He wore a shirt of white, unbleached cotton, a starched collar and black tie.
In speaking of his collar to Samson, he said that he felt like a wild horse in a box stall.
Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster, was there—a smooth-faced man with a large head, sandy hair and a small mustache, who spoke by note, as it were. Kelso called him the great articulator and said that he walked in the valley of the shadow of Lindley Murray. He seemed to keep a watchful eye on his words, as if they were a lot of schoolboys not to be trusted. They came out with a kind of self-conscious rectitude.
The children's games had begun and the little house rang with their songs and laughter, while their elders sat by the fire and along the walls talking. Ann Rutledge and Bim Kelso and Harry Needles and John McNeil played with them. In one of the dances all joined in singing the verses:
I won't have none o' yer' weevily wheat,
I won't have none o' yer barley;
I won't have none o' yer' weevily wheat,
To make a cake for Charley.
Charley is a fine young man,
Charley is a dandy,
Charley likes to kiss the girls,
Whenever it comes handy.
When a victim was caught in the flying scrimmage at the end of a passage in the game of Prisoners, he or she was brought before a blindfolded judge:
"Heavy, heavy hangs over your head," said the Constable.
"Fine or superfine?" the judge inquired.
"Fine," said the Constable, which meant that the victim was a boy. Then the sentence was pronounced and generally it was this: