Martin Littleton was born in East Tennessee. When he was a boy he moved to a community in Texas, largely settled by people from his own part of the country who had carried with them to their new home the customs and traditions of their native mountains. There he studied law and presently he opened a modest law-office.
Almost the first person who called upon him in a professional way was a gaunt Tennesseean whom he had known as a child. The visitor stated that he wished to bring a lawsuit against a neighbor, also a transplanted Tennesseean, to decide a dispute which had arisen over a line fence.
“Now see here, Uncle Zach,” young Littleton said, “it’s too bad that two old friends from the same part of the world should be lawing each other. Isn’t there some way you men can settle this thing out of court?”
The old fellow shook his grizzled head.
“Martin, I’m afeard not,” he said. “When this yere row first got serious betwixt us I made him a proposition. I suggested to him that we should decide it the same way we used to decide sich arguments back home. I told him if he’d meet me at sun-up in my pecan grove, bringin’ his squirrel rifle with him, we’d stand up back to back and each one would step off twenty steps and swing around and start shootin’. But Martin, the low-flung craven, he couldn’t stand the gaff when the shootin’ time came. He didn’t have the sand. When I’d stepped off twenty steps and whirled around you kin believe it or not, but the cowardly dog had done jumped behind a tree.”
“What happened then?” asked Littleton.
“Well, natchelly, Martin, that th’owed me behind a tree.”
§ 139 Not Listed among the Leading Ones Anyhow
A youth from the slums attained fame as a prize-fighter. With prosperity and prominence, he turned arrogant.
One day he openly snubbed a companion of his earlier days. The snubbed one presently sent an emissary to reproach him for his snobbishness.