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Show A CHAPTER OF BETWEENS. 187 ness, and ' Squire Hooker and a dozen other abolishnists shamefully whipped. " By this time the Irish at work on the grade got wind of a free fight, and they double- quicked into town and lit in generally, and Miss June Davis's man thought it was a good time to get even with the Wrights, and about forty fellers concluded to pay oif old scores ; and the grand jury that was in session up stairs in the Court- house come runnin' down, and upset the stove, and in less'n four minutes the old shell was all ablaze, and the fighters set two or three more houses afire, and in an hour all the heart of the town was burned out, an' all the little men badly whipped that hadn't run away; for the fightin' kept up more or less for three hours, and never stopped till every body was satisfied. I mind well the last man out was little Si Duvall, a splintery feller with no legs to speak of, and every body said no account, and that you couldn't make any thing outen him, ' less it was a preacher or a school-teacher. But they wan't no exemptions in that war, and Si had to go in along with the rest. You see it don't take much to start a fuss when they's blood in THE SEAT OF WAK> the air; and an independent people will have their little differences in the glorious air of the free and boundless West. An' I reckon they was fusses settled there that had been runnin' for twenty years neighbors that had quarreled about jinin fences, and relatives that had lawed about settlin* estates, and men that got cheated in hoss trades every man got full satisfaction, and the books was squared." " Is that all?" I asked, seeing that he made a long pause. " It's all the liquor," said Joe, gazing regretfully at the black bottle which had held our last supply ; " but of the history they's a few more pints, and at your service." " Well, the town was half burned up, and its character ruined, and all the whisky spilt, and the constable and sheriff and ' Squire Hooker and about fifty more, badly whipped, and the dog that started it all so chawed up a Chinaman couldn't ' a made him over into chow- chow^ and the row only stopped when a big thunder shower separated the forces and then they was peace. But Misses Chew declared she wouldn't live in no such a heathen country, and they moved back East, and so the neighborhood lost tone ; an' the new preacher, what was left of him, had a call to go further north, for he ' lowed a man with one ear chawed off might be ornamental, but couldn't shine in a pulpit in Southern Illinois; and Abraham Miller was so disgusted |