In the afternoon we went up Perilous, persimmon and buckeye hunting, and later, after filling their shirt-fronts with the shiny ammunition, the boys lined up on opposite sides of the creek and had a buckeye-battle.
After supper I began reading the Story of Odysseus. When we came to the place where the hero makes his escape from the cave of Polyphemus, Nucky interrupted to tell the tale he promised while we were on Trigger, of Blant's escape last spring, when for the first and only time he was arrested by officers. It was the day when he was "laywayed" by Elhannon, Todd and Dalt, and had killed one, and almost killed the other two. The sheriff happened to be on Powderhorn, near the mouth of Trigger, at the time, received the news at once, and reached the Marrs home within an hour after the occurrence. Blant, not dreaming of so prompt an attempt at arrest, was sitting before the fire cleaning his forty-five; and before he knew it, the sheriff stepped between him and his ammunition. Quiet surrender was the only possible thing. The sheriff and deputy started with him to the jail here in our village; but, being overtaken by darkness on the way, were obliged to stop overnight at a wayside house. Blant went to bed, handcuffed, between the sheriff and deputy, each of whom retired with a loaded revolver in his hand. In the morning the prisoner was gone, the blanket that had covered the three swung from the window, and the two revolvers were found on the ground beneath, placed neatly side by side.
"Thaint no men or no prison nowhere Blant couldn't git away from if he was a mind to," said Nucky; "he wouldn't fool around and see his friends et up like Odysseus."
The character of Odysseus also brought out some family history from Geordie and Absalom. It appears that their grandfather, Old George Yonts, was a man noted in several ways, as a hard-shell preacher, as a wonderful nag-trader, and, like Odysseus, as a man of craft and guile in wars. Warring factions would come to him for advice; and his stratagems, when carried out, were brilliantly successful. The boys, with much pride, told some awful instances. They also said that all of his thirteen sons were "mean men," their own father having met death at too early an age to become as distinguished as the other twelve. As I listened, I marvelled, not that the "born trader's" morality is a little oblique, but that he has any at all.
Wednesday.
To-day I saw Philip hold out a handful of chestnuts to Taulbee, his bosom friend, with the words, "Don't take more'n five,—you're owing me now. You haint gone treat for allus!" Perfect candor is evidently the sure, if rocky, foundation of their relationship.
Saturday Night.
More family history as we were roasting sweet-potatoes in the hot ashes under our fire to-night. Iry said he could recollect roasting them while the men made his maw's coffin. "I never knowed no better," he said; "I weren't but three, and thought she was laying there asleep. I wondered what them men was a-hammering at outside. When I seed 'em take her off in it, I knowed."
"She were the best step-maw ever I had," remarked Joab, feelingly.
"How many have you had?" I inquired.