"Now, boys, crib your corn," said Captain Lumsden, as he started the whiskey bottle on its encouraging travels along the line of shuckers.
"Hurrah, boys!" shouted McConkey. "Pull away, my sweats! work like dogs in a meat-pot; beat 'em all to thunder, er bust a biler, by jimminy! Peel 'em off! Thunder and blazes! Hurrah!"
This loud hallooing may have cheered his own men, but it certainly stimulated those on the other side. Morton was more prudent; he husked with all his might, and called down the lines in an undertone, "Let them holler, boys, never mind Bill; all the breath he spends in noise we'll spend in gittin' the corn peeled. Here, you! don't you shove that corn back in the shucks! No cheats allowed on this side!"
Goodwin had taken his place in the middle of his own men, where he could overlook them and husk, without intermission, himself; knowing that his own dexterity was worth almost as much as the work of two men. When one or two boys on his side began to run over to see how the others were getting along, he ordered them back with great firmness. "Let them alone," he said, "you are only losing time; work hard at first, everybody will work hard at the last."
For nearly an hour the huskers had been stripping husks with unremitting eagerness; the heap of unshucked corn had grown smaller, the crib was nearly full of the white and yellow ears, and a great billow of light husks had arisen behind the eager workers.
"Why don't you drink?" asked Jake Sniger, who sat next to Morton.
"Want's to keep his breath sweet for Patty Lumsden," said Ben North, with a chuckle.
Morton did not knock Ben over, and Ben never knew how near he came to getting a whipping.
It was now the last heavy pull of the shuckers. McConkey had drunk rather freely, and his "Pull away, sweats!" became louder than ever. Morton found it necessary to run up and down his line once or twice, and hearten his men by telling them that they were "sure to beat if they only stuck to it well."
The two parties were pretty evenly matched; the side led by Goodwin would have given it up once if it had not been for his cheers; the others were so near to victory that they began to shout in advance, and that cheer, before they were through, lost them the battle,—for Goodwin, calling to his men, fell to work in a way that set them wild by contagion, and for the last minute they made almost superhuman exertions, sending a perfect hail of white corn into the crib, and licking up the last ear in time to rush with a shout into the territory of the other party, and seize on one or two dozen ears, all that were left, to show that Morton had clearly gained the victory. Then there was a general wiping of foreheads, and a general expression of good feeling. But Bill McConkey vowed that he "knowed what the other side done with their corn," pointing to the husk pile.