Every
now
and
then,
in
these
days,
the
boys
used
to
tell
me
I
ought
to
get
one
Jim
Blaine
to
tell
me
the
stirring
story
of
his
grandfather's
old
ram—but
they
always
added
that
I
must
not
mention
the
matter
unless
Jim
was
drunk
at
the
time—just comfortably
and
sociably drunk.
They
kept
this
up
until
my
curiosity
was
on
the
rack
to
hear
the
story. I got
to
haunting
Blaine;
but
it
was
of
no
use,
the
boys
always
found fault
with
his
condition;
he
was
often
moderately
but
never
satisfactorily drunk. I
never
watched
a man's condition
with
such
absorbing
interest,
such
anxious
solicitude; I
never
so
pined
to
see
a
man
uncompromisingly
drunk
before.
At
last,
one
evening
I hurried
to
his
cabin,
for
I learned
that
this
time
his
situation
was
such
that
even
the
most
fastidious
could
find
no
fault
with
it—he
was
tranquilly, serenely, symmetrically drunk—not a hiccup
to
mar
his
voice,
not
a
cloud
upon
his
brain
thick
enough
to
obscure
his
memory.
As
I entered,
he
was
sitting
upon
an
empty powder- keg,
with
a
clay
pipe
in
one
hand
and
the
other
raised
to
command
silence.
His
face
was
round, red,
and
very
serious;
his
throat
was
bare
and
his
hair
tumbled;
in
general
appearance
and
costume
he
was
a
stalwart
miner
of
the
period.
On
the
pine
table stood a candle,
and
its
dim
light
revealed "the boys" sitting
here
and
there
on
bunks, candle-boxes, powder-kegs, etc.
They
said: "Sh—! Don't speak—he's going
to
commence." I found a
seat
at
once,
and
Blaine said: 'I don't
reckon
them
times
will
ever
come
again.
There
never
was
a
more
bullier
old
ram
than
what
he
was.
Grandfather
fetched
him
from
Illinois—got
him
of
a
man
by
the
name
of
Yates—Bill Yates—maybe
you
might
have
heard
of
him;
his
father
was
a deacon—Baptist—and
he
was
a rustler, too; a
man
had
to
get
up
ruther
early
to
get
the
start
of
old
Thankful
Yates;
it
was
him
that
put
the
Greens
up
to
jining
teams
with
my
grandfather
when
he
moved
west. 'Seth
Green
was
prob'ly
the
pick
of
the
flock;
he
married a Wilkerson—Sarah Wilkerson—good cretur,
she
was—one
of
the
likeliest
heifers
that
was
ever
raised
in
old
Stoddard, everybody said
that
knowed
her.
She
could
heft a bar'l
of
flour
as
easy
as
I
can
flirt
a flapjack.
And
spin? Don't
mention
it! Independent? Humph!
When
Sile Hawkins
come
a
browsing
around
her,
she
let
him
know
that
for
all
his
tin
he
couldn't
trot
in
harness
alongside
of
her.
You
see, Sile Hawkins was—no,
it
warn't Sile Hawkins,
after
all—it
was
a
galoot
by
the
name
of
Filkins—I
disremember
his
first
name;
but
he
was
a stump—come
into
pra'r
meeting
drunk,
one
night, hooraying
for
Nixon, becuz
he
thought
it
was
a primary;
and
old
deacon
Ferguson
up
and
scooted
him
through
the
window
and
he
lit
on
old
Miss
Jefferson's head,
poor
old
filly.
She
was
a
good
soul—had a glass
eye
and
used
to
lend
it
to
old
Miss
Wagner,
that
hadn't any,
to
receive
company
in;
it
warn't
big
enough,
and
when
Miss
Wagner warn't noticing,
it
would
get
twisted
around
in
the
socket,
and
look
up, maybe,
or
out
to
one
side,
and
every
which
way,
while
t'
other
one
was
looking
as
straight ahead
as
a spy-glass. 'Grown
people
didn't
mind
it,
but
it
most
always
made
the
children cry,
it
was
so
sort
of
scary.
She
tried
packing
it
in
raw
cotton,
but
it
wouldn't work, somehow—the
cotton
would
get
loose
and
stick
out
and
look
so
kind
of
awful
that
the
children couldn't
stand
it
no
way.
She
was
always
dropping
it
out,
and
turning
up
her
old
dead-light
on
the
company
empty,
and
making
them
oncomfortable, becuz
she
never
could
tell
when
it
hopped out, being blind
on
that
side,
you
see.
So
somebody
would
have
to
hunch
her
and
say, "Your
game
eye
has fetched loose.
Miss
Wagner dear"—and
then
all
of
them
would
have
to
sit
and
wait
till
she
jammed
it
in
again—wrong
side
before,
as
a
general
thing,
and
green
as
a bird's egg, being a
bashful
cretur
and
easy
sot
back
before
company.
But
being
wrong
side
before
warn't
much
difference, anyway; becuz
her
own
eye
was
sky- blue
and
the
glass
one
was
yaller
on
the
front side,
so
whichever
way
she
turned
it
it
didn't match nohow. 'Old
Miss
Wagner
was
considerable
on
the
borrow,
she
was.
When
she
had a quilting,
or
Dorcas
S'iety
at
her
house
she
gen'ally
borrowed
Miss
Higgins's
wooden
leg
to
stump
around
on;
it
was
considerable
shorter
than
her
other
pin,
but
much
she
minded that.
She
said
she
couldn't
abide
crutches
when
she
had company, becuz
they
were
so
slow; said
when
she
had
company
and
things
had
to
be
done,
she
wanted
to
get
up
and
hump
herself.
She
was
as
bald
as
a jug,
and
so
she
used
to
borrow
Miss
Jacops's wig—Miss Jacops
was
the
coffin-peddler's wife—a ratty
old
buzzard,
he
was,
that
used
to
go
roosting
around
where
people
was
sick,
waiting
for
'em;
and
there
that
old
rip
would
sit
all
day,
in
the
shade,
on
a
coffin
that
he
judged
would
fit
the
can'idate;
and
if
it
was
a
slow
customer
and
kind
of
uncertain, he'd fetch
his
rations
and
a blanket
along
and
sleep
in
the
coffin
nights.
He
was
anchored
out
that
way,
in
frosty
weather,
for
about
three
weeks, once,
before
old
Robbins's place,
waiting
for
him;
and
after
that,
for
as
much
as
two
years, Jacops
was
not
on
speaking
terms
with
the
old
man,
on
account
of
his
disapp'inting him.
He
got
one
of
his
feet froze,
and
lost money, too, becuz
old
Robbins
took
a
favorable
turn
and
got well.
The
next
time Robbins got sick, Jacops tried
to
make
up
with
him,
and
varnished
up
the
same
old
coffin
and
fetched
it
along;
but
old
Robbins
was
too
many
for
him;
he
had
him
in,
and
'peared
to
be
powerful weak;
he
bought
the
coffin
for
ten
dollars
and
Jacops
was
to
pay
it
back
and
twenty-five
more
besides
if
Robbins didn't
like
the
coffin
after
he'd tried it.
And
then
Robbins died,
and
at
the
funeral
he
bursted
off
the
lid
and
riz
up
in
his
shroud
and
told
the
parson
to
let
up
on
the
performances, becuz
he
could
not
stand
such
a
coffin
as
that.
You
see
he
had been
in
a
trance
once
before,
when
he
was
young,
and
he
took
the
chances
on
another, cal'lating
that
if
he
made
the
trip
it
was
money
in
his
pocket,
and
if
he
missed
fire
he
couldn't
lose
a cent.
And
by
George
he
sued Jacops
for
the
rhino
and
got jedgment;
and
he
set
up
the
coffin
in
his
back
parlor
and
said
he
'lowed
to
take
his
time, now.
It
was
always
an
aggravation
to
Jacops,
the
way
that
miserable
old
thing
acted.
He
moved
back
to
Indiany pretty soon—went
to
Wellsville—Wellsville
was
the
place
the
Hogadorns
was
from.
Mighty
fine
family.
Old
Maryland
stock.
Old
Squire Hogadorn
could
carry
around
more
mixed licker,
and
cuss
better
than
most
any
man
I
ever
see.
His
second
wife
was
the
widder Billings—she
that
was
Becky Martin;
her
dam
was
deacon
Dunlap's
first
wife.
Her
oldest child, Maria, married a
missionary
and
died
in
grace—et
up
by
the
savages.
They
et
him, too,
poor
feller—biled him.
It
warn't
the
custom,
so
they
say,
but
they
explained
to
friends
of
his'n
that
went
down
there
to
bring
away
his
things,
that
they'd tried
missionaries
every
other
way
and
never
could
get
any
good
out
of
'em—and
so
it
annoyed
all
his
relations
to
find
out
that
that
man's
life
was
fooled
away
just
out
of
a dern'd experiment,
so
to
speak.
But
mind
you,
there
ain't
anything
ever
reely lost; everything
that
people
can't
understand
and
don't
see
the
reason
of
does
good
if
you
only
hold
on
and
give
it
a
fair
shake; Prov'dence don't
fire
no
blank
ca'tridges, boys.
That
there
missionary's substance, unbeknowns
to
himself, actu'ly converted
every
last
one
of
them
heathens
that
took
a
chance
at
the
barbacue.
Nothing
ever
fetched
them
but
that. Don't
tell
me
it
was
an
accident
that
he
was
biled.
There
ain't
no
such
a
thing
as
an
accident. 'When my
uncle
Lem
was
leaning
up
agin a scaffolding once, sick,
or
drunk,
or
suthin,
an
Irishman
with
a
hod
full
of
bricks
fell
on
him
out
of
the
third
story
and
broke
the
old
man's
back
in
two
places.
People
said
it
was
an
accident.
Much
accident
there
was
about
that.
He
didn't
know
what
he
was
there
for,
but
he
was
there
for
a
good
object.
If
he
hadn't been
there
the
Irishman
would
have
been killed.
Nobody
can
ever
make
me
believe
anything
different
from
that.
Uncle
Lem's
dog
was
there.
Why
didn't
the
Irishman
fall
on
the
dog? Becuz
the
dog
would
a
seen
him
a coming
and
stood
from
under. That's
the
reason
the
dog
warn't appinted. A
dog
can't
be
depended
on
to
carry
out
a
special
providence.
Mark
my
words
it
was
a put-up thing.
Accidents
don't happen, boys.
Uncle
Lem's dog—I
wish
you
could
a
seen
that
dog.
He
was
a reglar shepherd—or ruther
he
was
part
bull
and
part
shepherd—splendid animal;
belonged
to
parson
Hagar
before
Uncle
Lem got him.
Parson
Hagar
belonged
to
the
Western
Reserve
Hagars; prime family;
his
mother
was
a Watson;
one
of
his
sisters
married a Wheeler;
they
settled
in
Morgan county,
and
he
got nipped
by
the
machinery
in
a carpet
factory
and
went
through
in
less
than
a
quarter
of
a minute;
his
widder bought
the
piece
of
carpet
that
had
his
remains
wove in,
and
people
come
a
hundred
mile
to
'tend
the
funeral.
There
was
fourteen
yards
in
the
piece. 'She wouldn't
let
them
roll
him
up,
but
planted
him
just
so—full length.
The
church
was
middling small
where
they
preached
the
funeral,
and
they
had
to
let
one
end
of
the
coffin
stick
out
of
the
window.
They
didn't
bury
him—they
planted
one
end,
and
let
him
stand
up,
same
as
a monument.
And
they
nailed
a
sign
on
it
and
put—put on—put
on
it—"sacred to—the m-e-m-o-r-y—of
fourteen
y-a-r-d-s—of three-ply—car—-pet—containing
all
that
was—m-o-r-t-a-l—of—of—W-i-l-l-i-a-m—W-h-e—"'
Jim
Blaine had been
growing
gradually
drowsy
and
drowsier—his
head
nodded, once, twice,
three
times—dropped peacefully
upon
his
breast,
and
he
fell
tranquilly
asleep.
The
tears
were
running
down
the
boys' cheeks—they
were
suffocating
with
suppressed laughter—and had been
from
the
start,
though
I had
never
noticed it. I
perceived
that
I
was
"sold." I learned
then
that
Jim
Blaine's
peculiarity
was
that
whenever
he
reached a
certain
stage
of
intoxication,
no
human
power
could
keep
him
from
setting
out,
with
impressive unction,
to
tell
about
a
wonderful
adventure
which
he
had
once
had
with
his
grandfather's
old
ram—and
the
mention
of
the
ram
in
the
first
sentence
was
as
far
as
any
man
had
ever
heard
him
get, concerning it.
He
always
maundered
off, interminably,
from
one
thing
to
another,
till
his
whisky got
the
best
of
him
and
he
fell
asleep.
What
the
thing
was
that
happened
to
him
and
his
grandfather's
old
ram
is
a dark
mystery
to
this
day,
for
nobody
has
ever
yet
found out.