“You damned fool!” Garner exclaimed, in high disgust.
“Yes, that's exactly what I was,” Tingle admitted. “I stood there gasping like a catfish enjoying his first excursion in open air. It was deathly still. I've heard it said that dying men notice the smallest things about them. I remember I saw the horses and mules haltered out under the trees with their hay and fodder under their noses—the dinner-baskets all in a cluster at the spring guarded by a negro woman. Then what do you think? Old Jeff Condon spoke up.
“'Lead us in prayer, brother,' he said, in reverential tones, and since I was born I never heard so much laughing.”
“You certainly did play into Wiggin's hands,” growled the disgruntled Garner. “That's exactly what a glib-tongued skunk like him would want.”
“Well, it gave me a minute to try to get my wind, anyway,” said Tingle, still red in the face, “but I wasn't equal to a mob of baseball rooters like that. I started in to deny some of Wiggin's charges when another smart Alec spoke up and said: 'Hold on! tell us about the time you and your candidate started home from a ball at Catoosa Springs in a buggy, and were so drunk that the horse took you to the house of a man who used to own him sixteen miles from where you wanted to go. Of course, you all know, boys, that was a big exaggeration, but I had no idea it was generally known. Anyway, I thought the crowd would laugh their heads off. I reckon it was the way I looked. I felt as if every man, woman, and child there had mashed a bad egg on me and was chuckling over their marksmanship. I ended up by getting mad, and I saw by Wiggin's grin that he liked that. I managed to say a few things in denial, and then Wiggin got up and roasted me and my paper to a turn. He said that in supporting Dwight editorially the Headlight was giving sanction to Dwight's ideas in favor of the negro and against honest white people, and that every man there who had any family or State pride ought to stop taking the dirty sheet; and, bless your life, some of them did cancel their subscriptions when they met me after the speaking; but I'm going to keep on mailing it, anyway. It will be like sending free tracts to the heathen, but it may bear fruit.”
CHAPTER V.
