CHAPTER XX. Two Stay-at-Homes.

“If wantin’ to was doin’ an’ they weren’t no weemen, I’d ’a’ ben in Sandyago long ago,” said the G. A. R. Man. He rolled a nail-keg close to the stove, seated himself upon it, dipped a handful of crushed tobacco leaves from his coat pocket into his pipe and lighted the odorous weed with a sulphur match. Then he wagged his beard at the assembled company and repeated, “Yes, sir, I’d ben in Sandyago long ago.”

“Weemen ain’t much on fightin’ away from home,” observed the Chronic Loafer, biting a cubic inch out of a plug of Agriculturist’s Charm which he had borrowed from the man who was sitting next him on the counter. The charm had passed half way around the circle and the remaining cubic inch of it had been restored to its owner, when the veteran, not catching the full intent of the remark, replied: “Yas. They’s a heap o’ truth in that there. Weemen is sot agin furrin wars. Leastways my weemen is. Now——”

[213]

“Do they prefer the domestic kind?” asked the School Teacher.

“Not at all—not at all,” said the old soldier. “Ye see, my missus passed th’oo sech terrible times back in ’60, ’hen I was bangin’ away at the rebels down in the Wilterness, that ’hen this here Spaynish war broke out she sais to me, sais she, ‘Ye jest sha’n’t go.’

“‘Marthy,’ sais I, ‘I’m a weteran. The Governor o’ Pennsylwany hes call fer ten thousand men, an’ he don’t name me, but he means me jest the same. Be every moral an’ jest right, I bein’ a weteran am included in that ten thousand.’

“With that I puts on me blues, an’ gits down me musket, an’ kisses the little ones all ’round, an’ starts fer the door. Well, sir, you uns never seen sech a time ez was raised ’hen they see I was off to fight the Spaynyards. Mary Alice, the eldest, jest th’owed her arms ’round my neck an’ bust out with tears. The seven others begin to cry, ‘Pap, Pap, you’ll git shooted.’

“‘Children,’ I sais, sais I, ‘your pap’s a weteran an’ a experienced soldier. Duty calls an’ he obeys.’

“The missus didn’t see things that way. She jest gits me be the collar an’ sets me down in an arm-chair, draws me boots, walks off with them an’ me musket an’ hides ’em. She weren’t goin’ to hev no foolin’ ’round the shanty, she sayd.

“Marthy seemed to think that that there settled[214] it, but she didn’t know me, fer all the evenin’, ez I set there be the fire so meek-like, I was a-thinkin’. Scenes wasn’t to my likin’, so I concided I’d jest let on like I hed give up all idee o’ fightin’ Spaynyards, wait tell the family was asleep an’ then vanish.

“At midnight I sets up in bed. The moon was shinin’ th’oo the winder, jest half-lightin’ the room, so I could move ’round without trippin’ over the furnitur’. The missus was a-snorin’ gentle like, an’ overhead in the attic I could hear a soft snifflin’ jest ez a thrasher engine goes ’hen the men has shet down fer dinner. It was the childern asleep. I climbs out over the footboard an’ looks ’round fer me boots. There they was, stickin’ out under the missus’s pillow. Knowin’ I couldn’t git ’em without wakin’ her, I concided to vanish barefoot. But they was one thing agin this, an’ that was that the door was locked an’ some un hed took the key. I tried the winder, but that hed ben nailed shet. Then I gits mad—that there kind o’ quiet-like mad ’hen ye boils up inside an’ hes to keep yer mouth shet. It’s the meanest kind o’ mad, too. It seemed like they was a smile playin’ ’round the missus’s face, an’ that made me sourer than ever, an’ kind o’ spurred me on.

“Well, sirs, ez I stood there in the middle o’ the room thinkin’ what I’d do next an’ wonderin’ whether I hedn’t better jest slip back to bed, me eye ketched sight o’ an ole comf’table that filled[215] a hole in the wall where the daubin’ hed fell out from atween the lawgs. That put me in mind o’ a scheme that I wasn’t long in kerryin’ out, fer the hole was pretty good sized an’ I’m a small man an’ wiry. In less’n no time the comf’table was outen that hole an’ I was in it. I stayed in it, too, fer jest ez me head an’ arms an’ shoulders got out o’ doors I felt a sharp prickin’ in me side. I pushed back an’ a great big splinter jagged me. I tried to go on for’a’d, an’ it jagged me agin so bad I ’most yelled. So I stayed right there—one-half outen the house an’ the other half een. Seemed like time begin to move awful slow then, an’ it ’peared a whole day ’fore the moon went from the top o’ the old lone pine tree into Grandaddy’s chestnut, which is jest twenty feet. Then me feet an’ legs was bakin’ over the stove, an’ the cold Apryl winds was a-whistlin’ down me neck.

“I took to countin’ jest to pass time, an’ I ’low I must ’a’ counted fifteen million afore I heard footsteps up the road. A man come outen the woods an’ inter the moonlit clearin’, where I could see he was ole Hen Bingle. I whistled. He stopped an’ looked. I whistled agin an’ called soft like to him. He sneaked up to the gate an’ looked agin.

“‘Hen, help,’ I whispers.

“‘Who in the heck is you a-growin’ outen the side o’ that shanty?’ he calls, kind o’ hoarse an’[216] scared. With that he pints a musket at me wery threatenin’.

“‘Hen Bingle!’ sais I. ‘Don’t you dast shoot. It’s me an’ I want you to pull me out. I’m goin’ to war.’

“Then it dawned on him what was up, an’ he come over an’ looks at me. I seen he hed on his blues, too, an’ I knowd ez he hed give his woman the sneak an’ was off to fight Spaynyards. He wanted to laugh, but I told him it were no time fer sech foolin’, but jest to break off that splinter an’ pull me loose.

“Now, Hen’s an obligin’, patriotic kind o’ a feller, an’ tho’, ez he sayd, he hedn’t much time to waste, ez his woman was likely to wake up any minute an’ find him gone, he reached up an’ broke off the splinter. But I fit the hole so tight I couldn’t budge, an’ he sayd he’d pull me out. So he gits up on the wall o’ the well which was jest below me, an’ grabs me be both hands an’ drawed. I’d moved about an inch, ’hen he kicked out wild like an’ hung to me like a ton o’ hay, an’ gasped an’ groaned. I thought that yank hed disj’inted me all over, an’ yells, ‘Let go!’

“‘Don’t you dast let go!’ he sayd, lookin’ up at me kind o’ agonizin’.

“Then I see that neither me nor Hen Bingle was ever goin’ to fight Spaynyards, fer he’d stepped off the wall an’ was hangin’ down inter the well.

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“Splinters! Why, I’d ’a’ ruther hed a splinter stickin’ in every inch o’ my body then ole Hen Bingle’s two hundred pound a-drawin’ me from my nat’ral height o’ five feet six inter a man o’ six feet five. That’s what it seemed like. He ast how deep me well was, an’ ’hen I answered forty foot with fifteen foot o’ wotter at the bottom, he sayd he’d never speak to me agin if I let go my holt on him. I sayd I guesst he wouldn’t, an’ he let out a whoop that brought the missus an’ the little ones a-tumblin’ outen the house.

“Marthy stared at us a minute. Then she sais, ‘Where was you a-goin’?’

“‘To fight Spaynyards,’ sais I, sheepish like.

“‘An’ you, Hen Bingle?’ she asts.

“‘Same,’ gasps Hen.

“‘Does your wife know you’re out?’ sais the missus, stern ez a jedge.

“‘No,’ sais Hen.

“‘Then I’ve a mind to go over to your placet an’ git her,’ sais Marthy.

“‘It’s two miled,’ Hen groaned, ‘an’ I’ll be drownded agin you git back. Lemme up now an’ I’ll go home an’ stay there.’

“Marthy turns around quiet like, walks inter the house an’ comes out with the family Bible.

“‘Hen Bingle,’ she sais solemn-like, holdin’ the book to his mouth, ‘does you promise to tell the whole truth an’ nothin’ but the truth, an’ not to go to war?’

[218]

“Hen didn’t waste no time in kissin’ that book so loud I could hear an echo of it over along the ridge. I kissed it pretty loud meself, to be sure. The missus lifted Hen outen the well an’ he snuck off home. His woman never knowd nawthin’ about the trouble tell she met my missus two weeks later, at protracted meetin’ over to Pine Swamp church. Ez fer me, but fer that splinter I’d be in Sandyago now.”