“We are from Arkansas.”
“I guess you got good reasons to deny where you come from,” he next said, “you that drove the Lord’s people from Missouri.”
Mother made no reply.
“. . . Seein’,” he went on, after the pause accorded her, “as you’re now comin’ a-whinin’ an’ a-beggin’ bread at our hands that you persecuted.”
Whereupon, and instantly, child that I was, I knew anger, the old, red, intolerant wrath, ever unrestrainable and unsubduable.
“You lie!” I piped up. “We ain’t Missourians. We ain’t whinin’. An’ we ain’t beggars. We got the money to buy.”
“Shut up, Jesse!” my mother cried, landing the back of her hand stingingly on my mouth. And then, to the stranger, “Go away and let the boy alone.”
“I’ll shoot you full of lead, you damned Mormon!” I screamed and sobbed at him, too quick for my mother this time, and dancing away around the fire from the back-sweep of her hand.
As for the man himself, my conduct had not disturbed him in the slightest. I was prepared for I knew not what violent visitation from this terrible stranger, and I watched him warily while he considered me with the utmost gravity.
At last he spoke, and he spoke solemnly, with solemn shaking of the head, as if delivering a judgment.