Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
“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?”
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 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 he staggers
back, clawing at the air—bang! goes the second one, and he tumbles
backwards onto 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 onto 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 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.
CHAPTER XXII.
They swarmed up towards Sherburn’s house, a-whooping and raging like
Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and tromped
to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling it ahead of the
mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way; and every window along
the road was full of women’s heads, and there was nigger boys in every
tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence; and as soon as
the mob would get nearly to them they would break and skaddle back out
of reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared
most to death.
They swarmed up in front of Sherburn’s palings as thick as they could
jam together, and you couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise. It
was a little twenty-foot yard. Some sung out “Tear down the fence! tear
down the fence!” Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and
smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to
roll in like a wave.
Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his little front porch,
with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly
ca’m and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the
wave sucked back.
Sherburn never said a word—just stood there, looking down. The
stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eye slow
along the crowd; and wherever it struck the people tried a little to
out-gaze him, but they couldn’t; they dropped their eyes and looked
sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed; not the pleasant
kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you are eating bread
that’s got sand in it.
Then he says, slow and scornful:
“The idea of _you_ lynching anybody! It’s amusing. The idea of you
thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a _man!_ Because you’re brave
enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come
along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your
hands on a _man?_ Why, a _man’s_ safe in the hands of ten thousand of
your kind—as long as it’s daytime and you’re not behind him.
“Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the
South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know the average all around.
The average man’s a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him
that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it.
In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in
the daytime, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave
people so much that you think you _are_ braver than any other
people—whereas you’re just _as_ brave, and no braver. Why don’t your
juries hang murderers? Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will
shoot them in the back, in the dark—and it’s just what they _would_ do.
“So they always acquit; and then a _man_ goes in the night, with a
hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake
is, that you didn’t bring a man with you; that’s one mistake, and the
other is that you didn’t come in the dark and fetch your masks. You
brought _part_ of a man—Buck Harkness, there—and if you hadn’t had him
to start you, you’d a taken it out in blowing.
“You didn’t want to come. The average man don’t like trouble and
danger. _You_ don’t like trouble and danger. But if only _half_ a
man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts ‘Lynch him! lynch him!’ you’re
afraid to back down—afraid you’ll be found out to be what you
are—_cowards_—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that
half-a-man’s coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big
things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s
what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in
them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their
officers. But a mob without any _man_ at the head of it is _beneath_
pitifulness. Now the thing for _you_ to do is to droop your tails and
go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching’s going to be done, it
will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they’ll
bring their masks, and fetch a _man_ along. Now _leave_—and take your
half-a-man with you”—tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking
it when he says this.