Bab Bab 5 · 第5章

I had shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used

to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I

was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken—that is,

after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched,

he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn’t scared of

him worth bothring about.

He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and

greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like

he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long,

mixed-up whiskers. There warn’t no color in his face, where his face

showed; it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make

a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a

fish-belly white. As for his clothes—just rags, that was all. He had

one ankle resting on t’other knee; the boot on that foot was busted,

and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His

hat was laying on the floor—an old black slouch with the top caved in,

like a lid.

I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair

tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was

up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over.

By-and-by he says:

“Starchy clothes—very. You think you’re a good deal of a big-bug,

_don’t_ you?”

“Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t,” I says.

“Don’t you give me none o’ your lip,” says he. “You’ve put on

considerable many frills since I been away. I’ll take you down a peg

before I get done with you. You’re educated, too, they say—can read and

write. You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you, because

he can’t? _I’ll_ take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with

such hifalut’n foolishness, hey?—who told you you could?”

“The widow. She told me.”

“The widow, hey?—and who told the widow she could put in her shovel

about a thing that ain’t none of her business?”

“Nobody never told her.”

“Well, I’ll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop that

school, you hear? I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs

over his own father and let on to be better’n what _he_ is. You lemme

catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother

couldn’t read, and she couldn’t write, nuther, before she died. None of

the family couldn’t before _they_ died. _I_ can’t; and here you’re

a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain’t the man to stand it—you hear?

Say, lemme hear you read.”

I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the

wars. When I’d read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack

with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:

“It’s so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky

here; you stop that putting on frills. I won’t have it. I’ll lay for

you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I’ll tan you good.

First you know you’ll get religion, too. I never see such a son.”

He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and

says:

“What’s this?”

“It’s something they give me for learning my lessons good.”

He tore it up, and says:

“I’ll give you something better—I’ll give you a cowhide.”

He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:

“_Ain’t_ you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and

a look’n’-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor—and your own father

got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I

bet I’ll take some o’ these frills out o’ you before I’m done with you.

Why, there ain’t no end to your airs—they say you’re rich. Hey?—how’s

that?”

“They lie—that’s how.”

“Looky here—mind how you talk to me; I’m a-standing about all I can

stand now—so don’t gimme no sass. I’ve been in town two days, and I

hain’t heard nothing but about you bein’ rich. I heard about it away

down the river, too. That’s why I come. You git me that money

to-morrow—I want it.”

“I hain’t got no money.”

“It’s a lie. Judge Thatcher’s got it. You git it. I want it.”

“I hain’t got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he’ll tell

you the same.”

“All right. I’ll ask him; and I’ll make him pungle, too, or I’ll know

the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it.”

“I hain’t got only a dollar, and I want that to—”

“It don’t make no difference what you want it for—you just shell it

out.”

He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was

going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn’t had a drink all day.

When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me

for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I

reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told

me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and

lick me if I didn’t drop that.

Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher’s and bullyragged

him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn’t, and then

he swore he’d make the law force him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away

from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge

that had just come, and he didn’t know the old man; so he said courts

mustn’t interfere and separate families if they could help it; said

he’d druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher

and the widow had to quit on the business.

That pleased the old man till he couldn’t rest. He said he’d cowhide me

till I was black and blue if I didn’t raise some money for him. I

borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got

drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying

on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most

midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court,

and jailed him again for a week. But he said _he_ was satisfied; said

he was boss of his son, and he’d make it warm for _him_.

When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him.

So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and

had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was

just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him

about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he’d

been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn

over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn’t be ashamed of, and he

hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said

he could hug him for them words; so _he_ cried, and his wife she cried

again; pap said he’d been a man that had always been misunderstood

before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a

man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so

they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held

out his hand, and says:

“Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it.

There’s a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain’t so no more;

it’s the hand of a man that’s started in on a new life, and’ll die

before he’ll go back. You mark them words—don’t forget I said them.

It’s a clean hand now; shake it—don’t be afeard.”

So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The

judge’s wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge—made

his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or

something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful

room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got

powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a

stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb

back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out

again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left

arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him

after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to

take soundings before they could navigate it.

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform

the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn’t know no other way.