The End of the World: A Love Story

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  SOMETHIN' LUDIKEROUS.

  There was an egg-supper in the country store at Brayville. Mr. Mandluff,the tall and raw-boned Hoosier who kept the store, was not unwilling tohave the boys get up an egg supper now and then in his store after hehad closed the front-door at night. For you must know that an egg-supperis a peculiar Western institution. Sometimes it is a most enjoyableinstitution--when it has its place in a store where there is no Kentuckywhisky to be had. But in Brayville, in the rather miscellaneousestablishment of the not very handsome and not very graceful Mr.Mandluff, an egg-supper was not a great moral institution. It wasotherwise, and profanely called by its votaries a camp-meeting; it wouldbe hard to tell why, unless it was that some of the insiders grew veryhappy before it was over. For an egg-supper at Mandluff's store was toBrayville what an oyster-supper at Delmonico's is to New York. It wasone tenth hard eggs and nine tenths that beverage which bears the nameof an old royal house of France.

  How were the eggs cooked? I knew somebody would ask that impertinentquestion. Well, they were not fried, they were not boiled, they werenot poached, they were not scrambled, they were not omeletted, they werenot roasted on the half-shell, they were not stuffed with garlic andserved with cranberries, they were not boiled and served with anchovysauce, they were not "_en salmi_." I think I had better stop there, lestI betray my knowledge of cookery. It is sufficient to say that they werenot cooked in any of the above-named fashions, nor in any other waymentioned in Catharine Beecher's or Marion Harland's cookbooks. Theywere baked _a la mode_ backwoods. It is hardly proper for me to give arecipe in this place, that belongs more properly to the "HouseholdDepartments" of the newspapers. But to satisfy curiosity, and to tellsomething about cooking, which Prof. Blot does not know, I may say thatthey were broken and dropped on a piece of brown paper laid on the topof the old box-stove. By the time the egg was cooked hard the paper wasburned to ashes, but the egg came off clean and nice from the stove, andmade as palatable and indigestible an article for a late supper as onecould wish. It only wanted the addition of Mandluff's peculiar whisky tomake it dissipation of the choicest kind. For the more a dissipationcosts in life and health, the more fascinating it is.

  There was an egg-supper, as I said, at Mandluff's store. There was to bea "camp-meeting" in honor of Norman Anderson's successful return to hisliberty and his cronies. It gave Norman, the greatest pleasure to returnto a society where it was rather to his credit than otherwise that hehad gone on a big old time, got caught, and been sent adrift by the oldhunk that had tried to make him study Latin.

  The eggs were baked in the true "camp-meeting" style, the whisky wasdrunk, and--so was the company. Bill Day's rather red eyes grew redder,and his nose shone with delight as he shuffled the greasy pack of"kyerds." The maudlin smile crossed the habitually melancholy lines ofhis face in a way that split and splintered his visage into a curiouscontradiction of emotions.

  "H--a--oo--p!" He shouted, throwing away the cards over the heads of hiscompanions. "Ha--oop! boys, thish is big--hoo! hoo! ha--oop! I say isbig. Let's do somethin'!"

  Here there was a confused cry that "it _was_ big, and that they hadbetter do somethin' or 'nother."

  "Let's blow up the ole school-house," said Bill Day, who was notfriendly to education.

  "I tell you what," said Bob Short, who was dealing the cards in anotherset--"I tell you what," and Bob winked his eyes vigorously, and lookedmore solemn and wise than he could have looked if it had not been forthe hard eggs and the whisky--"I tell you what," said Bob a third time,and halted, for his mind's activity was a little choked by the fervor ofhis emotions--"I tell you what, boys--"

  "Wal," piped Jim West in a cracked voice, "you've told us _what_ fourtimes, I 'low; now s'pose you tell us somethin' else."

  "I tell you what, boys," said Bob Short, suddenly remembering hissentence, "don't let's do nothin' that'll git us into no troublearterwards. Ef we blow up the school-house we'll be 'rested fer bigamyor--or--what d'ye call it?"

  "For larson," said Bill Day, hardly able to restrain another whoop.

  "No, 'taint larson," said Bob Short, looking wiser than a chief-justice,"it's arsony. Now I say, don't let's go to penitentiary for no--nolarson--no arsony, I mean."

  "Ha--oop!" said Bill. "Let's do somethin' ludikerous. Hurrah for arsonyand larson! Dog-on the penitentiary! Ha--oop!"

  SOMETHIN' LUDIKEROUS.]

  "Let's go fer the Dutchman," said Norman Anderson, just drunk enough tobe good-naturedly murderous and to speak in dialect. "Gus is turned outto committin' larson by breakin' into people's houses an' has run off.Now let's tar and feather the ole one. Of course, he's a thief. Dutchmenalways is, I 'low. Clark township don't want none of 'em, I'll bedog-oned if it do," and Norman got up and struck his fist onthe counter.

  "An' they won't nobody hurt you; you see, he's on'y a Dutchman," saidBob Short "Larson on a Dutchman don't hold."

  "I say, let's hang him," said Bill Day. "Ha--oop! Let's hang him, or dosomethin' else ludikerous!"

  "I wouldn't mind," grinned Norman Anderson, delighted at the turn thingshad taken. "I'd just like to see him hung."

  "So would I," said Bill Day, leaning over to Norman. "Ef a Dutchman washto court my sishter, I'd--"

  "He'd be a fool ef he did," piped Jim West. For Bill Day's sister was a"maid not vendible," as Shakespeare has it.

  "See yer," said Bill, trying in vain to draw his coat. "Looky yer,Jeems; ef you say anythin' agin Ann Marier, I'll commit the wust larsonon you you ever seed."

  "I didn't say nothin' agin Ann Marier," squeaked Jim. "I was talkin'agin the Dutch."

  "Well, that'sh all right Ha--oop! Boys, let's do somethin', larson orarsony or--somethin'."

  A bucket of tar and some feathers were bought, for which young Andersonwas made to pay, and Bill Day insisted on buying fifteen feet of rope."Bekase," as he said, "arter you git the feathers on the bird, youmay--you may want to help him to go to roosht you know, on a hickorylimb. Ha--oop! Come along, boys; I say let's do somethin' ludikerous, efit's nothin' but a little larson."

  And so they went galloping down the road, nine drunken fools. For it isone of the beauties of lynch law, that, however justifiable it may seemin some instances, it always opens the way to villainous outrages. Someof my readers will protest that a man was never lynched for the crime ofbeing a Dutchman. Which only shows how little they know of the intenseprejudice and lawless violence of the early West. Some day people willnot believe that men have been killed in California for being Chinamen.

  Of the nine who started, one, the drunkest, fell off and broke his arm;the rest rode up in front of the cabin of Gottlieb Wehle. I do not wantto tell how they alarmed the mother at her late sewing and draggedGottlieb out of his bed. I shudder now when I recall one such outrage towhich I was an unwilling witness. Norman threw the rope round Gottlieb'sneck and declared for hanging. Bill Day agreed. It would be soludikerous, you know!

  "Vot hash I tun? Hey? Vot vor you dries doo hanks me already, hey?"cried the honest German, who was willing enough to have the end of theworld come, but who did not like the idea of ascending alone, and inthis fashion.

  Mrs. Wehle pushed her way into the mob and threw the rope off herhusband's neck, and began to talk with vehemence in German. For a momentthe drunken fellows hung back out of respect for a woman. Then Bill Daywas suddenly impressed with the fact that the duty of persuading Mrs.Wehle to consent to her husband's execution devolved upon him.

  "Take keer, boys; let me talk to the ole woman. I'll argy the case."

  "You can't speak Dutch no more nor a hoss can," squeaked Jeems West.

  "Blam'd ef I can't, though. Hyer, ole woman, firshta Dutch?"

  "Ya."

  "Now," said Bill, turning to the others in triumph, "what did I tellyou? Well, you see, your boy August is a thief."

  "He's not a teef!" said the old man.

  "Shet up your jaw. I say he is. Now, your ole man's got to be hung."

  "Vot vor?" brok
e in Gottlieb.

  "Bekase it's all your own fault. You hadn't orter be a Dutchman."

  Here the crowd fell into a wrangle. It was not so easy to hang a manwhen such a woman stood there pleading for him. Besides, Bob Shortinsisted that hanging was arsony in the first degree, and they betternot do it. To this Bill Day assented. He said he 'sposed tar andfeathers was only larson in the second degree. And then it would be raleludikerous. And now confused cries of "Bring on the tar!" "Where's thefeathers?" "Take off his clothes!" began to be raised. Norman stood outfor hanging. Drink always intensified his meanness. But the tar couldn'tbe found. The man whom they had left lying by the roadside with a brokenarm had carried the tar, and had been well coated with it himself inhis fall.

  "Ha-oop!" shouted Bill Day. "Let's do somethin'. Dog-on the arsony!Let's hang him as high as Dan'el."

  And with that the rope was thrown over Gottlieb's, neck and he washurried off to the nearest tree. The rope was then put over a limb, anda drunken half-dozen got ready to pull, while Norman Anderson adjustedthe noose and valiant Bill Day undertook to keep off Mrs. Wehle.

  "All ready! Pull up! Ha-oop!" shouted Bill Day, and the crowd pulled,but Mrs. Wehle had slipped off the noose again, and the volunteerexecutioners fell over one another in such a way as to excite thederisive laughter of Bill Day, who thought it perfectly ludikerous. Butbefore the laugh had finished, the indignant Gottlieb had knocked BillDay over and sent Norman after him. The blow sobered them a little, andsuddenly destroyed Bill's ambition to commit "arsony," or do anythingelse ludikerous. But Norman was furious, and under his lead Wehle's armswere now bound with the rope and a consultation was held, during whichlittle Wilhelmina pleaded for her father effectively, and more by hertears and cries and the wringing of her chubby hands than by any words.Bill Day said he be blamed of that little Dutch gal's takin' on sodidn't kinder make him foul sorter scrimpshous you know. But the mobcould not quit without doing something. So it was resolved to giveGottlieb a good ducking in the river and send him into Kentucky with awarning not to come back. They went down the ravine past Andrew's castleto the river. Mrs. Wehle followed, believing that her husband would bedrowned, and little Wilhelmina ran and pulled the alarm and awakened theBackwoods Philosopher, who soon threw himself among them, but too lateto dissuade them from their purpose, for Andrew's own skiff, the"Grisilde" by name, with three of the soberest of the party, had alreadyset out to convey Wehle, after one hasty immersion, to the other shore,while the rest stood round hallooing like madmen to prevent any alarmthat Wehle might raise attracting attention on the other side.