CHAPTER V
I had shut the door to. Then I turned around, and there he was. I usedto be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned Iwas scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken--that is,after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched,he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared ofhim worth bothring about.
He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled andgreasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through likehe was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long,mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his faceshowed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white tomake a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl--a tree-toadwhite, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes--just rags, that wasall. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that footwas busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them nowand then. His hat was laying on the floor--an old black slouch withthe top caved in, like a lid.
I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chairtilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window wasup; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. Byand by he says:
"Starchy clothes--very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug,_don't_ you?"
"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.
"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put onconsiderable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a pegbefore I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say--can readand write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you,because he can't? _I'll_ take it out of you. Who told you you mightmeddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?--who told you you could?"
"The widow. She told me."
"The widow, hey?--and who told the widow she could put in her shovelabout a thing that ain't none of her business?"
"Nobody never told her."
"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here--you drop thatschool, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airsover his own father and let on to be better'n what _he_ is. You lemmecatch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mothercouldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. Noneof the family couldn't before _they_ died. I can't; and here you'rea-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it--youhear? Say, lemme hear you read."
I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and thewars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whackwith his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now lookyhere; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay foryou, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan yougood. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such ason."
He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy,and says:
"What's this?"
"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."
He tore it up, and says:
"I'll give you something better--I'll give you a cowhide."
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:
"_Ain't_ you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; anda look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor--and your ownfather got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such ason. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm donewith you. Why, there ain't no end to your airs--they say you're rich.Hey?--how's that?"
"They lie--that's how."
"Looky here--mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I canstand now--so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and Ihain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it awaydown the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that moneyto-morrow--I want it."
"I hain't got no money."
"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."
"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tellyou the same."
"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll knowthe reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it."
"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to--"
"It don't make no difference what you want it for--you just shell itout."
He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he wasgoing down-town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink allday. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, andcussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; andwhen I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again,and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay forme and lick me if I didn't drop that.
Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyraggedhim, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, andthen he swore he'd make the law force him.
The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me awayfrom him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judgethat had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courtsmustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it; saidhe'd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcherand the widow had to quit on the business.
That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhideme till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. Iborrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and gotdrunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carryingon; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till mostmidnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him beforecourt, and jailed him again for a week. But he said _he_ wassatisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for_him._
When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man ofhim. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean andnice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family,and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talkedto him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, andsaid he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he wasa-going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't beashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down onhim. The judge said he could hug him for them words; so he cried, andhis wife she cried again; pap said he'd been a man that had alwaysbeen misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The oldman said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and thejudge said it was so; so they cried again. And when it was bedtime theold man rose up and held out his hand, and says:
"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it.There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more;it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll diebefore he'll go back. You mark them words--don't forget I said them.It's a clean hand now; shake it--don't be afeard."
So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. Thejudge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge--madehis mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, orsomething like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautifulroom, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he gotpowerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down astanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumbback again and had a good old time; and toward daylight he crawled outagain, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his leftarm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found himafter sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they hadto take soundings before they could navigate it.
The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body couldreform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no otherway.