little more
to it. We want a little something to answer encores
with, anyway."
"What's onkores, Bilgewater?"
The duke told him, and then says:
"I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the
sailor's hornpipe; and you -- well, let me see --
oh, I've got it -- you can do Hamlet's soliloquy."
"Hamlet's which?"
"Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated
thing in Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime, sublime!
Always fetches the house. I haven't got it in the
book -- I've only got one volume -- but I reckon I
can piece it out from memory. I'll just walk up and
down a minute, and see if I can call it back from
recollection's vaults."
So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and
frowning horrible every now and then; then he would
hoist up his eyebrows; next he would squeeze his
hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of
moan; next he would sigh, and next he'd let on to
drop a tear. It was beautiful to see him. By and by
he got it. He told us to give attention. Then he
strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved
forwards, and his arms stretched away up, and his
head tilted back, looking up at the sky; and then he
begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after
that, all through his speech, he howled, and spread
around, and swelled up his chest, and just knocked
the spots out of
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any acting ever I see before. This is the speech --
I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it
to the king:
To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come
to Dunsinane,
But that the fear of something after death
Murders the innocent sleep,
Great nature's second course,
And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous
fortune
Than fly to others that we know not of.
There's the respect must give us pause:
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The law's delay, and the quietus which his pangs
might take,
In the dead waste and middle of the night, when
churchyards yawn
In customary suits of solemn black,
But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne
no traveler returns,
Breathes forth contagion on the world,
And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor
cat i' the adage,
Is sicklied o'er with care,
And all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery -- go!
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Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he
mighty soon got it so he could do it first-rate. It
seemed like he was just born for it; and when he had
his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely
the way he would rip and tear and rair up behind
when he was getting it off.
The first chance we got the duke he had some
show-bills printed; and after that, for two or three
days as we floated along, the raft was a most
uncommon lively place, for there warn't nothing but
sword fighting and rehearsing -- as the duke called
it -- going on all the time. One morning, when we
was pretty well down the State of Arkansaw, we come
in sight of a little one-horse town in a big bend;
so we tied up about three-quarters of a mile above
it, in the mouth of a crick which was shut in like a
tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim
took the canoe and went down there to see if there
was any chance in that place for our show.
We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a
circus there that afternoon, and the country people
was already beginning to come in, in all kinds of
old shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would
leave before night, so our show would have a pretty
good chance. The duke he hired the courthouse, and
we went around and stuck up our bills. They read
like this:
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Shaksperean Revival ! ! !
Wonderful Attraction!
For One Night Only!
The world renowned tragedians,
David Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane Theatre
London,
and
Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket
Theatre,
Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and
the
Royal Continental Theatres, in their sublime
Shaksperean Spectacle entitled
The Balcony Scene
in
Romeo and Juliet ! ! !
Romeo...................Mr. Garrick
Juliet..................Mr. Kean
Assisted by the whole strength of the company!
New costumes, new scenes, new appointments!
Also:
The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling
Broad-sword conflict
In Richard III. ! ! !
Richard III.............Mr. Garrick
Richmond................Mr. Kean
Also:
(by special request)
Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy ! !
By The Illustrious Kean!
Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!
For One Night Only,
On account of imperative European engagements!
Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.
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Then we went loafing around town. The stores and
houses was most all old, shackly, dried up frame
concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they was set
up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as
to be out of reach of the water when the river was
over-flowed. The houses had little gardens around
them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything
in them but jimpson-weeds, and sunflowers, and ash
piles, and old curled-up boots and shoes, and pieces
of bottles, and rags, and played-out tinware. The
fences was made of different kinds of boards, nailed
on at different times; and they leaned every which
way, and had gates that didn't generly have but one
hinge -- a leather one. Some of the fences had been
white-washed some time or another, but the duke said
it was in Clumbus' time, like enough. There was
generly hogs in the garden, and people driving them
out.
All the stores was along one street. They had white
domestic awnings in front, and the country people
hitched their horses to the awning-posts. There was
empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers
roosting on them all day long, whittling them with
their Barlow knives; and chawing tobacco, and gaping
and yawning and stretching -- a mighty ornery lot.
They generly had on yellow straw hats most as wide
as an umbrella, but didn't wear no coats nor
waistcoats, they called one another Bill, and Buck,
and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and
drawly, and used considerable many cuss words. There
was as many as one loafer leaning up against every
awning-post, and he most always had his hands in his
britches-pockets, except when he fetched them out to
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lend a chaw of tobacco or scratch. What a body was
hearing amongst them all the time was:
"Gimme a chaw 'v tobacker, Hank "
"Cain't; I hain't got but one chaw left. Ask Bill."
Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and
says he ain't got none. Some of them kinds of
loafers never has a cent in the world, nor a chaw of
tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by
borrowing; they say to a fellow, "I wisht you'd len'
me a chaw, Jack, I jist this minute give Ben
Thompson the last chaw I had" -- which is a lie
pretty much everytime; it don't fool nobody but a
stranger; but Jack ain't no stranger, so he says:
"You give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's
cat's grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you've
awready borry'd off'n me, Lafe Buckner, then I'll
loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you
no back intrust, nuther."
"Well, I did pay you back some of it wunst."
"Yes, you did -- 'bout six chaws. You borry'd store
tobacker and paid back nigger-head."
Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows
mostly chaws the natural leaf twisted. When they
borrow a chaw they don't generly cut it off with a
knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and
gnaw with their teeth and tug at the plug with their
hands till they get it in two; then sometimes the
one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it when
it's handed back, and says, sarcastic:
"Here, gimme the chaw, and you take the plug."
All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn't
nothing else but mud -- mud as black as tar and nigh
about a foot deep in some places, and two or three
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inches deep in all the places. The hogs loafed and
grunted around everywheres. You'd see a muddy sow
and a litter of pigs come lazying along the street
and whollop herself right down in the way, where
folks had to walk around her, and she'd stretch out
and shut her eyes and wave her ears whilst the pigs
was milking her, and look as happy as if she was on
salary. And pretty soon you'd hear a loafer sing
out, "Hi! so boy! sick him, Tige!" and away the sow
would go, squealing most horrible, with a dog or two
swinging to each ear, and three or four dozen more
a-coming; and then you would see all the loafers get
up and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh at
the fun and look grateful for the noise. Then they'd
settle back again till there was a dog fight. There
couldn't anything wake them up all over, and make
them happy all over, like a dog fight -- unless it
might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and
setting fire to him, or tying a tin pan to his tail
and see him run himself to death.
On the river front some of the houses was sticking
out over the bank, and they was bowed and bent, and
about ready to tumble in, The people had moved out
of them. The bank was caved away under one corner of
some others, and that corner was hanging over.
People lived in them yet, but it was dangersome,
because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house
caves in at a time. Sometimes a belt of land a
quarter of a mile deep will start in and cave along
and cave along till it all caves into the river in
one summer. Such a town as that has to be always
moving back, and back, and back, because the river's
always gnawing at it.
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The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and
thicker was the wagons and horses in the streets,
and more coming all the time. Families fetched their
dinners with them from the country, and eat them in
the wagons. There was considerable whisky drinking
going on, and I seen three fights. By and by
somebody sings out:
"Here comes old Boggs! -- in from the country for
his little old monthly drunk; here he comes, boys!"
All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was
used to having fun out of Boggs. One of them says:
"Wonder who he's a-gwyne to chaw up this time. If
he'd a-chawed up all the men he's ben a-gwyne to
chaw up in the last twenty year he'd have
considerable ruputation now."
Another one says, "I wisht old Boggs 'd threaten me,
'cuz then I'd know I warn't gwyne to die for a
thousan' year."
Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping
and yelling like an Injun, and singing out:
"Cler the track, thar. I'm on the waw-path, and the
price uv coffins is a-gwyne to raise."
He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he
was over fifty year old, and had a very red face.
Everybody yelled at him and laughed at him and
sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend
to them and lay them out in their regular turns, but
he couldn't wait now because he'd come to town to
kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, "Meat
first, and spoon vittles to top off on."
He see me, and rode up and says:
"Whar'd you come f'm, boy? You prepared to die?"
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Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says:
"He don't mean nothing; he's always a-carryin' on
like that when he's drunk. He's the best naturedest
old fool in Arkansaw -- never hurt nobody, drunk nor
sober."
Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and
bent his head down so he could see under the curtain
of the awning and yells:
"Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man
you've swindled. You're the houn' I'm after, and I'm
a-gwyne to have you, too!"
And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he
could lay his tongue to, and the whole street packed
with people listening and laughing and going on. By
and by a proud-looking man about fifty-five -- and
he was a heap the best dressed man in that town, too
-- steps out of the store, and the crowd drops back
on each side to let him come. He says to Boggs,
mighty ca'm and slow -- he says:
"I'm tired of this, but I'll endure it till one
o'clock. Till one o'clock, mind -- no longer. If you
open your mouth against me only once after that time
you can't travel so far but I will find you."
Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty
sober; nobody stirred, and there warn't no more
laughing. Boggs rode off blackguarding Sherburn as
loud as he could yell, all down the street; and
pretty soon back he comes and stops before the
store, still keeping it up. Some men crowded around
him and tried to get him to shut up, but he
wouldn't; they told him it would be one o'clock in
about fifteen minutes, and so he must go home -- he
must go right away. But it didn't do no good. He
cussed away
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with all his might, and throwed his hat down in the
mud and rode over it, and pretty soon away he went
a-raging down the street again, with his gray hair
a-flying. Everybody that could get a chance at him
tried their best to coax him off of his horse so
they could lock him up and get him sober; but it
warn't no use -- up the street he would tear again,
and give Sherburn another cussing. By and by
somebody says:
"Go for his daughter! -- quick, go for his daughter;
sometimes he'll listen to her. If anybody can
persuade him, she can."
So somebody started on a run. I walked down street a
ways and stopped. In about five or ten minutes here
comes Boggs again, but not on his horse. He was
a-reeling across the street towards me, bare-headed,
with a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his
arms and hurrying him along. He was quiet, and
looked uneasy; and he warn't hanging back any, but
was doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody
sings out:
"Boggs!"
I looked over there to see who said it, and it was
that Colonel Sherburn. He was standing perfectly
still in the street, and had a pistol raised in his
right hand -- not aiming it, but holding it out with
the barrel tilted up towards the sky. The same
second I see a young girl coming on the run, and two
men with her. Boggs and the men turned round to see
who called him, and when they see the pistol the men
jumped to one side, and the pistol-barrel come down
slow and steady to a level -- both barrels cocked.
Boggs throws up both of his hands and says, "O Lord,
don't shoot!" Bang! goes the first shot, and
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he staggers back, clawing at the air -- bang! goes
the second one, and he tumbles backwards on to the
ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out.
That young girl screamed out and comes rushing, and
down she throws herself on her father, crying, and
saying, "Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him!" The
crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and
jammed one another, with their necks stretched,
trying to see, and people on the inside trying to
shove them back and shouting, "Back, back! give him
air, give him air!"
Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol on to the
ground, and turned around on his heels and walked
off.
They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd
pressing around just the same, and the whole town
following, and I rushed and got a good place at the
window, where I was close to him and could see in.
They laid him on the floor and put one large Bible
under his head, and opened another one and spread it
on his breast; but they tore open his shirt first,
and I seen where one of the bullets went in. He made
about a dozen long gasps, his breast lifting the
Bible up when he drawed in his breath, and letting
it down again when he breathed it out -- and after
that he laid still; he was dead. Then they pulled
his daughter away from him, screaming and crying,
and took her off. She was about sixteen, and very
sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared.
Well, pretty soon the whole town was there,
squirming and scrouging and pushing and shoving to
get at the window and have a look, but people that
had the places wouldn't give them up, and folks
behind them
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was saying all the time, "Say, now, you've looked
enough, you fellows; 'tain't right and 'tain't fair
for you to stay thar all the time, and never give
nobody a chance; other folks has their rights as
well as you."
There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out,
thinking maybe there was going to be trouble. The
streets was full, and everybody was excited.
Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it
happened, and there was a big crowd packed around
each one of these fellows, stretching their necks
and listening. One long, lanky man, with long hair
and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his
head, and a crooked-handled cane, marked out the
places on the ground where Boggs stood and where
Sherburn stood, and the people following him around
from one place to t'other and watching everything he
done, and bobbing their heads to show they
understood, and stooping a little and resting their
hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places
on the ground with his cane; and then he stood up
straight and stiff where Sherburn had stood,
frowning and having his hat-brim down over his eyes,
and sung out, "Boggs!" and then fetched his cane
down slow to a level, and says "Bang!" staggered
backwards, says "Bang!" again, and fell down flat on
his back. The people that had seen the thing said he
done it perfect; said it was just exactly the way it
all happened. Then as much as a dozen people got out
their bottles and treated him.
Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be
lynched. In about a minute everybody was saying it;
so away they went, mad and yelling, and snatching
down every clothes-line they come to to do the
hanging with.
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