"How's that?" says I.
"Wal (swear word), they was witnesses that swore they seed Duff hit this feller with a sling-shot, and they seed it because the moon was bright right at the meridian. And Linkern got every witness to go over it again and say the moon was at the meridian, and that's why they seed Duff hit this feller with a sling-shot; and after Linkern had got it all clear by cross questionin' these witnesses, then he pulled out a almanac, and says to the judge and the jury, 'Look here.' They looked and saw that the moon warn't at the meridian, but was a settin' (swear word); and so they couldn't have seed Duff hit him with a slung-shot. And Linkern put a feller on the stand and axed him 'Did you ever make a slung-shot?' 'Yes,' says he. 'Tell me how,' says Linkern. 'Wal,' says he, 'I took a egg shell and sunk one half of it in the sand; then I melted some zinc and lead and poured it into the egg shell, and made two of these; then I took a old boot and cut out some leather and sewed the leather around these two halves with squirrel's hide; then I made a loop for the wrist of squirrel's hide'; and then Linkern says, 'Look at this.' He handed a slung-shot to the feller; and says, 'Take your knife and rip it open.' So he did, and there fell out the two halves molded in this here egg shell, and so the slung-shot belonged to this feller and didn't belong to Duff at all. And they had found it thar where the fight was; but every one fit that night (swear word). You see they were a-holdin' a camp meetin', and about a mile off thar was a bar where they sold drinks, and they'd go and get religion a little (swear word), and then go and get some drinks, and so on back and forth, and so they fit. And this here feller that was killed and Duff fit here onct right in Oakford, because he pulled Duff off'n a barl where he was sleepin', and Duff got up and whooped him."
By this time Vangy came in. And Mitch was in the best of spirits. I never heard him laugh so much.
Vangy sat down to the organ, and John tuned up his fiddle, and they started. Aunt Caroline came in then and sot down and began to knit, but didn't say nothin'. John just drew a few times with his bow and then he said: "This here is called 'Pete McCue's Straw Stack,' named after old Peter McCue who lived down by Tar Creek. They had a dance thar and the fellers hitched their horses clost to a straw stack in the lot and when they came out the horses had et all the straw stack up. So they had been a playin' this here tune and after that they called it 'Pete McCue's Straw Stack.'"
Then John played it, tappin' his foot, and Vangy just made the organ talk. She was as thin as a killdeer, and looked consumptive, but she knew how to play the organ, you bet.
Then John began to laugh and he says, "Thar was a feller over near Salt Creek named Clay Bailey, that tried to play the fiddle, but he never played but one tune, and they called it 'Chaw Roast Beef.' He warn't a very big man, but round chested and stout, and he came here onct when Porky Jim Thomas was runnin' a saloon here, before he moved to Bobtown. Wal, this here Clay Bailey was in thar havin' some drinks with the boys, and all at onct a feller came in with his coat tail all chawed off, and lookin' pretty blue and he said a bull dog had come fur him. Clay would fight anything. And so he says to the stranger, 'You buy the drinks, and I'll go out and whoop the bull.' 'All right,' says the stranger. So he bought the drinks and Clay went out, follered by the hull crowd. The bull belonged to one of the Watkinses and was in a wagon watchin'; so Clay went right up to the wagon and the bull jumped for him. Clay caught him by the ear and held him off with one hand and pounded him over the heart with his fist, till the bull gave up. Then Clay flung him down like, and the bull got up and run about 40 rods down to a walnut tree and stood there and just bellered as if the moon was shinin'. Now, Vangy, 'Chaw Roast Beef.'"
John Armstrong Plays the Fiddle
So John played that and Mitch was rollin' from side to side in his chair and laughin' fit to kill. Then John said, "I s'pose you boys never seed no platform dancin'." We never had and wanted to know what it was. "Wal (swear word)," says John, "they put up a platform and one after another they get up on the platform and dance, and when they get real earnest they take their shoes off. Jim Tate who went out to Kansas was the best platform dancer we ever had around here. He came over one night to Old Uncle Billy Bralin's whar my uncle was a fiddlin'—the best fiddler they ever was here. And Jim heard him and got to jigglin' and finally he looked in the room and he says, 'Clar the cheers out, I'm goin' to take off my shoes and come down on her.' So they did, and while he was dancin' his foot went through one of the holes in the puncheon floor and skinned one of his shins. Up to then they had always called this piece 'Shoats in the Corn,' but after that they called it 'Skinnin' your Shins.' Go ahead, Vangy." Then he played "Skinnin' your Shins," and after that "Rocky Road to Jordan," "Way up to Tar Creek," "A Sly Wink at Me," "All a Time a Goin' with the High Toned Gals," and a lot more that I can't remember, and between every piece he'd tell a story.