REMUS(WAS MY DOG)A SERIAL NARRATIVE OFFUN, FISHING AND FIGHTINGFORTY YEARS AGOBOY TALES FOR BALD HEADSBy Laps. D. McCord
A SERIAL NARRATIVE OFFUN, FISHING AND FIGHTINGFORTY YEARS AGO
BOY TALES FOR BALD HEADS
By Laps. D. McCord
Ed and I skinned our rabbits and sunk them in the creek and kept on over to Burke’s apple orchard, where we found two dozen boys belonging to all parts of town and representing all the gangs and tribes and feuds. Newspapers prate about Kentucky feuds, Italian vendettas, the Mafia and such petty things, as if they were in it alongside of the Fayetteville feuds. There were various and sundry deadly schisms existing among the several factions, with sub-feuds between the minor clans, under-feuds, super-feuds, and inter-feuds, until the feudal system ramified the whole body politic of Fayetteville boydom so thickly that you could roust one up and make grim visaged war wrinkle his front whenever two or three boys were gathered together, except at Sunday-school.
I have not a word in protest of the outrage perpetrated upon us by the Kentuckians and Italians, in imitating our feuds. Everybody knows it is a brazen infringement, but these people are outside the jurisdiction of our two judges.
The clans were dividing, and a brawl brewing when we got there, and it looked like there was going to be about a five-pronged battle, with perhaps a little side rock-polemics and personal gouging disputations. Ed and I did not know the merits of the question under debate, but in those days the code did not require you to know the mere vulgar details and causes. All you wanted to be certain of was that the other fellows were there. The world should rid itself of the delusion that it requires any especial aggravation to prompt a boy to hit at any head he sees poking up.
The first thing I saw, Sam Ramsey had climbed after a particularly red apple that Bob Neeld had claimed the week before, and when he shook it down John Formwalt picked it up and bit it. Fon Feeney, who belonged to a subsection of the Ramsey Rooters, saw the dirty deed, and he smashed John on the jaw with a rotten apple, and Bob grabbed the red apple. A boy does not mind being hit with a pile driver or a club, or being shoved off a house backwards, or shaken out of a tree, in a fair fight; but he despises to be hit with anything soft and rotten. When Fon hit John, Will McEwen made a dive at Fon, but Bob Wilson tripped him up and fell on top, and in rushed eight fellows, looking for an opening. John Formwalt, with rotten apple smeared over his jaw and running down under his shirt, was a terror to see, and here he came making for everybody in sight, but he ran jam against Charlie Fulton’s fist, and stopped to count the stars. Then MattNeill came frisking up to close the debate, and Willis Bonner landed on Matt’s snoot, and he hunted grass. There was a mighty mixtry along about then of gouging boys, and Sam dropped out of the tree right on top of the Kilkenny bunch and went for every head in sight.
Spot Miller had been sparring for an opening for an under-hook, and was about to run his fist clean through John Perkins, when Big Yaller Marshall started for Spot and I punched Big Yaller in the paunch and doubled him up. It is swollen to this day. Fitzsimmons hit Corbett just a little above where I hit Big Yaller, but he wrote me afterwards that he aimed at the same place. Ed ran clean over Bob Bright to get at George Morgan, who had Bob Clark down rubbing dirt in his mouth. It was just getting where the fun was ripest when Bob Bright called a truce. Bill Allen’s nose was bleeding again, and the boys all wanted to see that, for Bill had the out-bleedingest nose ever stuck on mortal face. I have seen it myself, coupled with what other boys have seen and sworn to, bleed four barrels on a stretch, and a good deal on the ground, judging by the way he messed up his clothes and things around for ten feet, though of course he may not have bled more than half that much. Billy Hill ran over home to get a bunch of keys to hang down his back, and I rolled up a piece of paper and made him put it over his front gums and draw his lip tightly over it. Hal McKinney (his father was a doctor and Hal was then a candidate) pressed his fingers hard up and down by the side of Bill’s nose, and Ed made Bill spit on a chip and he went off and hid it under a rock. That last is considered about infallible, but it all failed on Bill’s nose, and then Big Yaller told him to scratch in the ground with his big toe, and bleed forty drops in it and cover it up with a leaf and say:
“Bloody nose, two big toes,No more blood than this goes.”
“Bloody nose, two big toes,No more blood than this goes.”
“Bloody nose, two big toes,No more blood than this goes.”
“Bloody nose, two big toes,
No more blood than this goes.”
Strange to say, that failed, too. When Bill’s nose started in to play ball it finished out nine innings. Bill is no more, and a royal good fellow he was, but I have seen him shed more blood than Bragg’s army, and I can prove it. Bob Bright started home with Bill, where they knew better how to humor his nose, and George Steel laughed at John Formwalt’s smeared face, and John doused him, and the war broke out with worse sanguinary symptoms than ever, the crowd gradually dividing into two parties and backing off and resorting to rocks. It looks dangerous and bloody on ordinary white paper like this to read about two dozen boys, all throwing rocks at short range, so thick and fast that you might hold up your hat and catch it full, and it looks like somebody ought to get hurt, but they don’t much. I never saw a boy knocked more than one somerset at a time, and besides that, a boy is as hard to hit as a kildee.
Stooping for a rock, I dropped my pistol and Spot Miller picked it up and the boys all saw it, and peace brooded instanter. Every fellow dropped his rocks and crowded in, and I had every marble in the crowd in half an hour. While these negotiations were proceeding Ed had climbed a tree and a limb broke and he fell out and broke his left arm. Ed always regretted it when he broke his arm, and I have seen the poor fellow almost cry over it. It disqualified a fellow for so many of the pursuits, forcing him to lie up for the bone to knit. Besides that, Bill Allen made arm-breaking so common that the boys got tired of it. Bill fell upon every rock he came across and broke his arm, and then he would rebreak it and break it over in another place. At first it was something to have your arm broken, and a fellow was envied and looked up to, but at that time a collar-bone fracture was considered morerecherchéanddistingué. When I was a boy you had to break all of a boy’s legs and arms and things to disqualify him for the game. One little measly fracture was just fun, and kept a fellow out of the garden. The only difference that it made with Ed and me wasthat I had to dig all the worms for two weeks and sort o’ hold and piddle around and back him up.
I went home with Ed—and don’t you think they sent for a doctor? I could have set it myself, but they did not ask me; and, besides that, it did not need setting. I would bet on Ed’s arm growing out strong and straight every time. He was that sort. If it had been cut off it would not have surprised anyone who knew him to see another one grow out. I have already told why it happened—because he failed to make a cross mark and spit in it before breakfast. I think now that was also the reason I missed that rabbit—if the reader persists in saying that Ididmiss it. I am willing to admit that the suspicions were against me until I showed the wounds on the rabbit, but I am not going to try to cram anything down public credulity, because I have several more things to tell that I am not willing to swear to, and it is necessary to have the confidence of my creditors.
While Ed’s arm is knitting I will gather up a few odds and ends that are needed to round out these exciting narratives. Ed could make a bow and arrow that was a perfect Indian’s dream, and I doubt if the Six Nations had anything like them. Find a green cedar limb about an inch thick and cut it to three feet length; trim the knots smooth and shave it just a little each side of the center on the concave side at the places where it must gently bend; cut a notch on the side just at the center for the arrow to rest in, and string it with a stout cord. Cut your arrows out of straight hickory and make them plumb, and then take a piece of tin about two inches square and roll it into a sharp spike and fasten it on tightly with a rivet. You can send that arrow through a two-inch plank and hit a tree two hundred yards.
Tony was a little negro boy who lived at Mrs. McEwen’s. We used to hold him down on his back and prop his eyes open and let the sun shine in. One day I shied an arrow straight up and it came down and struck Tony on the forehead about the edge of the hair and went in under the skin of his forehead, clean down to his eyebrows, and stood up like a flagstaff. I pulled it out and made him tell that a piece of stovewood flew up and hit him.
I shot one of Dr. McKinney’s pigs one day through and through, but I did not mind the loss of the pig nearly so much as the loss of the arrow. The contrary little thing ran straight up to the back gate, squealing, and I had no chance to rescue my arrow. Bob McKinney offered the arrow to me next day, to see if I claimed it, but I was too many for him—I had never seen it before. They were also too many for me—Joel, Bull Woolens, Tobe, Hal and Bob—and it would have been very unhealthy to claim it with five McKinney boys to one me.
Remus suffered an accident one day that came near disfiguring him for life. I went into Doug Farquaharson’s barber shop and Remus followed, and then I came out and Remus tried to follow, and there is where he made the mistake of his life. Doug was a negro who belonged to Colonel Farquaharson. I hardly imagine that if Doug had had the selection of his own surname he would have hit upon such an incongruous befuddlement of letters to spell a name that was pronounced plain “Ferguson,” but I mention the name only to say that if you take all the letters in it and rattle them around in a milk-shake a week and then sling them out promiscuous-like, they would spell something that looks a little like Remus’ face did when he got out of that shop. There was a long mirror on the wall right by the door, and when I went out and closed the door after me, Remus thought I went out through the mirror, and he took a running start and made a leap at it. If Remus ever had any lurking notion that he could jump through a brick wall, offhand, he was cured of it then. He tried his best, but it would not work. He was the most surprised dog when he bounced back that ever carromed on a plate glass mirror, but he was not half as much astonishedas he was messed up. His countenance was utterly shipwrecked. No one has ever heard me lay claim to any very beatific personal beauty for Remus, but I never knew a dog in my life to lose more sweet elegance of expression than Remus did in half a second. I was about thirty yards off when I heard Remus hit the wall, and I thought I saw it bulge out a little, and I stood there four minutes and heard glass falling. I never went back to Doug’s any more to see whether or not the mirror was injured. I was afraid I might do him some personal injury for setting his mirror where it could inveigle Remus into making such a grave mistake. Four minutes of rattling glass, and the door opened and Remus popped out, with Doug after him with a barber’s chair. I broke for Frog Bottom and Remus for home. He stayed under the house a week, and when he came out his tail was so firmly fixed between his legs that a surgical operation was necessary. I understand that the wall where Remus hit is soft to this day, and that once in a while a fragment of glass falls out yet. It is worthy of remark, and the statement carries with it a solemn warning to the reader, that I had neglected to spit in a cross mark before breakfast that morning. The very next day I saw a black snake over my left shoulder, and a boil broke out under my right arm that very night. We cannot be too watchful, brethren.
“Ed, dog-gone my cats ef I know whether I want to fight Indians or not! I’m afraid One-eyed Sam’ll have ’em all killed ’fore we kin git there.” A new ambition had struck me and I was wabbling between being a stage-driver or an Indian fighter. Ed was amazed and replied:
“Dod-bust it, Laze, ain’t we done ’greed to go, an’ got ready? They ain’t nothin’ in this pokey ol’ country to keep a fellow awake.”
“Huh! I’d druther be in Granville Thompson’s place an’ drive the Huntsville stage than to kill all the Indians I ever see,” I ventured.
“If I thought there was any more bugle horns in the worl’ lack Granville’s an’ I could git to blow one, I’d druther be one, too,” said Ed. “I’d druther come a-sailin’ up the river lane on top o’ that big ol’ stage a-yank-in’ them lines over four horses jes’ a-prancin’ an’ a-gallopin’, an’ a-toot-in’ a tune on that brass bugle—Ta-ta-te-ta-ra-ah! Gen-tul-men! I’d druther be that than to be a policeman almos’. But we done promise the boys, Laze—how’re we goin’ to git outer that?”
“’Spect we better not let on for a while,” I said, “cause we mightn’t git to drive a stage. But we gotter do sump’un mighty quick, Ed. Dog-gone ef I ain’t jes’ a-gittin’ hungry to smash sump’un-nuther.”
“Git your pistol, Laze, an’ le’s go over the river an’ kill hogs. That’ll keep up the tas’e in our mouths ’till we go Wes’.”
“I lack to clean forgot,” I said excitedly. “’Sposin’ we run off with that circus that’s a-comin’ nex’ week? Betcher I kin ride stan’in’ up ef you’ll let me put rozum on my stockin’ feet.”
“I done bin thinkin’ ’bout that, but ef I don’t go out Wes’ I ’spect I’ll hafter be a dod-busted preacher. They’re jes’ after me at home all the time to be a big preacher,” said Ed. “I dunno whether to be a circus rider or a preacher, Laze. Which’d you druther?”
“Shucks, feller—anybody kin preach. I want to be sump’un sho’nuf when I git a man. I’d druther have a grocery store lack Bill Yates’s than to be a dratted presidin’ elder or a bishop. Ef I had a store lack that with nothin’ to do but to eat candy, an’ cheese, an’ sardines, an’ pickles, an’ sech things, an’ set up in the back room an’ play the fiddle an’ chew terbacker an’ spit, dog-gone my cats ef I’d quit that to be a policeman or a emperor.”
“So’d I,” said Ed, “but what’s the use o’ tryin’ to do that? Betcher Bill Yates’s got more’n fifty dollars worth o’ goods. Nex’ time you’ll wanter be a queen o’ somewheres. I never seesech a feller for tryin’ to git to be the bigges’ man in all this whole worl’.”
“They’re raisin’ me to be president,” I said sorrowfully, “an’ I ’spect I oughter be in Congress right now. All of ’em at home don’t want me to be nothin’ but some dad-gum little thing lack that.”
“Well, if I hafter be a dod-busted bishop an’ you nothin’ but president, the boys’ll laugh us clean outer town,” said Ed.
The foregoing conversation occurred on our wood-pile one moonshiny night about frost. There is no telling what heights Ed and I might have attained if our destinies had not been controlled by persons totally devoid of ambition to shine in the greater walks of life.
[This isn’t all]