“Yes,” says I. “Here comes a buggy up the road now.”
Sure enough, there was a buggy, only there were two of them, and they were coming pell-mell for election. It was a race. We could hear the drivers yelling at their horses and leaning over the dashboards to larrup them with their whips. Side by side they came, rolling and pitching and looking for all the world as if they were going to bang into each other or turn bottom side up any minute. At first we couldn’t see who was in them for the dust they kicked up, but pretty soon they came near enough so we could tell it was Chet Weevil and Chancy Miller.
They galloped their horses right up to Old Mose’s front gate and then pulled them in so quick they almost busted the lines. Neither one waited to tie up, but just jumped over the wheel and made for the gate. It wasn’t a very wide gate, and it opened outward. Chet got there just a tenth of a second ahead, but before he could get the gate open Chancy banged into him and began clawing at him and pushing to get past. Chet hung on to the gate and Chancy hung on to Chet. Old Mose got up and stood looking at them with his jaw dropped down and his eyes big as turnips. He was so surprised he couldn’t even move.
Chet kept on hanging to the gate and fumbling for the catch. Chancy tugged and jerked and braced his feet—and all at once the gate swung open and down they went, with Chancy on the bottom. Chet’s elbow went kerplump into his stomach, and Chancy let loose a yell that was mournfuler than a cow mooing when she’s lost track of her calf. Chet jumped up quick to make a dash into the yard, but Chancy reached out and grabbed his foot, and down he went on his nose. Then it seemed like both of them forgot just why they came. For a while votes and Old Mose left their minds entirely, and they set themselves to the job of pulling each other to pieces.
By this time Old Mose was coming to a little, but hadn’t got so he could talk much yet. But his mad was getting up. First he began to step up and down like the porch was too hot for his feet. Then he began waggling his head and working his jaw. Then he began sawing the air with his arms. All that exercise cleared out his throat so it could be used, and out came a yell. It wasn’t a word and didn’t mean anything; it was just a yell, but it was a mad yell. I’ve heard a lot of yells at one time and another, but I don’t remember any one of them that beat this one of Mose’s much.
He went hobbling down the path to the gate and slammed it shut. Outside in the sand Chet and Chancy were wallowing and clawing around and pulling hair and kicking and trying to rub each other’s faces in the dirt. Old Mose leaned over the gate and watched them. All of a sudden he chuckled. It wasn’t a good-natured chuckle, by any means, but the sort of a chuckle a mean man gives when he sees something disagreeable happening to somebody he doesn’t like. He leaned over farther and began yelling at Chet and Chancy.
“Give it to him. That’s the way. Come squabblin’ around my gate, will you! Git a holt on to his nose, there. Whee!... Shove his face in the dirt. Who! Consarn ye—both of ye! Hope ye git them dude clothes fixed for once. Grab him by the collar. Ya-aah! Whoop!”
He was going on at a great rate when another buggy stopped and out climbed Mrs. Bloom. She looked for a minute, and then swooped down on Chancy and Chet like a mad turkey hen and grabbed each of them by the handiest part she could get a hold of.
“Git right up,” says she. “Hain’t you ashamed of yourselves, fightin’ like two roosters—and on Sunday afternoon! Where’s the town marshal? Git right up out of a body’s way. I want to git through that gate. Git up, I say, and let a body by.”
“Want to git through this gate, do ye?” says Old Mose. “I got somethin’ to say about that. What d’ye want to git through this gate for? I don’t want ye. Hain’t got no use for wimmin folks, anyhow, and special I hain’t got no use for gabblin’ wimmin folks. You jest git into that buggy of yourn and go away from here.”