THE CHAMPION MEAN MAN.

Yesterday I came across a singular looking individual dressed in a greasy, dingy suit. He was sitting on a log before his door engaged in repairing a shovel-handle.

“Say, stranger,” I said, addressing him, “can you inform me where Deacon Shellbark lives?”

The farmer looked up, pushed his slouched hat back on his head, and after surveying me some time in silence, drawled out:—

“Be you any relation of his’n?”

“No,” I replied, a little surprised at his mannerof answering; “I haven’t a relative in the State.”

“By thunder! I congratulate you upon your good fortune,” he ejaculated, “particularly because there’s no tie of consanguinity existin’ atwixt you and old Deacon Shellbark. He’s expectin’ a son home, and I thought you mout be him.

“Wal,” he continued, pointing with a huge jack-knife that he held in his hand, “you see that house to the left of them scrub oaks, don’t you? that ar buildin’ with the leetle coopalow on’t? Wal, thar’s whar old Deacon Shellbark lives;the meanest man in this yer county, and that’s sayin’ considerable, too! cause we’ve got some vicey-fisted customers round these yer parts, men who scrape the puddin’ pot mighty clean before the dog gits a chance to canvass it, now I can tell ye. But I feel safe in stickin’ in old Shellbark at the head, and I ain’t agwine to haul him down nuther. I don’t believe in talkin’ much about one’s neighbors, but I ginnerally tell strangers what sort of a man he is, cause if they go to tradin’ with him and aren’t on thar guard, he’ll skin’em quicker than a whirlpool sucks in a dead fish.”

“You know the Deacon, then?” I remarked, while the hope I had entertained of getting his name on my subscription list began to take to itself wings.

“Yes, I reckon I do know him,” he replied, “pooty well, too; a great sight better than is profitable to him, and he knows it. Oh, you bet he knows it, and hates me as he does the dry murrain that gin the crows fifteen of his best cows last summer. I knowed him back in Scrabble Town.

“They wouldn’t allow him to come within pistol shot of a church back thar, because they mor’n suspected he stole the wine and bread from the communion table one day. They were down on him flatter than a stone on a cricket allers arterwards. He’s a deacon out here though, but that ain’t nothin’. He can’t fool me with his prayin’. I want no sech crooked old disciple as he is intercedin’ for me, you know.”

“I was hoping he would subscribe for this book,” I remarked, “but I am afraid there isnot much use of my going there if he is so very mean.”

“Look’e here, stranger,” he remarked earnestly, “you mout just as well stop thar whar you’re standin’. Subscribe! He’ll gig back from a subscription list jest as he would from a six-shooter.”

“Ah, but this is a religious work, and perhaps he would lend that his support,” I answered quickly.

“Religious work be shelved!” exclaimed the farmer. “That doesn’t help ye any; you can’t do anythin’ with him, ’cause he hain’t got no more soul than an empty gin bottle. You mout as well bait a rat trap with a cat’s head and expect the varmin to go a-nibblin’ at it, as to expect him to put his name down to anything that’s agwine to take coin from his pockets.

SLEEPY DOBY.

“You’re a stranger in these yer parts I see, and tharfore haven’t the slightest idea what a towerin’ mean man he is; why he’d run a mile to git on the sunny side of a feller to cheat him out of his shadow! I knowed him back in old Indiany. He’s from the same place that I am, but you can kick me clear over to them foot-hills and back ag’in if I don’t feel like takin’ pizin every time I have to own up to it. He used to be in cahoot with a tanner back thar named Doby; sleepy Doby, the boyscalled him, for he was the sleepiest feller you ever did see. Go asleep while workin’ at anythin’. He would drop asleep sometimes while scrapin’ a hide, and cut the consarned thing all into parin’s; at other times he would fall back into the tan vat, then wake up and holler for the boys to come and fish him out.

“They say he dropped asleep once while ringin’ a hog to prevent him from rootin’ up the clover patch. The minister of the village had to pause in the middle of a sermon he was preachin’ half a block away, until the squealin’ subsided.

“But as I was gwine to tell ye, before the rheumatism got into his j’ints, and made him shun water as he would a tax-collector, old Shellbark used to be pooty fond of fishin’. One day Parson Bodfish was gwine off to have a day’s sport, and took me along to carry the fish. I was only a boy then, and mighty tickled because I could go. Jest about the time we got to the river we overtook old Shellbark a-pointin’ thar too. When we got to the bank they both set in gettin’ out thar hooks and lines, and then for the first time old Shellbark foundout he had left his bait to hum. So he commenced to sputter and fret, takin’ on terribly about it, until Parson Bodfish ses to him, ‘That’s all right; I reckon I’ve got enough bait in this box for both of us, and I’ll give you half of mine, and let us start in and make the most of it.’ So the Parson—who had a heart the size of a sheep’s head—took out his bait-box and gin him more than half. It’s so; I seed ’em when he took ’em out. Pooty soon arter, while the parson was a-standin’ on a log that horned out over the water, a-baitin’ of his hooks, a big-mouthed fish-hawk gin a-chatterin’ screech overhead, and startled him a leetle, and while lookin’ up he let his bait-box fall into the river.

“The box was open, so the worms war scattered every which way, and away went box and bait a-flukin’ down the rapids, and the parson’s cusses follerin’ arter. Hedidswar, by hunky! I heer’d him. He had a mi’ty hot temper, and it was more than he could do sometimes to keep it down. A feller couldn’t blame him much for swa’rin’ jest then, ’cause ’twas a pooty tryin’ time. He turned around sort ofquick when he thought of me bein’ thar. I seed him turnin’, though, and let on to be talkin’ to a fish that I was stringin’ on, so he reckoned I hadn’t noticed him. We hurried on down the river, and arter a while overtook old Shellbark, who was snakin ’em out as fast as he could fix bait and throw in.

“‘I lost all my worms back thar, while standin’ on a log,’ ses the parson, ‘and will have to fall back on you for some.’ The old snipe grumbled out somethin’ about bein’ out of all patience with people who war so fool careless. Arter a while he took out the rag he kept the worms in, and although he had quite a large knot of ’em, he gin the parson jest one, and dead at that! It’s so! You may laugh, but I seed it. When he was a-pickin’ it out and handin’ it to him, and when Parson Bodfish was a-stickin’ the hook into him, he lay thar and took it as e-a-s-y, and never squirmed or objected the least. You’d hev thought it was a link of vermicelli the parson had picked out of a soup plate.

“When Parson Bodfish took it from him, he held it between his finger and thumb a while,jest that way, and I swow I felt solid sure he was agwine to slap it back into old Shellbark’s face.

OPENING HIS HEART.

“He didn’t, though. But he did look as if he’d like to, mi’ty well. He stood thar andstared him in the face as if actewally in doubt about his being the person he divided with in the mornin’. Arter a while he baited his hook and started in right thar. He had amazin’ good luck, too, with one bait. He hauled out four floppin’ great chubs, one right arter the other, and durin’ the same time old Shellbark didn’t get a bite from anythin’ but musquiters. He seemed just tearin’ mad over it, too, I can tell you.

“He stood thar a-floppin’ and a-scratchin’ and a-slingin’ of his line out the full length, tryin’ on all sides continewally, but to no purpose.

“At last, thinkin’ he had a fish when he didn’t, he switched up his line so spiteful it caught in a tree-top more than fifteen feet above his head; and while he was a-gawpin’ up thar, jerkin’ the line, and stampin’ round, he sot his foot flat onto his string of fish that war layin’ thar on the bank, and squashed the in’ards out of nigh every one of ’em. Between thar slipperiness and his confusion, hurryin’ to git off ’em before they were sp’iled, he fell and slid away down the bank, head fust, a-clawin’ and a-kickin’ jest likea skeer’d alligator. Only he chanced to strike ag’inst an old root that was stickin’ up at the margin of the river, he’d have gone plum to the bottom for sartain.

“Unfortunately the last fish Parson Bodfish caught had swallered the bait, so he ses to me kind of low, ‘Dolphus, let’s see if we can’t skeer up a lizard, or somethin’ that’ll do for bait when a man’s in a pinch.’

“So we set in to huntin’ and s’archin’ under old logs and stones, and dead wild grass, but couldn’t git hold of anythin’. The parson fell three times on all fours in the dirt, and gin his wrist a mi’ty bad sprain while pursuin’ a queer, long-legg’d horned critter somethin’ like a cricket, only pizenous, I guess. I could have caught it once, as it went dronin’ past, but didn’t feel like touchin’ it. Finally it got stuck into a clump of ferns, and he gin it up. So arter a while he ses, ‘I’ll have to go back and try that old Shellbark ag’in, though I’d ruther take a dose o’ ipecac than do it.’

“So we come back to whar he was fishin’. He looked mi’ty solemn, and was muddy as an old stone boat. Ses the parson to him, ‘I’llhave to call on you ag’in for anotherdeadworm; the one you gin me is all gobbled up.’

“‘Seems to me you’re mi’ty extravagint with the bait,’ he ses gruffly, and switchin’ his line around and slingin’ it out far as the pole would let it go, but not makin’ the least motion to comply with the parson’s request.

“‘Waal, I don’t know how that is,’ ses Parson Bodfish, kind of easy like, and tryin’ to keep down his anger, that I seed was rizin’ jest like bilin’ sugar, ‘I nabbed four rousin’ good fish with that one bait. I reckon that’s doin’ pooty well; fact I know it is. They seem to bite fust rate at dead worms jest now.’

“‘Waal, I don’t know anythin’ about that,’ ses the old narrow gauge, ‘s’posin’ you cut up some of your fish and see if you can’t catch somethin’ with that sort of bait; fish bite pooty well at that sort of an offerin’ jest before rain, they say.’

“‘Then you ain’t a gwine to give me any worms?’ ses the parson, in a husky voice, and shakin’ like a rag in the wind, he was so chock full of passion.

“‘Waal, this is a sort of curious world, Mr.Bodfish,’ ses old Shellbark, slow and niggardly like, jest that way, ‘and without a feller looks out for himself he ain’t considered nothin’. ‘Sides you know,’ he contin’ed, ‘fish bait is a good deal like an oyster or a bean—somethin’ that’s mi’ty hard to divide with a feller,’ and he commenced to troll along down stream.

“Apple sass and spinage! I never did see a man so riled as that Parson Bodfish was sence I could distinguish the moon from a lightnin’ bug. He changed to all the colors of the rainbow by turns in less time than I’m tellin’ ye. You never seed sech a struggle between sin and piety as raged inside that parson for about five minutes.

“Fust piety seemed to be gettin’ on top, then sin would choke her down and hold her thar. At last he turned around and run full chisel ahind the turned up roots of a big windfall as though a gallon and a half of black hornets war arter him. I reckoned he was gwine arter stuns to gin the old feller a good peltin’, and that kind of work bein’ right into my hand I ran thar too, cal’latin’ to help him do it. But I was mistaken’d.

SWEARING TO GET EVEN.

“He wasn’t gwine arter stuns, for I seed so soon as he thought he was out of sight he flopped down on his knees right thar in the mud, a-holdin’ his hands jined together above his head jest that way. I allowed he was a gwine to pray then for sartin, but he didn’t pray; no siree, not much pra’ar jest then! hesw’ar’d though. He did! I heered him, jest as plain as could be, ses he:—

“‘I sw’ar I’ll git even yet with that old Shellbark, if I have to yank him out of his grave like a body-snatcher, to accomplish it!’

“I felt like runnin’ thar and sayin,’ ‘Don’t rise yet, let me kneel and sw’ar too,’ the same as that tricky feller does in the play whar he’s a-foolin’ the jealous nigger so bad; but I knowed it wouldn’t do, ’cause he didn’t want me to see him kneel thar in the mud. So when he came back he found me peltin’ a frog as if nothin’ had happened.

“‘Come, Dolphus,’ ses he, ‘its gettin’ pooty late; I guess we mout as well be a-movin’ back home.’ So we turned back toward the village, though ’twa’n’t more than noon, and left old Shellbark fishin’ thar. He did git even with him though.

“One Sunday soon arter Parson Bodfish was”—here the farmer was interrupted by a wild looking female who stuck her frowzy head out of an open window, like a turtle out of its shell, and shouted, in anything but a sweet voice:—

“‘Dolphus! you natural born talkin’ machine you! what are ye a-settin’ a-pratin’ and a-pratin’ about out thar? that old hog is in the gardin’ ag’in, a-h’istin’ the parsnips, and crunchin’ ’em like an old b’ar.’

“Consarn her spotted hide!” he vociferated, jumping up and grabbing a huge cudgel that lay near by. “Jest you stop yer, stranger, for about ten seconds, until I make that old swine think thar’s a trip-hammer got a foul of her, then I’ll tell ye how the parson got even.”

“I couldn’t stop to hear the story any way,” I replied, “for I must be travelling. However, I’ll take your advice and give the Deacon a wide berth.”

As I descended the hill, the swine’s wail was ringing in my ears, and I judged the trip-hammer was at work.

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