“Right away Heck took the platform. They'd a had to lock it up somewheres to keep him frum takin' it. He was up on one of them market benches, wavin' his arms and spoutin' about the mudsills and the nigger lovers, and jest darin' the accursed invader to put one heel upon the sacred soil of the grand old Commonwealth—not both his heels, but ary one of 'em—when all of a sudden Meriwether Grider leaned over and kissed his wife—he hadn't been married but a little more'n a year and they had a baby about three weeks old at home. And then he stepped forward and climbed up on the bench and sort of shoved Heck to one side, and called out that there'd been enough talk, and that it was about time for action; and said, ef somebody had a piece of paper handy, he'd like mightily to put his name down as a volunteer fur the Southern Army. And in another second every woman there was cheerin' with one side of her mouth and cryin' with the other.
“And Colonel Noble had fetched his flag up and was wavin' it with both hands; and old Doctor Hendrickson, the Presbyterian preacher, had made a prayer—a heap shorter one than whut he ginerally made—and had yanked a little pocket Testament out frum under his coattails fur the boys to take the oath on. And in less'n no time Heck Dallas was back down in the crowd, in considerable danger of being trampled to death in the rush of young fellers to git up there and sign their names to the roll.”
Doctor Lake slid off the log and stood up, with his black hat crumpled in one gnarled old hand. In the emotion of the moment he forgot his grammar: “You remember, Billy—don't you?—how you and me and Peter J. Galloway and little Gil Nicholas went up together to sign?”
“I ain't exactly liable to furgit it, ever,” said Judge Priest. “That was the night I jest natchelly walked off and left my little law office flat on its back. I'd been advertisin' myself to practise law fur about a year, but whut I'd mainly practised up to that time was economy—that and checkers and old sledge, to help pass away the time. No, suh; I didn't leave no clients behind me, clamourin' fur my professional services. Clients were something I'd heared a lot of talk about, but hadn't met face to face. All I had to do when I quit was jest to put out the fire and shut the door, and come on away.”
“And the last one of all to sign that night was Herman Felsburg,” stated Doctor Lake, as though desirous of rounding out a recital.
“Yes—that's right too, Lew,” agreed the old Judge. “Herman was the very last one. I remember how some of the crowd begun snickerin' when he come stumpin' up on them crooketty little laigs of hisn; but the snickerin' died out when Meriwether Grider grabbed Herman's hand and shook it, and Doctor Hendrickson held out the Book fur him to swear on it to be true and faithful to the cause of the Southern Confederacy. A person don't snicker so very well that's got a lump in his throat at the moment.
“You see, son, Herman was a kind of town joke them days,” stated Judge Priest, again digressing for my benefit. “There weren't many furreign-born people in this section back yonder in Sixty-one. Ef a feller come along that was frum Greece or Italy or Spain, or somewheres else down that way, we jest called him a Dago, dry-so—and let it go at that. But ef he hailed from Germany or Holland or Russia, or anywhere in Northern Europe, he was a Dutchman to us.
“There were just two exceptions to the rule: An Irishman was an Irishman, of course; and a Jew was a Jew. We had a few Irish families in town, like the Galloways and the Hallorans; and there was one Jewish family livin' here—the Liebers; but they'd all been born in this country and didn't speak nothin' but English, and, exceptin' that old man Lieber used to close up his hide-and-pelt store of a Sad'day, instid of Sunday, it never occurred to anybody that the Liebers practised a different religion frum the run of folks.
“Herman had been here about a year, off and on. He didn't seem to know nobody, and he didn't have any friends. He wasn't more'n nineteen years old—or maybe twenty; and he was shy and awkward and homely. He used to go out through the county with a pack on his back, sellin' gimcracks to country people. He could make change all right—I reckin he jest natchelly inherited that ez a gift—and he was smart enough at drivin' a bargain; but somehow it seemed like he jest couldn't learn to talk English, or to understand it, neither, exceptin' when the subject was business. Understand, that was thirty-odd years back; but sometimes, even now, when old Herman gits excited, you'd think, to hear him, that he didn't know much English yit. His language matches the shape of his laigs then.”
I nodded understanding, Mr. Felsburg's conversational eccentricities being a constant fount of material for the town humourists of my own generation. The Judge went on: “Well, anyway, he signed up that night, along with all the rest of us. And after that, fur a few days, so many things was happenin' that I sort of forgot about him; and I reckin nearly everybody else did too. It seemed like the whole town sort of went crazy fur a spell, whut with the first company, which was our company, electin' its officers, and the County Battery formin', and a troop of cavalry organisin', and the older men enrollin' fur home defence, and a lot of big-moth fellers standin' round on street comers lowin as how it was goin' to be only a ninety-day picnic, anyway, and that any Southern man could whip five Yankees—and so forth and so on.