CHAPTER XVIII
Well, we had pork and greens fur dinner that day, with the bestcorn-bread I ever eat anywheres, and buttermilk, and sweet potato pie.We got 'em at the house of a feller named Withers--Old Daddy Withers.Which if they was ever a nicer old man than him, or a nicer old womanthan his wife, I never run acrost 'em yet.
They lived all alone, them Witherses, with only a couple of niggers tohelp them run their farm. After we eats our dinner and Sam gets his'nout to the kitchen, we sets out in front of the house and gets totalking with them, and gets real well acquainted. Which we soon foundout the secret of old Daddy Withers's life--that there innocent-lookingold jigger was a poet. He was kind of proud of it and kind of shamed ofit both to oncet. The way it come out was when the doctor says oneof them quotations he is always getting off, and the old man he lookspleased and says the rest of the piece it dropped out of straightthrough.
Then they had a great time quoting it at each other, them two, and Iseen the doctor is good to loaf around there the rest of the day, likeas not. Purty soon the old lady begins to get mighty proud-looking oversomething or other, and she leans over and whispers to the old man:
"Shall I bring it out, Lemuel?"
The old man, he shakes his head, no. But she slips into the houseanyhow, and fetches out a little book with a pale green cover to it, andhands it to the doctor.
"Bless my soul," says Doctor Kirby, looking at the old man, "you don'tmean to say you write verse yourself?"
The old man, he gets red all over his face, and up into the roots ofhis white hair, and down into his white beard, and makes believe he is alittle mad at the old lady fur showing him off that-a-way.
"Mother," he says, "yo' shouldn't have done that!" They had had a boyyears before, and he had died, but he always called her mother the sameas if the boy was living. He goes into the house and gets his pipe,and brings it out and lights it, acting like that book of poetry wasa mighty small matter to him. But he looks at Doctor Kirby out ofthe corner of his eyes, and can't keep from getting sort of eager andtrembly with his pipe; and I could see he was really anxious over whatthe doctor was thinking of them poems he wrote. The doctor reads some of'em out loud.
Well, it was kind of home-made poetry, Old Daddy Withers's was. Itwasn't like no other poetry I ever struck. And I could tell the doctorwas thinking the same about it. It sounded somehow like it hadn't beenjointed together right. You would keep listening fur it to rhyme, andget all worked up watching and waiting fur it to, and make bets withyourself whether it would rhyme or it wouldn't. And then it ginerallywouldn't. I never hearn such poetry to get a person's expectances allworked up, and then go back on 'em. But if you could of told what it wasall about, you wouldn't of minded that so much. Not that you can tellwhat most poetry is about, but you don't care so long as it keepshopping along lively. What you want in poetry to make her sound good,according to my way of thinking, is to make her jump lively, andthen stop with a bang on the rhymes. But Daddy Withers was soindependent-like he would jest natcherally try to force two words torhyme whether the Lord made 'em fur mates or not--like as if you wouldtry to make a couple of kids kiss and make up by bumping their headstogether. They jest simply won't do it. But Doctor Kirby, he let on likehe thought it was fine poetry, and he read them pieces over and overagin, out loud, and the old man and the old woman was both mightytickled with the way he done it. He wouldn't of had 'em know furanything he didn't believe it was the finest poetry ever wrote, DoctorKirby wouldn't.
They was four little books of it altogether. Slim books that looked asif they hadn't had enough to eat, like a stray cat whose ribs is rubbingtogether. It had cost Daddy Withers five hundred dollars apiece to get'em published. A feller in Boston charged him that much, he said. Itseems he would go along fur years, raking and scraping of his moneytogether, so as to get enough ahead to get out another book. Each timehe had his hopes the big newspapers would mebby pay some attention toit, and he would get recognized.
"But they never did," said the old man, kind of sad, "it always fellflat."
"Why, FATHER!"--the old lady begins, and finishes by running back intothe house agin. She is out in a minute with a clipping from a newspaperand hands it over to Doctor Kirby, as proud as a kid with copper-toedboots. The doctor reads it all the way through, and then he hands itback without saying a word. The old lady goes away to fiddle aroundabout the housework purty soon and the old man looks at the doctor andsays:
"Well, you see, don't you?"
"Yes," says the doctor, very gentle.
"I wouldn't have HER know for the world," says Daddy Withers. "_I_know and YOU know that newspaper piece is just simply poking fun at mypoetry, and making a fool of me, the whole way through. As soon as Iread it over careful I saw it wasn't really praise, though there was aminute or two I thought my recognition had come. But SHE don't know itain't serious from start to finish. SHE was all-mighty pleased when thatpiece come out in print. And I don't intend she ever shall know it ain'treal praise."
His wife was so proud when that piece come out in that New York paper,he said, she cried over it. She said now she was glad they had beendoing without things fur years and years so they could get them littlebooks printed, one after the other, fur now fame was coming. Butsometimes, Daddy Withers says, he suspicions she really knows he hasbeen made a fool of, and is pertending not to see it, fur his sake, thesame as he is pertending fur HER sake. Well, they was a mighty niceold couple, and the doctor done a heap of pertending fur both theirsakes--they wasn't nothing else to do.
"How'd you come to get started at it?" he asts.
Daddy Withers says he don't rightly know. Mebby, he says, it was livingthere all his life and watching things growing--watching the cottongrow, and the corn and getting acquainted with birds and animals andtrees and things. Helping of things to grow, he says, is a good way tounderstand how God must feel about humans. For what you plant and helpto grow, he says, you are sure to get to caring a heap about. You can'thelp it. And that is the reason, he says, God can be depended on to pullthe human race through in the end, even if appearances do look to beagin His doing it sometimes, fur He started it to growing in the firstplace and that-a-way He got interested personal in it. And that is themain idea, he says, he has all the time been trying to get into thatthere poetry of his'n. But he reckons he ain't got her in. Leastways,he says, no one has never seen her there but the doctor and the old ladyand himself. Well, for my part, I never would of seen it there myself,but when he said it out plain like that any one could of told what hemeant.
You hadn't orter lay things up agin folks if the folks can't help 'em.And I will say Daddy Withers was a fine old boy in spite of his poetry.Which it never really done any harm, except being expensive to him, andlots will drink that much up and never figger it an expense, but oneof the necessities of life. We went all over his place with him, and wenoticed around his house a lot of tin cans tacked up to posts and trees.They was fur the birds to drink out of, and all the birds around therehad found out about it, and about Daddy Withers, and wasn't scared ofhim at all. He could get acquainted with animals, too, so that after along spell sometimes they would even let him handle them. But not if anyone was around. They was a crow he had made a pet of, used to hop aroundin front of him, and try fur to talk to him. If he went to sleep in thefront yard whilst he was reading, that crow had a favourite trick ofstealing his spectacles off'n his nose and flying up to the ridgepoleof the house, and cawing at him. Once he had been setting out a row oftomato plants very careful, and he got to the end of the row and turnedaround, and that there crow had been hopping along behind very sollum,pulling up each plant as he set it out. It acted like it had donesomething mighty smart, and knowed it, that crow. So after that the oldman named him Satan, fur he said it was Satan's trick to keep thingsfrom growing. They was some blue and white pigeons wasn't scared to comeand set on his shoulders; but you could see the old man really likedthat crow Satan better'n any of them.
Well, we hung around
all afternoon listening to the old man talk, andliking him better and better. First thing we knowed it was getting alongtoward supper time. And nothing would do but we must stay to supper,too. We was pinted toward a place on the railroad called Smithtown, butwhen we found we couldn't get a train from there till ten o'clock thatnight anyhow, and it was only three miles away, we said we'd stay.
After supper we calculated we'd better move. But the old man wouldn'thear of us walking that three miles. So about eight o'clock he hitchedup a mule to a one-hoss wagon, and we jogged along.
They was a yaller moon sneaking up over the edge of the world when westarted. It was so low down in the sky yet that it threw long shadderson the road, and they was thick and black ones, too. Because they was alot of trees alongside the road, and the road was narrow, we went aheadmostly through the darkness, with here and there patches of moonlightsplashed onto the ground. Doctor Kirby and Old Man Withers was settingon the seat, still gassing away about books and things, and I wassetting on the suit case in the wagon box right behind 'em. Sam, he wassometimes in the back of the wagon. He had been more'n half asleep allafternoon, but now it was night he was waked up, the way niggers andcats will do, and every once in a while he would get out behind and cuta few capers in a moonlight patch, jest fur the enjoyment of it, andthen run and ketch up with the wagon and crawl in agin, fur it was goingpurty slow.
The ground was sandy in spots, and I guess we made a purty good load furBeck, the old mule. She stopped, going up a little slope, after we hadwent about a mile from the Witherses'. Sam says he'll get out and walk,fur the wheels was in purty deep, and it was hard going.
"Giddap, Beck!" says the old man.
But Beck, she won't. She don't stand like she is stuck, neither, butlike she senses danger somewheres about. A hoss might go ahead intodanger, but a mule is more careful of itself and never goes butting inunless it feels sure they is a way out.
"Giddap," says the old man agin.
But jest then the shadders on both sides of the road comes to life. Theywakes up, and moves all about us. It was done so sudden and quiet it washalf a minute before I seen it wasn't shadders but about thirty men hadgathered all about us on every side. They had guns.
"Who are you? What d'ye want?" asts the old man, startled, as three orfour took care of the mule's head very quick and quiet.
"Don't be skeered, Daddy Withers," says a drawly voice out of the dark;"we ain't goin' to hurt YOU. We got a little matter o' business to tendto with them two fellers yo' totin' to town."