I went home with Ed—and don’t you think they sent for a doctor? I could have set it myself, but they did not ask me; and, besides that, it did not need setting. I would bet on Ed’s arm growing out strong and straight every time. He was that sort. If it had been cut off it would not have surprised anyone who knew him to see another one grow out. I have already told why it happened—because he failed to make a cross mark and spit in it before breakfast. I think now that was also the reason I missed that rabbit—if the reader persists in saying that I did miss it. I am willing to admit that the suspicions were against me until I showed the wounds on the rabbit, but I am not going to try to cram anything down public credulity, because I have several more things to tell that I am not willing to swear to, and it is necessary to have the confidence of my creditors.
While Ed’s arm is knitting I will gather up a few odds and ends that are needed to round out these exciting narratives. Ed could make a bow and arrow that was a perfect Indian’s dream, and I doubt if the Six Nations had anything like them. Find a green cedar limb about an inch thick and cut it to three feet length; trim the knots smooth and shave it just a little each side of the center on the concave side at the places where it must gently bend; cut a notch on the side just at the center for the arrow to rest in, and string it with a stout cord. Cut your arrows out of straight hickory and make them plumb, and then take a piece of tin about two inches square and roll it into a sharp spike and fasten it on tightly with a rivet. You can send that arrow through a two-inch plank and hit a tree two hundred yards.
Tony was a little negro boy who lived at Mrs. McEwen’s. We used to hold him down on his back and prop his eyes open and let the sun shine in. One day I shied an arrow straight up and it came down and struck Tony on the forehead about the edge of the hair and went in under the skin of his forehead, clean down to his eyebrows, and stood up like a flagstaff. I pulled it out and made him tell that a piece of stovewood flew up and hit him.
I shot one of Dr. McKinney’s pigs one day through and through, but I did not mind the loss of the pig nearly so much as the loss of the arrow. The contrary little thing ran straight up to the back gate, squealing, and I had no chance to rescue my arrow. Bob McKinney offered the arrow to me next day, to see if I claimed it, but I was too many for him—I had never seen it before. They were also too many for me—Joel, Bull Woolens, Tobe, Hal and Bob—and it would have been very unhealthy to claim it with five McKinney boys to one me.
Remus suffered an accident one day that came near disfiguring him for life. I went into Doug Farquaharson’s barber shop and Remus followed, and then I came out and Remus tried to follow, and there is where he made the mistake of his life. Doug was a negro who belonged to Colonel Farquaharson. I hardly imagine that if Doug had had the selection of his own surname he would have hit upon such an incongruous befuddlement of letters to spell a name that was pronounced plain “Ferguson,” but I mention the name only to say that if you take all the letters in it and rattle them around in a milk-shake a week and then sling them out promiscuous-like, they would spell something that looks a little like Remus’ face did when he got out of that shop. There was a long mirror on the wall right by the door, and when I went out and closed the door after me, Remus thought I went out through the mirror, and he took a running start and made a leap at it. If Remus ever had any lurking notion that he could jump through a brick wall, offhand, he was cured of it then. He tried his best, but it would not work. He was the most surprised dog when he bounced back that ever carromed on a plate glass mirror, but he was not half as much astonished as he was messed up. His countenance was utterly shipwrecked. No one has ever heard me lay claim to any very beatific personal beauty for Remus, but I never knew a dog in my life to lose more sweet elegance of expression than Remus did in half a second. I was about thirty yards off when I heard Remus hit the wall, and I thought I saw it bulge out a little, and I stood there four minutes and heard glass falling. I never went back to Doug’s any more to see whether or not the mirror was injured. I was afraid I might do him some personal injury for setting his mirror where it could inveigle Remus into making such a grave mistake. Four minutes of rattling glass, and the door opened and Remus popped out, with Doug after him with a barber’s chair. I broke for Frog Bottom and Remus for home. He stayed under the house a week, and when he came out his tail was so firmly fixed between his legs that a surgical operation was necessary. I understand that the wall where Remus hit is soft to this day, and that once in a while a fragment of glass falls out yet. It is worthy of remark, and the statement carries with it a solemn warning to the reader, that I had neglected to spit in a cross mark before breakfast that morning. The very next day I saw a black snake over my left shoulder, and a boil broke out under my right arm that very night. We cannot be too watchful, brethren.
AMBITION LURES
“Ed, dog-gone my cats ef I know whether I want to fight Indians or not! I’m afraid One-eyed Sam’ll have ’em all killed ’fore we kin git there.” A new ambition had struck me and I was wabbling between being a stage-driver or an Indian fighter. Ed was amazed and replied:
“Dod-bust it, Laze, ain’t we done ’greed to go, an’ got ready? They ain’t nothin’ in this pokey ol’ country to keep a fellow awake.”
“Huh! I’d druther be in Granville Thompson’s place an’ drive the Huntsville stage than to kill all the Indians I ever see,” I ventured.
“If I thought there was any more bugle horns in the worl’ lack Granville’s an’ I could git to blow one, I’d druther be one, too,” said Ed. “I’d druther come a-sailin’ up the river lane on top o’ that big ol’ stage a-yank-in’ them lines over four horses jes’ a-prancin’ an’ a-gallopin’, an’ a-toot-in’ a tune on that brass bugle—Ta-ta-te-ta-ra-ah! Gen-tul-men! I’d druther be that than to be a policeman almos’. But we done promise the boys, Laze—how’re we goin’ to git outer that?”