We Had Finished Our Frugal Repast, When A
Man, Shouting In The Darkness, Approached The
House On Horseback.
This individual, though
very tipsy, represented Law and Order in that
district, as I was informed when "Jim Gore," a
justice of the peace, saluted me in a boisterous
manner.
Seating himself by the fire, he
earnestly inquired for the bottle. His stomach, he
said, was as dry as a lime-kiln, and, though
water answers to slake lime, he demanded
something stronger to slake the fire that burned
within him. He was very suspicious of me when
Hall told him of my canoe journey. After
eying me from head to toe in as steady a manner
as he was capable of, he broke forth with: "Now,
stranger, this won't do. What are ye a-travel'ing
in this sort of way for, in a paper dug-out?"
I pleaded a strong desire to study geography,
but the wise fellow replied:
"Geography! geography! Why, the fellers
who rite geography never travel; they stay at
home and spin their yarns 'bout things they
never sees." Then, glancing at his poor
butternut coat and pantaloons, he felt my blue woollen
suit, and continued, in a slow, husky voice:
"Stranger, them clothes cost something; they
be store-clothes. That paper dug-out cost money,
I tell ye; and it costs something to travel the hull
length of the land. No, stranger; if ye be not
on a bet, then somebody's a-paying ye well for it."
For an hour I entertained this roughest of law
dignitaries with an account of my long row, its
trials and its pleasures.
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