Also there still remained Red Hoss Shackleford, who wavered to and fro upon the platform, with a hand to his bewildered brow, trying foggily to figure out just how he had been thwarted of his just retribution upon the persons of those vanished arch-detractors of him. He had had his revenge—had it sugar-sweet and brimming over—only he didn't know it yet.
“Oh, Jeffy,” gasped Ophelia, “wuzn't you skeered too?”
“Who—me?” proclaimed Jeff. “Me skeered of a wet nigger, full of stick gin? Fair lady, mebbe I don't keer so much fur gittin' my clothes all mussed up fightin' wid bully niggers, but I ain't never run frum no ghostes yit; an' I don't never aim to, neither—not 'thout waitin' round long 'nuff to find out fust w'ether hit's a real ghost or not. Dat's me!”
“Oh, Jeffy, you suttinly is de bravest man I knows!” she answered back in muffled tones, with her head on his white waistcoat.
At this moment precisely the town clock sounded the first stroke of twelve, and all the steam whistles in town let go, blasting out shrilly; and all the giant firecrackers in town began bursting in loud acclaim of the New Year. But what the triumphant, proud, conquering Jeff heard was his Ophelia, speaking to him soul to soul.
CHAPTER VIII. CINNAMON SEED AND SANDY BOTTOM
MAJOR putnam stone is dead, but his soul goes marching on. Mainly it does its marching on at Midsylvania University. Every fall, down yonder, on the night of the day of the last game of the season, when the squad has broken training and many of the statutes touching on the peace and quiet of the community, there is a dinner. At the end of this dinner the captain of the team stands up at one end of the table and chants out: “Cinnamon Seed and Sandy Bottom!”—just like that. Whereupon there are loud cheers. And then, at the far end of the table from him, the chairman of the athletic community stands up in his place and lifts his mug and says, in the midst of a little silence: “To the memory of Major Putnam Stone!” Then everybody rises and drinks; and there are no heel-taps.
This ceremony is never omitted. It is a tradition; and they go in rather strongly for traditions at Midsylvania, and always have since the days when there was not much else to Midsylvania except its traditions. The team may have won that afternoon, or it may have lost. The boys may be jubilating for the biggest victory of the whole year, or, over the trenches and the tankards, consoling themselves and one another for an honourable defeat at the hands of their classic rival, Vanderbeck. It makes no difference. Win or lose, they toast the shade and the name of Major Stone.