COL. 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 mudcat himself. Col.
Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had a
darkish-paly 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 goodmannered 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 cloudbank it was awful dark for 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 decanter 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 twentyfive, 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 daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These
people was mostly kinfolks 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 of Shepherdson.
They was as high-toned and well born and rich and grand
as the tribe of Grangerfords. The Shepherdsons and
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, setting 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 Shepherdsons 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 people; 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 buckshot 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 git 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 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 woodpile,
and kep' his horse before him to stop the bullets; but
the Grangerfords stayed 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 likes 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 upstairs 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
watermoccasins 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 considable ways behine you towards de las'; when
you landed I reck'ned I could ketch up wid you on de lan'
'dout havin' to shout 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 tuk 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
abuyin' pots en pans en vittles, as I got a chanst, en
apatchin' 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, 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."
"Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here;
told me to come, and he'd show me a lot of watermoccasins.
If anything happens HE ain't mixed up in it. He can say
he never seen us together, and it 'll be the truth."
I don't want to talk much about the next day. I reckon
I'll cut it pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was
a-going to turn over and go to sleep again when I noticed
how still it was — didn't seem to be anybody stirring.
That warn't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up and
gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down stairs
— nobody around; everything as still as a mouse. Just
the same outside. Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by
the woodpile I comes across my Jack, and says:
"What's it all about?"
Says he:
"Don't you know, Mars Jawge?"
"No," says I, "I don't."
"Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has.
She run off in de night some time — nobody don't know
jis' when; run off to get married to dat young Harney
Shepherdson, you know — leastways, so dey 'spec. De
fambly foun' it out 'bout half an hour ago — maybe a
little mo' — en' I TELL you dey warn't no time los'.
Sich another hurryin' up guns en hosses YOU never see! De
women folks has gone for to stir up de relations, en ole
Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de river
road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him 'fo'
he kin git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n
dey's gwyne to be mighty rough times."
"Buck went off 'thout waking me up."
"Well, I reck'n he DID! Dey warn't gwyne to mix
you up in it. Mars Buck he loaded up his gun en 'lowed
he's gwyne to fetch home a Shepherdson or bust. Well,
dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en you bet you
he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst."
I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By
and by I begin to hear guns a good ways off. When I came
in sight of the log store and the woodpile where the
steamboats lands I worked along under the trees and brush
till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the
forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched.
There was a wood-rank four foot high a little ways in
front of the tree, and first I was going to hide behind
that; but maybe it was luckier I didn't.
There was four or five men cavorting around on their
horses in the open place before the log store, cussing
and yelling, and trying to get at a couple of young chaps
that was behind the wood-rank alongside of the steamboat
landing; but they couldn't come it. Every time one of
them showed himself on the river side of the woodpile he
got shot at. The two boys was squatting back to back
behind the pile, so they could watch both ways.
By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling.
They started riding towards the store; then up gets one
of the boys, draws a steady bead over the wood-rank, and
drops one of them out of his saddle. All the men jumped
off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started
to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys
started on the run. They got half way to the tree I was
in before the men noticed. Then the men see them, and
jumped on their horses and took out after them. They
gained on the boys, but it didn't do no good, the boys
had too good a start; they got to the woodpile that was
in front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and so
they had the bulge on the men again. One of the boys was
Buck, and the other was a slim young chap about nineteen
years old.
The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As
soon as they was out of sight I sung out to Buck and told
him. He didn't know what to make of my voice coming out
of the tree at first. He was awful surprised. He told me
to watch out sharp and let him know when the men come in
sight again; said they was up to some devilment or other
— wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that
tree, but I dasn't come down. Buck begun to cry and rip,
and 'lowed that him and his cousin Joe (that was the
other young chap) would make up for this day yet. He said
his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or
three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them
in ambush. Buck said his father and brothers ought to
waited for their relations — the Shepherdsons was too
strong for them. I asked him what was become of young
Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across the
river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck
did take on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that
day he shot at him — I hain't ever heard anything like
it.
All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four
guns — the men had slipped around through the woods and
come in from behind without their horses! The boys jumped
for the river — both of them hurt — and as they swum
down the current the men run along the bank shooting at
them and singing out, "Kill them, kill them!"
It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain't a-going
to tell ALL that happened — it would make me sick again
if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore
that night to see such things. I ain't ever going to get
shut of them — lots of times I dream about them.
I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid
to come down. Sometimes I heard guns away off in the
woods; and twice I seen little gangs of men gallop past
the log store with guns; so I reckoned the trouble was
still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up
my mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again,
because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow. I judged that
that piece of paper meant that Miss Sophia was to meet
Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and I
judged I ought to told her father about that paper and
the curious way she acted, and then maybe he would a
locked her up, and this awful mess wouldn't ever happened.
When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the
river bank a piece, and found the two bodies laying in
the edge of the water, and tugged at them till I got them
ashore; then I covered up their faces, and got away as
quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering up
Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me.
It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but
struck through the woods and made for the swamp. Jim
warn't on his island, so I tramped off in a hurry for the
crick, and crowded through the willows, red-hot to jump
aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was
gone! My souls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my
breath for most a minute. Then I raised a yell. A voice
not twenty-five foot from me says:
"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no
noise."
It was Jim's voice — nothing ever sounded so good
before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard, and
Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad to see me.
He says:
"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho'
you's dead agin. Jack's been heah; he say he reck'n you's
ben shot, kase you didn' come home no mo'; so I's jes'
dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf er de
crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave
soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for certain you IS
dead. Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git you back again, honey.
I says:
"All right — that's mighty good; they won't find
me, and they'll think I've been killed, and floated down
the river — there's something up there that 'll help
them think so — so don't you lose no time, Jim, but just
shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can."
I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below
there and out in the middle of the Mississippi. Then we
hung up our signal lantern, and judged that we was free
and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eat since
yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and
buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens — there
ain't nothing in the world so good when it's cooked right
— and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a good
time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and
so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there
warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do
seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You
feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.