Back Home: Being the Narrative of Judge Priest and His People

by Irvin S. Cobb

“'I 'low to keep on tryin', says Singin' Sandy. 'And ef I don't make out to do it, there's my buddy growin' up and comin' along. And some day he'll do it,' he says, not boasting and not arguing, but cheerfully and confidently as though he was telling of a thing that was already the same as settled.

“Captain Braxton Montjoy reared away back on his high heels—he wore high heels to make him look taller, I reckon—and he looked straight at Singin' Sandy standing there so little and insignificant and raggedy, and all gormed over with mud and wet with branch water, and smelling of the woods and the new ground. There was a purple mark still under one of Sandy's eyes and a scabbed place on top of one of his ears where Harve Allen had pretty nigh torn it off the side of his head.

“'By Godfrey,' says Captain Braxton Montjoy, 'by Godfrey, sir,' and he began pulling off his glove which was dainty and elegant, like everything else about him. 'Sir,' he says to Singin' Sandy, 'I desire to shake your hand.'

“So they shook hands and Captain Braxton Montjoy stepped one side and bowed with ceremony to Singin' Sandy, and Singin' Sandy stepped in toward Harve Allen humming to himself.

“For this once, anyhow, Harve wasn't for charging right into the mix-up at the first go-off. It almost seemed like he wanted to back away. But Singin' Sandy lunged out and hit him in the face and stung him, and then Harve's brute fighting instinct must have come back into his body, and he flailed out with both fists and staggered Singin' Sandy back. Harve ran in on him and they locked and there was a whirl of bodies and down they went, in the dirt, with Harve on top as per usual. He licked Singin' Sandy, but he didn't lick him nigh as hard as he'd always done it up till then. When he got through, Singin' Sandy could get up off the ground by himself and that was the first time he had been able to do so. He stood there a minute swaying a little on his legs and wiping the blood out of his eyes where it ran down from a little cut right in the edge of his hair. He spit and we saw that two of his front teeth were gone, broken short off up in the gums; and Singin' Sandy felt with the tip of his tongue at the place where they'd been. 'In a month,' he says, and away he goes, singing his tuneless song.

“Well, I watched Harve Allen close that next month—and I think nearly all the other people did too. It was a strange thing too, but he went through the whole month without beating up anybody. Before that he'd never let a month pass without one fight anyhow. Yet he drank more whiskey than was common even with him. Once I ran up on him sitting on a drift log down in the willows by himself, seemingly studying over something in his mind.

“When the month was past and Singin' Sandy's day rolled round again for the ninth time, it was spring time, and the river was bankfull from the spring rise and yellow as paint with mud and full of drift and brush. Out from shore a piece, in the current, floating snags were going down, thick as harrow teeth, all pointing the same way like big black fish going to spawn. Early that morning, the river had bitten out a chunk of crumbly clay bank and took a cabin in along with it, and there was a hard job saving a couple of women and a whole shoal of young ones. For the time being that made everybody forget about Singin' Sandy being due, and so nobody, I think, saw him coming. I know I didn't see him at all until he stood on the river bank humming to himself.

“He stood there on the bank swelling himself out and humming his little song louder and clearer than ever he had before—and fifty yards out from shore in a dugout that belonged to somebody else, was Bully Harve Allen, fighting the current and dodging the drift logs as he paddled straight for the other side that was two miles and better away. He never looked back once; but Singin' Sandy stood and watched him until he was no more than a moving spot on the face of those angry, roily waters. Singin' Sandy lived out his life and died here—he's got grandchildren scattered all over this county now, but from that day forth Harve Allen never showed his face in this country.”

Cap'n Jasper got up slowly, and shook himself, as a sign that his story was finished, and the others rose, shuffling stiffly. It was getting late—time to be getting home. The services in the darky church had ended and we could hear the unseen worshippers trooping by, still chanting snatches of their revival tunes.

“Well, boys, that's all there is to tell of that tale,” said Cap'n Jasper, “all that I now remember anyhow. And now what would you say it was that made Harve Allen run away from the man he'd already licked eight times hand running. Would you call it cowardice?”