The Portable Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

In the realms of the good and great.

  If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was fourteen, there ain’t no telling what she could a done by-and-by. Buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn’t ever have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn’t find anything to rhyme with it she would just scratch it out and slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn’t particular, she could write about anything you choose to give her to write about, just so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand with her “tribute” before he was cold. She called them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the undertaker—the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person’s name, which was Whistler. She warn’t ever the same, after that; she never complained, but she kind of pined away and did not live long. Poor thing, many’s the time I made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrapbook and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all, and warn’t going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn’t seem right that there warn’t nobody to make some about her, now she was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I couldn’t seem to make it go, somehow. They kept Emmeline’s room trim and nice and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady took care of the room herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there, mostly.

  Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains on the windows: white, with pictures painted on them, of castles with vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing, “The Last Link is Broken” and play “The Battle of Prague” on it. The walls of all the rooms was plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole house was whitewashed on the outside.

  It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn’t be better. And warn’t the cooking good, and just bushels of it too!

  CHAPTER XVIII

  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 mud-cat, himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had a darkishpaly 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. Sometimes 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 cloud-bank it was awful dark for a 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 decanters 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 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, day-times, and balls at the house, nights. These people was mostly kin-folks 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 Shepherdson. They was as high-toned, and well born, and rich and grand, as the tribe of Grangerfords. The Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords used the same steamboat 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, 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, settling 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 Sheperdsons 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:

  “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 folks; but they don’t know, now, what the row was about in the first place.”

  “Has there been many killed, Buck?”

  “Yes—right smart chance of funerals. But they don’t always kill. Pa’s got a few buck-shot 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 get 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 a 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 wood-pile, and kep’ his horse before him to stop the bullets; but the Grangerfords staid on their 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 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 like 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 up stairs, 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 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 considerable ways behine you, towards de las’; when you landed I reck’ned I could ketch up wid you on de lan’ ’dout havin’ to s
hout 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 tuck 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, too, 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? 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.”