In talking with Sipes, one afternoon, about some of the roads in the back country, he suggested that we take a walk over to the Judge’s house and see him. “The Jedge has got a map that’s got all them things on it. The ol’ feller deals in law, an’ land, an’ fire insurance, an’ everythin’ else.”
After Sipes had carefully shut the door of his shanty, and secured it with an old iron padlock, we started on our journey. He said that he generally locked the place up when he went away, as “there was sometimes some fellers snoopin’ ’round that might swipe sumpen, an’ the Jedge told me oncet that if anybody ever busted open the lock, it would show bulgarious intent, an’ they’d git sent up fer it if they ever got caught, but if they went in when the place wasn’t locked, it was trespass on the case, or sumpen like that.”
We trudged along through the deep sand for half a mile or so, and then turned through an opening in the dunes where the road came in. Our walk led through the broken wet country for about a mile before we came to more solid ground. On the way across the marshy strip the old man pointed out familiar spots where he had “lambasted pretty near a whole flock o’ ducks at one shot.” In another place he had once spent nearly an hour in “sneakin’ up on a bunch o’ wooden decoys that some feller had out, an’ when I shot into ’em you’d a thought a ton o’ lead ’ad struck a lumber pile. The feller yelled when I fired. He was back in some weeds, an’ I guess ’e was afraid there was goin’ to be sumpen doin’ on ’im with the other bar’l if ’e didn’t yell.”
A tamarack swamp, about half a mile away, was a favorite haunt for rabbits in the winter. He often went over there on the ice after there had been a light fall of snow.
“Them little beasts are pretty foxy, but I just go over there an’ set still, an’ when one of ’em comes hoppin’ ’round out in the open, I shoot the fillin’ out of ’im. I’ve got as many as twenty there in one day.
“When we git over to the Jedge’s house, don’t you go ag’inst none o’ that whisky that ’e’s got in a big black bottle in the under part of ’is desk. He calls the bottle ‘Black Betty,’ an’ it’s ter’ble stuff. It kicks pretty near as hard as my ol’ scatter gun, an’ ’e has to keep a glass stopper in the bottle. A common cork would be et up. A man that laps up whisky like that has to have a sheet-iron stummick, an’ I guess the Jedge’s got one all right, fer ’e’s bin hittin’ it fer years.
“He fills the bottle up out of a big demijohn, that ’e gits loaded up from a partic’lar bar’l at Fogarty’s place over to the county seat when ’e goes to court, an’ lots o’ times when ’e don’t go to court. The bar’l replenishes the demijohn, the demijohn replenishes Black Betty, an’ Black Betty replenishes the Jedge, an’ after that the Jedge has to replenish Fogarty—so it all works ’round natural—an’ the Jedge keeps a skinful all the time.
“A white man could drink the grog we used to have on the ship an’ still see, but the Jedge’s dope would make a hole in a pine board, an’ you pass it by.”
This I solemnly promised to do.
“I notice that them fellers that take up stiddy boozin’ have to ’tend to it all the time. When ol’ Jedge Blossom finds out that them law cases that ’e’s always talkin’ about interferes with ’is boozin’, ’e’ll quit monkeyin’ with ’em. It must a bin a sweet country that ’e bloomed in. Pretty near every time I go to see ’im, ’e ain’t home. They say ’e’s off ’tendin’ to some important cases before the master in chancery. Them cases is prob’ly mostly before Black Betty, fer I notice ’e always comes home from ’em stewed, an’ sometimes ’is horse comes home alone an’ ’e comes later. He takes drinks lots o’ times when ’e don’t need ’em. He just drops ’em in to hear ’em spatter.