IT was after
sun-up now, but we went right
on and didn't tie
up. The king and the duke turned
out by and by looking pretty
rusty; but after they'd jumped
overboard and took a swim it
chippered them up a good deal.
After breakfast the king he took
a seat on the corner of the raft,
and pulled off his boots and
rolled up his britches, and let
his legs dangle in the water,
so as to be comfortable, and
lit his pipe, and went to getting
his Romeo and Juliet by heart.
When he had got it pretty good
him and the duke begun to practice
it together. The duke had to
learn him over and over again
how to say every speech; and
he made him sigh, and put his
hand on his heart, and after
a while he said he done it pretty
well; "only," he says, "you mustn't
bellow out ROMEO! that way, like
a bull -- you must say it soft
and sick and languishy, so --
R-o-o-meo! that is the idea;
for Juliet's a dear sweet mere
child of a girl, you know, and
she doesn't
bray like a jackass."
Well, next they got out a couple
of long swords that the duke
made out of oak laths, and begun
to practice the sword fight --
the duke called himself Richard
III.; and the way they laid on
and pranced around the raft was
grand to see. But by and by the
king tripped and fell overboard,
and after that they took a rest,
and had a talk about all kinds
of adventures they'd had in other
times along the river.
After dinner the duke says:
"Well, Capet,
we'll want to make this a first-class
show,
you know, so I guess we'll add
a little more to it. We want
a little something to answer
encores with, anyway."
"What's onkores,
Bilgewater?"
The duke told him, and then
says:
"I'll answer
by doing the Highland fling
or the sailor's hornpipe;
and you -- well, let me see --
oh, I've got it -- you can do
Hamlet's soliloquy."
"Hamlet's which?"
"Hamlet's soliloquy,
you know; the most celebrated
thing in
Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime,
sublime! Always fetches the house.
I haven't got it in the book
-- I've only got one volume --
but I reckon I can piece it out
from memory. I'll just walk up
and down a minute, and see if
I can call it back from recollection's
vaults."
So he went to marching up and
down, thinking, and frowning
horrible every now and then;
then he would hoist up his eyebrows;
next he would squeeze his hand
on his forehead and stagger back
and kind of moan; next he would
sigh, and next he'd let on to
drop a tear. It was beautiful
to see him. By and by he got
it. He told us to give attention.
Then he strikes a most noble
attitude, with one leg shoved
forwards, and his arms stretched
away up, and his head tilted
back, looking up at the sky;
and then he begins to rip and
rave and grit his teeth; and
after that, all through his speech,
he howled, and spread around,
and swelled up his chest, and
just knocked the spots out of
any acting ever I see before.
This is the speech -- I learned
it, easy enough, while he was
learning it to the king:
To be, or not to be; that is
the bare bodkin That makes calamity
of so long life; For who would
fardels bear, till Birnam Wood
do come to Dunsinane, But that
the fear of something after death
Murders the innocent sleep, Great
nature's second course, And makes
us rather sling the arrows of
outrageous fortune Than fly to
others that we know not of. There's
the respect must give us pause:
Wake Duncan with thy knocking!
I would thou couldst; For who
would bear the whips and scorns
of time, The oppressor's wrong,
the proud man's contumely, The
law's delay, and the quietus
which his pangs might take, In
the dead waste and middle of
the night, when churchyards yawn
In customary suits of solemn
black, But that the undiscovered
country from whose bourne no
traveler returns, Breathes forth
contagion on the world, And thus
the native hue of resolution,
like the poor cat i' the adage,
Is sicklied o'er with care, And
all the clouds that lowered o'er
our housetops, With this regard
their currents turn awry, And
lose the name of action. 'Tis
a consummation devoutly to be
wished. But soft you, the fair
Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous
and marble jaws, But get thee
to a nunnery -- go!
Well, the old man he liked
that speech, and he mighty soon
got it so he could do it first-rate.
It seemed like he was just born
for it; and when he had his hand
in and was excited, it was perfectly
lovely the way he would rip and
tear and rair up behind when
he was getting it off.
The first chance we got the
duke he had some showbills printed;
and after that, for two or three
days as we floated along, the
raft was a most uncommon lively
place, for there warn't nothing
but sword fighting and rehearsing
-- as the duke called it -- going
on all the time. One morning,
when we was pretty well down
the State of Arkansaw, we come
in sight of a little one-horse
town in a big bend; so we tied
up about three-quarters of a
mile above it, in the mouth of
a crick which was shut in like
a tunnel by the cypress trees,
and all of us but Jim took the
canoe and went down there to
see if there was any chance in
that place for our show.
We struck it mighty lucky;
there was going to be a circus
there that afternoon, and the
country people was already beginning
to come in, in all kinds of old
shackly wagons, and on horses.
The circus would leave before
night, so our show would have
a pretty good chance. The duke
he hired the courthouse, and
we went around and stuck up our
bills. They read like this:
Shaksperean Revival ! ! !
Wonderful Attraction!
For One Night Only!
The world renowned tragedians,
David Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane Theatre London,
and
Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket Theatre,
Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the
Royal Continental Theatres, in their sublime
Shaksperean Spectacle entitled
The Balcony Scene
in
Romeo and Juliet ! ! !
Romeo...................Mr. Garrick
Juliet..................Mr. Kean
Assisted by the whole strength of the company!
New costumes, new scenes, new appointments!
Also:
The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling
Broad-sword conflict
In Richard III. ! ! !
Richard III.............Mr. Garrick
Richmond................Mr. Kean
Also:
(by special request)
Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy ! !
By The Illustrious Kean!
Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!
For One Night Only,
On account of imperative European engagements!
Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.
Then we went loafing around town. The stores and houses was most all old, shackly,
dried up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they was set up three
or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be out of reach of the water when
the river was overflowed. The houses had little gardens around them, but they
didn't seem to raise hardly anything in them but jimpson-weeds, and sunflowers,
and ash piles, and old curled-up boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and
rags, and played-out tinware. The fences was made of different kinds of boards,
nailed on at different times; and they leaned every which way, and had gates
that didn't generly have but one hinge -- a leather one. Some of the fences had
been whitewashed some time or another, but the duke said it was in Clumbus' time,
like enough. There was generly
hogs in the garden, and people driving them out.
All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in front,
and the country people hitched their horses to the awning-posts. There was
empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on them all day
long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and chawing tobacco, and gaping
and yawning and stretching -- a mighty ornery lot. They generly had on yellow
straw hats most as wide as an umbrella, but didn't wear no coats nor waistcoats,
they called one another Bill, and Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked
lazy and drawly, and used considerable many cuss words. There was as many as
one loafer leaning up against every awning-post, and he most always had his
hands in his britches-pockets, except when he fetched them out to lend a chaw
of tobacco or scratch. What a body was hearing amongst them all the time was:
"Gimme a chaw 'v tobacker, Hank "
"Cain't; I hain't got but one chaw left. Ask Bill."
Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he ain't got none.
Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world, nor a chaw of
tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by borrowing; they say to
a fellow, "I wisht you'd len' me a chaw, Jack, I jist this minute give Ben
Thompson the last chaw I had" -- which is a lie pretty much everytime; it
don't fool nobody but a stranger; but Jack ain't no stranger, so he says:
"YOU give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's cat's grandmother. You
pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me, Lafe Buckner, then
I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you no back intrust, nuther."
"Well, I DID pay you back some of it wunst."
"Yes, you did -- 'bout six chaws. You borry'd store tobacker and paid back
nigger-head."
Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the natural
leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw they don't generly cut it off with a
knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw with their teeth and
tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in two; then sometimes the
one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it when it's handed back, and says,
sarcastic:
"Here, gimme the CHAW, and you take the PLUG."
All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn't nothing else BUT mud
-- mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, and two
or three inches deep in ALL the places. The hogs loafed and grunted around
everywheres.
You'd see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come lazying along the street
and whollop herself right down in the way, where folks had to walk around her,
and she'd stretch out and shut her eyes and wave her ears whilst the pigs
was
milking her, and look as happy as if she was on salary. And pretty soon you'd
hear a loafer sing out, "Hi! SO boy! sick him, Tige!" and away the sow would
go, squealing most horrible, with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and
three or four dozen more a-coming; and then you would see all the loafers
get up
and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh at the fun and look grateful
for the noise. Then they'd settle back again till there was a dog fight.
There
couldn't anything wake them up all over, and make them happy all over, like
a dog fight -- unless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting
fire to him, or tying a tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to death.
On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the bank, and
they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in, The people had moved
out of them. The bank was caved away under one corner of some others, and that
corner was hanging over. People lived in them yet, but it was dangersome, because
sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house caves in at a time. Sometimes
a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep will start in and cave along and cave
along till it all caves into the river in one summer. Such a town as that has
to be always moving back, and back, and back, because the river's always gnawing
at it.
The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the wagons
and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time. Families fetched their
dinners with them from the country, and eat them in the wagons. There was considerable
whisky drinking going on, and I seen three fights. By and by somebody sings
out:
"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 aflying. 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, bareheaded, 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 on to 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 on to 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.
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