OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 OP IE READ 
 
C 
 
OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
OTHER BOOKS BY OPIE READ: 
 
 A Kentucky Colonel 
 
 Emmet Bonlore 
 
 Len Gansett 
 
 A Tennessee Judge 
 
 The Jucklins 
 
 Old Ebenczcr 
 
 An Arkansas Planter 
 
 On the Suwanee River 
 
 My Young Master 
 
 Bolanyo 
 
 A Yankee from the West 
 The Wives of the Prophet 
 In the Alamo, igoo R I 
 Judge Elbridge, 1900 R i 
 Waters of Caney Fork, R i 
 (With Frank Pixley) The 
 
 Carpetbagger, L I 
 Tke Starbucks, IQOZ L i 
 
Old Lim Jucklin 
 
 The Opinions of 
 an Open-air Philosopher 
 
 By 
 
 OPIE READ 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 1905 
 
Copyright, 1904, 1905, by 
 Opie Read 
 
 Published, October, 1905 
 
 All rights reserved, 
 
 including that of translation into foreign languages, 
 including the Scandinavian. 
 
 THE WORLD S WORK PRESS, NEW YORK 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 I. 
 
 On Politics . . . . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 
 II. 
 
 The Country Editor s Dinner 
 
 9 
 
 III. 
 
 Rooster Fight .... 
 
 . 16 
 
 IV. 
 
 On Marriage ..... 
 
 23 
 
 V. 
 
 On Hell 
 
 . 29 
 
 VI. 
 
 On First Love ....". 
 
 35 
 
 VII. 
 
 On Books . 
 
 4 1 
 
 VIII. 
 
 On Lawyers ..... 
 
 47 
 
 IX. 
 
 On Country Doctors .... 
 
 53 
 
 X. 
 
 On Gambling ..... 
 
 59 
 
 XI. 
 
 On Drinking ..... 
 
 . 65 
 
 XII. 
 
 On Dogs ...... 
 
 7 1 
 
 XIII. 
 
 On Truth . . . . . . 
 
 77 
 
 XIV. 
 
 On Horse Sense ..... 
 
 . 82 
 
 XV. 
 
 On Women Reformers 
 
 . 88 
 
 XVI. 
 
 On War and Prayer .... 
 
 . 94 
 
 XVII. 
 
 On the Young Husband 
 
 . 100 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 On Wealth 
 
 . 106 
 
 XIX. 
 
 On the Commercial Traveller 
 
 . 112 
 
 XX. 
 
 On the Farmer .... 
 
 118 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Horse Trader .... 
 
 . 124 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Rebel and the Yankee 
 
 . 130 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Old Lim s Ride 
 
 . 136 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The Congressman .... 
 
 . 142 
 
 XXV. 
 
 On Politeness . 
 
 . 148 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 On Opportunity for the Aged 
 
 154 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Shakespeare . . . * , 
 
 . 160 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 At the Theatre 
 
 . 166 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 On the Poker Player . 
 
 V 
 
 172 
 
 M1O4382 
 
CONTENTS Continued 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXX. The Horse Doctor * 178 
 
 XXXI. "Tannhauser" .... 184 
 
 XXXII. The Rainy Day . . . . .. .190 
 
 XXXIII. On Funerals . . . . . . 196 
 
 XXXIV. On Strikes . . . . . . 202 
 
 XXXV. On the Country Fiddler . 208 
 
 XXXVI. On Sympathy ...... 214 
 
 XXXVII. On Inquisitiveness . . . . 220 
 
 XXXVIII. On the Past .226 
 
 XXXIX. On Eating 232 
 
 XL. ADinneratTalbert s . . . . . 238 
 
 XLL On Football . . . . . .244 
 
 XLII. On Getting Rich Quick .... 251 
 
 XLIII. On Patience . . . . . - 257 
 
OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
CHAPTER I 
 ON POLITICS 
 
 THE forum of old Lim Jucklin s wisdom was the 
 horse-block in front of the cross-roads store. 
 In the rural South age means wisdom. Merely 
 to have seen the seasons come and go is knowledge, and 
 when age talks not only youth but middle age must be 
 content to listen. Cultivation is mere book-learning, hear 
 say, the rumour of an unsubstantiated truth, as if the 
 book were not the experience of man s mind. The well- 
 read and travelled, if not yet out from under the contempt 
 of "immature years," must sit respectful-dumb while 
 an old man who may never have crossed the line of his 
 county consents to give an hour s homily upon the 
 affairs of the world. But with age there sometimes comes 
 a mellow and a sweet ripening of that half philosophical 
 humour which musty books bound in the hide of some 
 ancient fatted calf delightfully tell us is almost wholly 
 an Anglo-Saxon heritage. 
 
 But old Lim had been out of his county. He had 
 travelled into the North, the land where every man was 
 for himself. In Chicago he had bought the pair of 
 "gold-rimmed" spectacles which some clergyman must 
 have lost, and in a modest little transaction he had per- 
 
 3 
 
OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 sriitted a Michigan fruit farmer to pluck off a patch 
 &f && WelS-freaSonfco! sjdn. And while these transactions 
 were reckoned among his accomplishments, they turned 
 somewhat pale when compared with the fact that he could 
 come nearer guessing the weight of a hog or the height 
 of a mule than any man in North Carolina. It is on 
 record that he was a believer in the Book from "kiver 
 to kiver," and in his neighbourhood it is known that 
 once he walloped one of the Harvey boys for tittering 
 at a baptising. He furnished the oak slab that had been 
 fashioned into the mourner s bench at Siloam meeting 
 house. His wife gave to the circuit rider more pairs 
 of wool socks than any other woman in the community. 
 And the old man himself had been known not indeed to 
 shout during a camp meeting, but afterward to call hogs 
 with more fervour than was his accustomed habit. Yet, 
 notwithstanding these unmistakable tokens of a pious 
 life, he gave to game roosters a devotion that smacked 
 of fanaticism. Through the wind-howl of a winter s 
 night through the icy thicket he would shoulder his 
 way, mile after mile, to be present at a contest. He 
 lamented the fate of the defeated, but gloried over the 
 victor. But he never wagered a penny. That would 
 have been irreligious. With others the fighting of chickens 
 was a sport. With him it was an emotion. So, with his 
 moral establishment well known and with his wisdom 
 unquestioned, whenever of a Saturday afternoon he 
 took his seat on the old horse-block, there was 
 always an audience waiting, not out of respect 
 
ON POLITICS 5 
 
 for his years, but looking for man s natural reward 
 amusement. 
 
 "They have about settled the coming election," said 
 he, as he parted the tails of nis brown jeans coat and 
 sat down. "Don t believe I ever saw an election comin 
 that wa n t already settled. And it would look like there 
 wa n t any use of havin but one side; but, yet, somehow 
 the other side always does putty well when the votes are 
 counted. The man that understands arithmetic is bad 
 in politics. He likes to figger, and a man that does 
 usually figgers too much. It s an old sayin that figgers 
 don t lie, and that may be true, but sometimes they are 
 found in the wrong place. 
 
 "Both of the great political parties are wise, for they 
 always nominate the right man. And what a fine president 
 he would have made if he had only been elected. And 
 the minute the other candidate is elected he ceases to be 
 a politician and becomes a statesman. But death has 
 made more statesmen than office ever did. In this life 
 a great reward is offered to rascality, and that s the reason 
 there are so many politicians. Enough votes would 
 make any man great/ but not enough will turn the wisest 
 man into a fly-up-the-creek. When a man that is looking 
 for an office begins to tell me that he s a sincere American 
 I believe him. I believe he wants the place, and in this 
 way the lives of some men illustrate an eternal truth. 
 They eternally want something. Running for office is a 
 hard habit to break, but when a man has been beaten a 
 time or two for president he cools down might ly. Some 
 
6 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 of our smartest men have been defeated for president, 
 and among them was Henry Clay, but he oughtn t to have 
 expected the office when old Andy Jackson and the Lord 
 were against him. And it is naturally to be supposed 
 that the Lord still has a good deal of influence durin 
 election time, but it is a question whether or not He always 
 uses it. 
 
 "Ever since I can recollect the country has been goin* 
 to ruin. It seems that the constitution was born ruined 
 and has been imposed upon ever since. But it is a mighty 
 hard thing to tear to pieces. But if the right man isn t 
 elected this time not only the constitution but the whole 
 country will have to go on crutches. Old Uncle John 
 Moss is the oldest man in the county and he says that the 
 world is a failure, and if this is true America must go 
 along in with the general no accountness of it all. But 
 I noticed that last year my bottom field raised more corn 
 to the acre than for several years past, and as long as this 
 continues to be the case I ain t in a fitten frame of mind 
 to believe in all the bad news I hear. No matter how 
 much good news you get, bad news is sure to follow. 
 Some time ago old man Joyner threatened that if his 
 candidate wa n t elected president he would pick up and 
 move out of the neighbourhood. His man waVt elected 
 and he moved over across the creek, and four years after 
 ward, when his man was again beaten, he moved back. 
 So, I have noticed that about all there is to the average 
 man s political disappointments is that in his revenge he 
 thinks he has done something notable when he hasn t. 
 
ON POLITICS 7 
 
 "About the worst lickin I ever got was shortly after 
 I had cast my first vote. There were two men running 
 hot for constable. I half-way promised to vote for one 
 of them, a fellow named Henk. The election was held 
 by word of mouth, and when the time came I couldn t 
 remember Henk s name and voted for Jones because it 
 was easier. And that is about as much intelligence as 
 some people show in their voting now. They vote the 
 way that looks the easiest. What did Henk do? I met 
 him at a sawmill and he took a piece of scantling to me, 
 an by the time I made up my mind what to do he had me 
 whipped. A man ought always have his mind fully made 
 up as to what he will do when the worst comes. I managed 
 to tell him that I didn t fully promise to vote for him, that 
 I had only half made up my mind, and he lowed, Yes, 
 and that is the reason I only half kill you now. 
 
 "If you see a fight coming it is better to make up your 
 mind to run than not to be firmly settled on some particular 
 mode of action. The bravest man may appear like a 
 coward if he s unsettled in his mind, and while he is 
 still unsettled the other fellow may overpower him. It 
 is mind that fights. As long as a rooster s mind is steady 
 his head is steady, but the minute he begins to look around 
 he discovers a chance to run. If he had fully made up his 
 mind not to run he wouldn t have found the opportunity. 
 Some one thought to be wise said that a good run was 
 better than a bad stand, but it is not true. As long as 
 you think it is good to run you ll keep on runnin . And 
 when you run once it is an easy matter to make up your 
 
8 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 mind that to stand is bad. Whenever a man is branded as 
 a coward all the other cowards want to take a whack at 
 him. Therefore it is better to be whipped every day in 
 the week than to run once, for with the comin of the next 
 week the situation is mighty apt to undergo a change. 
 Bad stands stood get better all the time. But when a 
 man has once been whipped he is never the same after 
 ward. It is better to have a broken head than a broken 
 spirit. Without spirit the strongest man is but a worm. 
 "Success may after a while enable the candidate to tell 
 the truth, but it seems that when a man breaks into 
 politics he breaks in as a liar. It may be almost uncon 
 scious on his part, but it ain t long till he s sayin* things 
 that he don t believe. And what appears to grieve him 
 is the fact that other people don t either. If your son-in- 
 law is hesitating between politics and the penitentiary, 
 remember that if he goes to the penitentiary you won t 
 have to take care of him. Many an honest man has had a 
 chance to become a politician and didn t. A politician s 
 smile may be bright, and so is a sunbeam when it falls on 
 a puddle where the hogs have been wallerin ." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE COUNTRY EDITOR S DINNER 
 
 COLONEL SHANG W. MOWLETT, the editor of the 
 country paper, while out for a day among his subscribers, 
 halted at the house of old Limuel Jucklin. He had 
 time to stop only for a few moments, he said; a delinquent 
 tax list demanded his attention at home, and as his "patent 
 side" had not as yet been reclaimed from the merciless 
 maw of the express office, nothing toward the printing 
 of his next number could be done until after his return to 
 town. 
 
 And after sitting a long time it seemed as if he were 
 about to go. He took up his hat and had made a motion 
 to put it on his head when his attention was seized upon 
 by the rattle of dishes in the dining-room, just across the 
 broad passageway in the north section of the old log house. 
 It is of no doubt that the embryo crowing of a half- 
 feathered dominecker had appealed to the scribe to break 
 his journey in the hope of breaking his fast at the house 
 of his "constant reader," and as he drove into the yard 
 he was seen to cock his eye at a Plymouth Rock pullet. 
 
 But as the hours wore hungrily along he saw no signs 
 of dinner. In no seeming fear of danger the chickens 
 walked about the yard. And from the window, where a 
 
 9 
 
10 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 perfumed breeze murmured music amid the tendrils of 
 a trumpet vine, the editor looked across a corner of the 
 garden into a lot where in the sunshine sucking pigs, just 
 big enough, if roasted, to hold crab apples in their mouths, 
 were tumbling over one another. 
 
 Not with an extra effort of memory was it that the 
 newspaper man recalled the fact that his pre-daylight 
 breakfast had consisted mainly of sodden cakes and 
 extreme hurry. It was fresh in his mind as he heard the 
 "pot rack, pot rack" of a guinea hen. But with the air 
 of vital concern he talked on the condition of the country 
 and of foreign probabilities. He didn t load down his 
 speculative mind with what had taken place. That would 
 have been a matter of mere industry. It lay within the 
 keen province of his vision to discover what might be done 
 if such and such should happen. If a certain prime 
 minister should resign, or if the emperor should so far 
 forget himself as to say so and so in his coming speech, 
 why it was clear that this, that and the other would happen. 
 And old Lim agreed that it was no doubt true. 
 
 The sun lost its balance and slipped over into the after 
 noon, the waving vine at the window sifted a softer light, 
 and still there was no call from pot or pan. So, at last, 
 the editor arose and was about to put his hat on his 
 head when there came from the dining-room the rattle 
 of dishes. Then he hesitated, turned about as if he had 
 just thought of a wise thing to say, and sat down. 
 
 " I reckon a cat must have run over the table," said old 
 Lim, and Shang W. Mowlett s heart beat low in despair. 
 
THE COUNTRY EDITOR S DINNER 11 
 
 "Sorry, Colonel, you didn t come a little earlier. Reckon 
 you seen some of them pigs out there. Had one of their 
 
 brothers roasted to a fall of the year brown, and " 
 
 The editor grabbed out his handkerchief and wiped his 
 mouth. Old Lim continued: "And I had some early 
 rose potatoes as pink-eyed as one of these these Albu 
 mins is that what you call em ? " 
 
 "Albinos," drawled the editor. 
 
 "Yes, that s it; seen one in the side show when the 
 cirkis come to Purdy. And I had some of the best corn 
 bread I reckon you ever saw made out of this pearl 
 corn. Hard! Why, you could have a grain of it set and 
 wear it for a breastpin. Along with it all, too, was a 
 yaller pitcher full of buttermilk brought from the spring 
 house, and " 
 
 "I ve got to go," the editor exclaimed, jumping up and 
 clapping his hat on his head. 
 
 " Wait a minit and let me tell you about it. Set down," 
 and the old man shoved the editor back into his chair. 
 "And I do reckon I had some of the best sparrer grass 
 that ever growd outen the ground, and these little brownish 
 redishes that look like a rusty-coat apple. Haungry! 
 Why, Colonel, I never was haungryer in my life. And 
 Susan, my wife, she kept of a sayin , Do have another 
 help to the pig, and well, I eat enough to last me for a 
 week. I reckon you are that way, too. Folks must 
 bring you thousands of things these here women that 
 write; don t care much for suthin to eat themselves and 
 fetch it to you. You may not make as much money as a 
 
12 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 county jedge, but I take it you live off n the fat of the 
 land. So you think that if this here prime preacher 
 resigns " 
 
 "Prime minister," muttered the editor. 
 
 "Ah, hah. And you think if he resigns and the emperor 
 ketches cold and sneezes before breakfast there s likely 
 to be rain in northwest township, range east. Looks 
 that way to me, too; and I reckon I ll have to make my 
 priparations accordin . But, speakin of breakfast, there 
 ain t nothin nicer, to my notion, than a piece of roasted 
 pig, with the brown crust on it, briled on the coals. Oh, 
 I hear of folks that for breakfast eat hot milk and doll 
 stuffin , but that don t touch the spot where I live. Now a 
 right nice yaller-leg chicken, a leetle more than half 
 grown, snatched off n the face of the earth and fried before 
 he knows what s the matter with him he s some, I want 
 to tell you. Made up your mind yit as to who is to be 
 the next president? But I reckon you ve been so busy 
 you hain t paid much attention to it. This here social 
 life, too, keeps you on the trot a good deal, I reckon. 
 And dinners, too; you have to go to them; and they eat 
 dinners now in the night, I m told. I like em best when 
 the sun gits jest about as high as it kin, but the time 
 don t make so much difference as what they have to eat. 
 Sorry my wife ain t at home. She could skeer up a bite 
 for you. She got my dinner as quick as she could and 
 hurried over to one of the neighbours, where the old- 
 maid school teacher ain t expected to live till sun-down. 
 Nearly all the women folks in the neighbourhood are 
 
THE COUNTRY EDITOR S DINNER 13 
 
 flockin over there, and I reckon they ll have a good 
 time. The old maid was engaged to be married and 
 that makes her death all the more interestin . Don t 
 ricollect when old Dorb Servier died, do you ? I set up 
 with him the night afterward, and along about twelve 
 o clock old Aunt Judy, that worked there, skeered us up 
 about as good a snack as I ever eat. Some seem to forgit 
 that folks get hungry, but old Aunt Judy wan t one o 
 that kind. She had a way of fryin hominy in ham gravy 
 that would make a saint pop his mouth like a bull whip. 
 I eat and eat well, I jest eat till I forgot all about old 
 Dorb in the next room. He was mighty fond of cards, 
 and Bill Atcherson lowed that he was a lyin there a 
 waitin for the last trump. Now, Bill, he s monst us 
 fond of good things to eat. Tuther day he brought me 
 about as fine a mess of young squirrels as I ever set down 
 to. Fried em in the lard out of a mast-fed hog. And 
 that reminds me. Is there anything sweeter than a 
 chinkapin ham? Jest take and b il it in cider about 
 four days old and I tell you, then you ve got suthin to 
 smack your mouth over." 
 
 The editor got out of his chair. "Mr. Jucklin, I ve 
 stayed too long already, and must go." 
 
 "Don t you do it. My work s putty well up and 
 I ve got nothin to (Jo but to sit here and talk. 
 And as for you you don t need to look at a watch 
 nor the sun when it s slantin toward the west. They 
 say that time was made for slaves, and if you ever was 
 a slave you were set free long ago. Sit down just a 
 
14 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 minit. I ll give you a piece of news you can print in 
 your paper." 
 
 And forcing the editor to sit down, he continued: "I 
 reckon you hearn of what happened over at old Groggin s. 
 Well, Groggin s daughter, Tilly, as likely a girl as you d 
 meet in a day s travel, of a Sunday when folks are goin 
 to church, took up a notion that she was in love with a 
 long, lank feller that come down the river on a raft and 
 stopped at Moseley s place. Now whuther or not the 
 logs belonged to him don t enter into the story. At 
 any rate, he sold em and the first thing he done was to 
 give a dinner in the woods, and the most urgent invite 
 was sent to Tilly Groggin. He had seen her somewhere, 
 no matter where, and so, along with a number of others, 
 she went. And it was a barbecue, mind you. They 
 roasted sheep whole and wait a minit and ducks, too; 
 and he had about two barrel of shell oysters that were 
 brought in right fresh, and they roasted them on the hot 
 coals, and 
 
 "But what happened? I m in a hurry." 
 
 "Happened? You jest wait a minit. By the time 
 dinner was ready everybody was haungry, and the long, 
 lank feller, he takes up a knife about as long as a scythe 
 and begins to carve a mutton, and the brown juice began 
 to run out and " 
 
 "Turn me loose," exclaimed the hungry man. "I ve 
 got to go, I tell you." 
 
 And just at that moment old Mrs. Jucklin appeared at 
 the door. 
 
THE COUNTRY EDITOR S DINNER 15 
 
 "Why, howdy do, Colonel Mowlett. When Limuel 
 seen you a comin he told me not to have dinner till he 
 said so, and I don t know what he meant by it unless it 
 was one of his own sort of jokes, but as you must be hungry 
 by this time you ll please walk out." 
 
 The Colonel looked at Lim and the old man shouted, 
 and the old lady said: "Limuel, you ought to be ashamed 
 of yourself." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 ROOSTER FIGHT 
 
 "THE majority of men that I know look forward to 
 the time when they are not to take any pleasure in this 
 life," said old Lim Jucklin, and his neighbours who were 
 standing about the horse block whereon the old man 
 had just taken his seat looked at him in astonishment. 
 
 "I don t see how that can be," spoke up Sam Niles, 
 goat- whiskered, squint-eyed, and a liar on most occasions, 
 but, like most liars, the inheritor of a sort of engaging 
 wisdom. 
 
 Old Lim cleared his throat. "And the reason you 
 can t see it, Sammy, is because you are morally blind. 
 The average man looks forward to the time when he won t 
 have to work, and when this time comes he almost always 
 finds that for him there is no more enjoyment. Next to 
 the enjoyment of work itself, we get the most pleasure out 
 of rest and " 
 
 "And when we rest we are enjoyin ourselves," Sam 
 broke in. 
 
 Old Lim nodded. "Yes, but when we haven t worked 
 we can t rest, for rest means the tuther side of bein tired. 
 After climbin hard to reach the top of the hill we take 
 a long breath and it is as sweet as spring water, and the 
 
 16 
 
ROOSTER FIGHT 17 
 
 reason it seems so deep and fetchin* is because the breaths 
 comin up the hill were short. But if we set down on the 
 top of the hill and stay there the breaths ain t so sweet. 
 After a while they get to be like the breaths down in the 
 valley. To make em sweet you ve got to climb for em. 
 In this life all the way through it is almost impossible to 
 get any real good out of a thing you don t work for. 
 That s the reason the gambler s money don t amount to 
 anything. It hasn t any sweat value. And even if he 
 hadn t done anything to cause him to be driven out, 
 Adam couldn t have stayed much longer in the Garden of 
 Eden. He never had worked, it is true, and he didn t 
 know what it was, but the fact that he had nothin to 
 do had, accordin to my notion, begun to make him wish 
 that Sunday was over with. I reckon Old Miz Eve could 
 have stood it a little while longer, until the fall of the 
 year, when the leaves, changin their colour, brought 
 about a new fashion, and that would have held her a 
 while longer. But Adam would have had something to do 
 if she had given him a leaf and told him to go out and 
 match it for her. Every leaf in the garden might have 
 been green, all of an exact shade, but if Adam had tried 
 to match one it would have changed colour like one of 
 these here lizards they fetch from Florida. And I lay 
 you the sweetest meal he ever eat in his life was the 
 first bread he earned by the sweat of his brow. It has 
 been writ that man was made to mourn, but I ve noticed 
 that he don t mourn so much when he is at work. He 
 starts out lookin for a place where he can ease his mind. 
 
18 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 He never finds it, but when at work he seems to feel that he 
 is gettin there." 
 
 "But the happiest man I ever saw was the laziest," 
 said Sam, and the old-timers looked at one another 
 and smiled, for no matter in what reverence a country 
 oracle is held the ingrained envy of his neighbours applaud 
 the threat of his overthrow. 
 
 "I m not here to deny truths, but to bring em out," 
 replied the old man. " I ve known lazy men that appeared 
 to enjoy themselves simply because they wan t at work, 
 and I can go a little further and say that the happiest 
 feller I ever saw was an idiot. All he had to do was to 
 jolt himself and he was tickled mighty nigh to death. 
 The sight of a dog a scratchin of himself was better 
 to him than the keen joke of a wise man. But 
 when I spoke of the average man I meant the man 
 with a mind." 
 
 "But one of the smartest men I ever saw was lazy," 
 said Sam. 
 
 "Yes, that may be a fact, and some of the plainest 
 truths have been told by a liar, but the liar ain t the man 
 that fills the world with truth. But I still insist that I m 
 talkin about the average man, and I don t think the average 
 man is lazy. The brightest minds have had the most 
 beautiful thoughts, enjoyed mebby by the few, but it is 
 the work of the average mind that has built up civilisation. 
 If every mind had been as great as Shakespeare s, the 
 world would have been a whirlwind of ideas, like light nin 
 bugs in a swamp, and there wouldn t have been anybody 
 
ROOSTER FIGHT 19 
 
 to stoop low enough to dig food out of the ground. There 
 wouldn t have been anything to learn, and the universe 
 would have been a great mental starvation. There is 
 more happiness in bein able to enjoy the wisdom of the 
 wisest than to be the wisest. Wisdom is sometimes a 
 sort of saviour, crucified for the benefit of mankind. A 
 man at the top is a little too lonesome, I should think, and 
 we d get mighty tired havin to look down all the time. 
 In my blunderin way I ve read some of the great books, 
 and it don t seem to me that the writers of them were 
 happy. I can understand that a new and surprisin 
 thought shootin through a man s mind would thrill him 
 to his marrow, but after a great light there is always 
 darkness; after a great joy a correspondin sorrow. And 
 no matter how many big words a man may have he feels 
 things that he can t tell about. In every drop of our 
 blood there is a thought that can t be expressed. I can t 
 explain the feelin that comes over me when I see two 
 game roosters fight. All I can do is jest to open my 
 mouth and holler." 
 
 A lout wearing one suspender, a hickory shirt and a 
 white cotton hat came up, grinning, and with an air of 
 confidence and importance such as nothing save the con 
 sciousness of a momentous mission could lend, blurted 
 out: "Gentlemen, ther s goin to be a transaction in 
 feathers over here in Atcherson s stable. It has been 
 lowed that a little red rooster from up the creek can put 
 outen business a black innimy from down in the holler, 
 and " 
 
20 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 But he had said enough. Old Lim got up and dusted 
 the seat of his trousers. Out of his mouth he threw 
 his quid of tobacco, as if he had been invited to eat of some 
 delicate dish. His nature, and his reading, taken up long 
 after the children had quit school, told him that to fight 
 chickens was a most wanton cruelty. But he argued that 
 they were going to fight anyway, and that the mere fact of 
 his looking on would not add to their suffering. Man 
 suffered for man and it was called heroism. Man killed 
 chickens and devoured them. He gave them no chance 
 for their lives. To be a conqueror was the greatest joy 
 of the male portion of the animal kingdom. To be killed 
 in a fight did not render the chickens unfit for food, if 
 anyone wanted to eat them, and, besides, it offered an 
 opportunity to die game, and that ought to be looked upon 
 as the crowning glory of any life. Old Squire Brizintine 
 looked at Lim. They belonged to the same church, or at 
 least formed a part of the same congregation, having 
 married religious women. They both of them had on 
 many an occasion announced their belief in the book 
 from "eend to eend." And old Brizintine looked at him 
 and said: 
 
 "Limuel, is it possible you are goin over there to see 
 them roosters fight?" 
 
 "Well, Squire, my goin won t make em hit none the 
 harder." 
 
 "But your presence will lend encouragement." 
 
 "They don t need no encouragement, Squire. They ll 
 fight quick enough as it is." 
 
ROOSTER FIGHT 21 
 
 "I mean that it will lend encouragement to the young 
 men of the community." 
 
 "Well, I don t think they need any encouragement 
 nuther. And, besides, if I don t go myself I won t know 
 which ones of them to lecture for goin ." 
 
 "Ah," said Squire Brizintine, "that is another view of 
 the matter. I ll go with you." 
 
 While they were arming the warriors with glistening 
 steel, Sam Niles cried out that he would put his money 
 on the little red. 
 
 "Which one would you bet on, Uncle Lim?" inquired 
 Pud Buck. 
 
 "Pud, you know I never bet." 
 
 "But if you did bet, which one?" 
 
 "There ain t no possibility of such a thing." 
 
 "Well, then, in your jedgment and I know it s good 
 which one do you think will whup?" 
 
 "The black one," said Lim, and on that chicken Pud 
 put his money. 
 
 "Limuel," remarked Squire Brizintine, " nothin could 
 induce us to bet on such wicked contrivances, but I think 
 your jedgment is at fault. The little red will be the 
 master." 
 
 "Well," Lim replied, "money shouts louder and can be 
 hearn furder than words but then, we don t bet." 
 
 "Limuel, that is a truth well uttered. But I tell you 
 what I ll do: If that black chicken whups the red one 
 I ll come over and work a day in your corn field. That 
 is, if you agree to work for me if tuther one whups." 
 
22 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "I ll agree to that, Squire, but I want it understood 
 that we ain t a bettin ." 
 
 " Of course not. Why, if Brother Haney, the preacher, 
 should think we d bet but we wouldn t. However, 
 we don t mind workin for each other." 
 
 "Bein s as we are neighbours and have been for nigh 
 on to fifty year," said Lim. 
 
 "Exactly, Limuel. I may safely say exactly." 
 
 The roosters were put into the "pit." Glossy embodi 
 ments of desperate valour, their eyes burned like coals. 
 About their necks their feathers curled in a fringe. And 
 then they struck. From Little Red a feather flew, catch 
 ing a ray of sunlight, a brilliant fancy from an angered 
 mind; and they struck again and Black went down, 
 
 bleeding from the head. "One, two, three, four " but 
 
 up he came with a defiant crow. " Git him down, old boy," 
 shouted Lim. "Undercut there. They have left his wattles 
 long. Bill him there and finish him. Love me, love me, 
 Black. Keep me out of the hot sun. Don t let em say my 
 judgment was bad. Look out for them sort of swipes. Steady 
 there. Hike, look out. Hold on, hold on. He s dead." 
 
 Victorious Red flapped his wings. "Limuel," said 
 Squire Brizintine, "come over day after to-morrow and 
 see me. You ll find me in the creek bottom field." 
 
 Old Lim wiped his brow. "Gentlemen," said he, "I 
 took that chicken simply because Sam Niles backed 
 tuther one. Many a wise man has done a fool thing 
 simply because a fool got to the smart thing first. Squire, 
 I ll see you day after to-morrow." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 ON MARRIAGE 
 
 FROM the old log meeting house arose a chant, sweet 
 echo of a determined past, the music history of Anglo- 
 Saxon fortitude. The preacher had not yet arrived. 
 Beneath the trees sat the wise men of the community; and 
 when old Lim Jucklin got out of his wagon, conducted 
 his wife to the door and came walking back with his hands 
 behind him, a young fellow well trained in manners arose 
 to give the chicken-fighting oracle a seat. He sat down, 
 with his back against a tree, put his hat on the ground 
 beside him, uttered the necessary commonplaces incident 
 upon meeting his friends, saw a needed rain coming 
 within two days, and then after a short silence remarked: 
 "I see that a jedge over at Raleigh in grantin a divorce 
 says there don t appear to be any doubt of the fact that 
 marriage is a failure. From time to time within the past 
 few years I have hearn somethin about this here failure on 
 the part of marriage, but never put my mind down on it 
 till one of our own jedges rendered his decision in the 
 matter." 
 
 Then Squire Brizintine spoke up. "And does it 
 seem to you, Limuel, that he has got anywhere close down 
 to the truth?" 
 
 23 
 
24 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 Out of Ills hat the old man took his red bandanna 
 handkerchief, wiped his brow and, spreading the hand 
 kerchief across his knees, replied that it was a matter 
 that needed some little investigation. "Take the case of 
 little Sammy Peel," said he. "Married the widder 
 Buntin, that weighs two hundred and ninety. Don t 
 appear to have been a failure in his case." The boys 
 laughed and Squire Brizintine blew his nose with a loud 
 snort, for it was known that not long after the death of his 
 wife he had paid court to the widow. "It is a question," 
 old Lim continued, "that is a aggitatin of society, and 
 has been I reckon since the Lord first flung open the front 
 door of time. And it is a subject that so many folks are 
 related to one way or another that it sorter makes a feller 
 feel sad to think about the opinion of the jedge over at 
 Raleigh. But the only way to find out whether or not 
 a thing is true is to start an aggitation and keep it 
 a goin . There are thousands of men that stand 
 ready to come forward and swear that human life itself 
 is a failure, and has been ever since old Noah drank 
 too much of his own wine. There is a way to look 
 at everything and make it a failure. The gospel itself is 
 only a success in spots. And I reckon it s putty much 
 that way with marriage. If the right spots ain t found it 
 ain t the fault of the institution of marriage, but is error 
 in the jedgment of man." 
 
 "But how about the jedgment of woman?" Squire 
 Brizintine put in, and the boys smiled, for in the neigh 
 bourhood it was well known that the Squire and his wife 
 
ON MARRIAGE 25 
 
 had with their dissensions awakened the echoes of many 
 a dark night. 
 
 Old Lim sat smoothing his handkerchief across his knees. 
 "Well," said he, "with woman the question of marriage 
 comes up before she has jedgment enough to make a 
 good decision. We know that at twenty a boy is nothin 
 but a boy, but we expect a girl at that age to be ripe enough 
 to take charge of a household. At twenty I had jest 
 about sense enough to take a rabbit out of a trap. Didn t 
 have enough to keep out of a trap myself. We talk about 
 many virtues, but, after all, looks, eyes, smiles and hair 
 are the main points to be considered in the question of 
 marriage, and as these things appeal more to woman than 
 to man, she is in the way to make more mistakes. Com 
 mon sense ought to tell women that good-lookin men 
 don t make the best husbands; but that s where the 
 trouble lies the lack of common sense. A curl hangin 
 low over a forehead and a sort of tune to a laugh count 
 more with the average girl than the multiplication table. 
 And there may be more of showy love in the curl, but it 
 won t build as many fires in the kitchen stove. Any 
 feller smiles when he goes a courtin , but the feller that is 
 most useful to a community and at home is the one that 
 smiles some when he s at work. The happiest time of 
 a girl s life is when she is engaged, for then she has the 
 dazzlin promise of somethin that ain t likely to be ful 
 filled. The hero that she is goin to marry giggles and 
 titters like June water a babblin down over moss-kiveredl 
 rocks, but if weighed and put up for sale in the market 
 
26 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 of common sense he wouldn t fetch as much as a side of 
 bacon. The trouble is she takes him on looks, and he 
 takes her the same way, and after they have been married 
 a while they find that their minds are total strangers." 
 
 "But how would you remedy it?" someone inquired. 
 
 "I can t remedy it and I wouldn t. It would be an 
 interference with natur . In the days of old it was 
 thought, and it is still alive in the minds of smart men, 
 that a good big part of the human family was born to be 
 damned, and I reckon it was intended that a certain 
 number of marriages were intended to be failures. And 
 marriage is more of a failure now than ever before because 
 there are more people to get married. The more folks 
 the more misery. If a man and a woman do the best they 
 can and their marriage turns out bad it can t be helped. 
 Divorce is a blight on society, it is true, but to live with 
 somebody that ain t suited to you is a blight on the mind 
 and the heart. We may have a good many lives to live; 
 of that we can t tell, but we do know of one and when that 
 one is ruined, why we are in what the black bear said 
 to the trap a well, you know what sort of a fix. All 
 the wisdom now known to man might be poured out on 
 marriage and wouldn t help it much. I know it s called 
 high morality to talk against divorces, and divorces do 
 show a loose state of affairs, but what s to be done? 
 Divorce is most scandalous to them that don t want it. 
 Two enemies livin* together ain t likely to have writ in 
 their hearts, God bless our home, and a home that the 
 Lord don t bless ain t a comfortable seat for society 
 
ON MARRIAGE 27 
 
 "I knew of a high-spirited feller that married a tight- 
 strung woman over in the hills of Tennessee. And it 
 wan t long till they fell out. She called him a liar and he 
 swore that she never had uttered a truth, and that was 
 goin fur, considerin of the fact that she talked a good 
 deal. I think she flung somethin at him, a butcher 
 knife, mebby; and he lows, If you were a man I d know 
 how to treat you. I d challenge you to fight a duel. 
 Well don t let the fact that I m a woman stand in your 
 way/ she spoke up. I m as good a shot as you are, and 
 if you want to settle it on that basis I m your man. So 
 they agreed to fight. They did. She shot him in the 
 shoulder. He declared that he was satisfied, and she 
 lowed that she didn t have nothin to complain of. Then 
 she yoked up the steers, hauled him to the house, nursed 
 him till he got well; and ever afterward they lived as happy 
 as two doves. It seems to me that one of the reasons 
 why there are more divorces now is on account of the fact 
 that children have gone out of fashion. Men and women 
 are shirkin the responsibility of a family and that develops 
 a weakness of character. I have seen many a man burdened 
 with a big family, but I never saw one that wan t more 
 to be envied than the man that had no children at all. 
 There ain t in this life nothin more to be deplored than 
 a childless old age. I d ruther be a haungry dog shut 
 up in a church. More men have been saved by their 
 children than by all the moral lessons ever printed. And 
 women well, a woman that tells you she don t like chil 
 dren, and then proves it by her acts, may blaze with 
 
28 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 beauty and raise more money for the furriners than any 
 body, but in my opinion she ain t as much to be admired 
 as a dish of sour milk skimmed three times. Last summer 
 a woman came from town out here, and when I saw her 
 pullin of her skirts back every time a child came near her 
 I said to myself that she must be powerful neat, but when 
 I saw her kiss a bull pup I lowed to myself I d ruther 
 it was the pup than me. Well, some things can t be 
 helped. Man started off wrong some time ago, and has 
 been goin faster and faster ever since, it seems like. But 
 an old detective in Chicago told me that his experience 
 proved to him that ninety per cent, of men were honest. 
 I asked him if his town wan t made up mostly of the other 
 ten per cent. He didn t say nothin more and I didn t 
 apologise. Yes, we are on the slant, but youngsters 
 that are toddlin now will in the years to come, when they 
 are walkin stiff in the j ints, look back at these, the good 
 old times Here comes the preacher. Let s go in, boys." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 ON HELL 
 
 IT was a mellow day for such a sermon. The year 
 was fulfilling all of the promises made in early spring. 
 In the woods there was a blaze of red, the ripe juices 
 of autumn, and in the air there was that melancholy 
 sweetness that makes a man think, that makes him look 
 upon his neighbour as his brother. On a bench not far 
 from the pulpit old Lim Jucklin sat, determined to sur 
 render himself to the influences of the sermon. During 
 the week just ended human nature had not been over- 
 strong in him. He had told one man that the only truth 
 about him was the truth that he was a liar, had swapped 
 horses with a chicken peddler and was glad now that he 
 had not succeeded in overtaking him afterward; he had 
 trapped a few quails out of season, but had sent the most 
 of them to the sick had done a few other things not 
 strictly in line, such as halting for a few moments at a 
 livery stable to see two dogs fight; but now as he sat ready 
 to listen to the word he knew that down in his heart he 
 hated no man. 
 
 The old minister arose and gave out the hymn, militant 
 verses written by some ancient fighter, and then looked 
 with a scowl at the empty benches at the rear end of the 
 
 29 
 
30 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 room. Old Dock Hency cleared his throat and settled 
 himself down and Sister Buckworth, repository of every 
 neighbourhood scandal for more than two generations, 
 smacked her mouth, for she felt that this was to be an 
 occasion for what the rude slangists called "hot stuff." 
 And it was. The preacher tiptoed in his wrath against 
 the world. Never before had that broad boulevard lead 
 ing to destructions been so frightfully crowded. It did 
 not seem that there was a possible show for anyone to be 
 saved. And it was not a figurative hell that the preacher 
 painted, but a great pit roaring with flames. Into the 
 house he so strongly brought the smell of sulphur that a boy 
 sneezed, and a little girl, shuddering in fright, crept closer 
 to her mother. Old Peter Balch, shaver of notes and 
 holder of mortgages on the homes of widows, cried out 
 "Amen," and a mule that had been tied to a swinging limb 
 broke loose and tore off down the road. 
 
 When the sermon was done Limuel waited for an oppor 
 tunity to speak to the preacher. "Just want to talk to 
 you a few moments," he said. "No hurry. Wait till 
 you shake hands with all these folks that are crowdin 
 one another on the road to distruction." 
 
 The preacher held forth his hand and Jucklin took it, 
 holding it for a moment, looking him in the eye. "I 
 want to talk to you privately. Would you mind goin 
 out here and settin on a log with me?" 
 
 The minister smiled. "Limuel," said he, "are you 
 at last about to ask for terms? Has the light fallen on 
 you?" 
 
ON HELL 31 
 
 6 Well, I don t know but I am a little scorched. You 
 women folks go on home and I ll overtake you." 
 
 "Shall we have witnesses as to what you are going to 
 say?" the preacher inquired. 
 
 "No, I d rather talk to you alone out there where the 
 wild grapes are purple in the sun." 
 
 "Limuel, I thank you for this long-sought opportunity. 
 Come." 
 
 They went out into the woods and sat down on a log. 
 A gray squirrel peeped at them. "Limuel, is it about 
 my sermon that you wish to talk?" 
 
 "Yes," said the old man, cutting off a chew of his 
 twist. 
 
 "I am glad that it struck home." 
 
 "Ah, hah. Glad, I reckon, that it scared that little 
 girl. Wait a moment. I have listened to you, so now 
 you listen to me a while." He slowly wiped his knife 
 on his trousers, snapped it and put it into his pocket. 
 "As I sat in yonder just now, brother, I could hardly 
 believe that I wa n t away back where the world was 
 when I found it just ripe for destruction. The first 
 picture that was drawed for me was of little children in 
 torment, and I went to bed and cried nearly all night 
 because I felt that nothin was of any use. My poor mother 
 was scared and my father was afraid to say much, for there 
 was the preacher ready to snatch away any encourage 
 ment. We had all of us been condemned from the first and 
 unless we did an impossible task there was no hope. But 
 as I grew older the world appeared to get better. The 
 
32 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 rocks in the graveyards said that the dead folks were all 
 right. Humanity had done away with imprisonment for 
 debt. The slave ships were all sunk. People were 
 better fed and better clothed. Books filled up the empty 
 shelves in the country. Newspapers with their white 
 wings flew everywhere. And all this time hell was a 
 coolin off. It seemed to me that it was almost ready for 
 irrigation till you turned loose to-day. What made you 
 do it ? Don t answer me now jest let me talk but what 
 made you do it? Don t you know that God is gettin* 
 so good that some of the churches have to meet every 
 once in a while to acknowledge it ? Don t you know that 
 after all it is love and not fear that moves this old world ? 
 You sing Oh, for a closer walk with God/ and you make 
 such a thing impossible. You make Him a destroyer 
 instead of a builder. You would take away the softness 
 and the holy sweetness of the Saviour, and when that s 
 done, all is done that can be done for evil. Instead of a 
 great book of wisdom you make the Bible a threat, backed 
 up by the devil. You would have the people read it with 
 frightened eyes, and I want to tell you that when a man s 
 scared he can t learn anything to speak of. The people 
 are growin all the time, and so is the Church, but some 
 of you preachers want to pull back. Do you know why 
 all over the country there is a disposition to put out the 
 old preachers and to take in the young ones? It is 
 because the young men are more liberal. They 
 are not so set in creed and therefore they are kinder 
 hearted." 
 
ON HELL 33 
 
 " Jucklin, it is not for you to talk like this. You would 
 have me tried for heresy." 
 
 "Brother, where one man is tried for heresy twenty 
 are dropped for narrowness. Put that in your pipe and 
 smoke it a while." 
 
 "I don t smoke, sir." 
 
 " But you would have everybody else smoke. Did you 
 see that little girl clinging to her mother? It will take 
 a long time to get that awful picture out of her mind. 
 And maybe by the time that one is wiped out you ll be 
 ready with another one; and when she grows up and glances 
 about her in the light of pure truth she will look back and 
 pity your ignorance." 
 
 "Jucklin, I know one man whom the devil is waiting 
 for." 
 
 "Accordin to your story he s waitin for every 
 man." 
 
 "But he is waiting for one in particular." 
 
 "If you mean me let me correct you a little. He 
 can t get me, for I believe the Saviour when he said he 
 died to save sinners." 
 
 "You do not believe the Saviour; you have denied 
 him." 
 
 "No, brother, I have denied you and the devil. Now 
 let me tell you what to do: Come over to my house and 
 get some of the books that my son has sent to me. They ll 
 do you good." 
 
 "Tracts issued by Satan, and you ll find it out one of 
 these days. Jucklin, I thought you wanted to talk about 
 
34 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 the welfare of your soul, and here you are scoffing at the 
 Gospel." 
 
 " Oh, no, I m not scoffin at love; and the Gospel is love 
 the sweetest message of love that was ever breathed upon 
 a helpless world. And it seems strange that at this late 
 day some of you haven t found it out. I believe I heam 
 you say once that the printing press was keepin* folks 
 from goin to church, and you called it the agent of the 
 devil. You didn t stop to recollect that unless the Bible 
 had been printed you never would have had one. But 
 go ahead, preachin your doctrine of hate and the first 
 thing you know you ll be out of a job. You can t convince 
 a thinkin man that the world which is just as much 
 God s now as it ever was is worse off than it used to be. 
 There are more flowers to-day than the world ever saw 
 before. There are more human hearts and therefore more 
 human love. God wisdom is comin closer; and the 
 devil ignorance is goin further away. You frown at 
 empty benches, but after a while you won t have even a 
 bench. And about that time you ll see happy people 
 comin out of a new church. That s about all I ve got 
 to say." 
 
 " Jucklin, you are going to hell." 
 
 "Well, not before I get a bite to eat, I hope. Good- 
 day." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 ON FIEST LOVE 
 
 "AND so you are Cal Atterson s boy," said Lim Jucklin 
 as he sat down on the steps of the grocery store. "My, 
 how you young chaps come on. And you? Ab Sar- 
 ver s youngest, eh? Hasn t seemed more than a week 
 since I saw you riding a stick horse and here you are big 
 enough to make love to the girls. 
 
 "Don t make love to em? Go on with you. I ll 
 bet your heart has been wrung and hung out to dry more 
 than once. When I was about your age I fell sick along 
 about tobacco-cutting time, and I didn t think I was ever 
 goin to get well. The cause of my sickness was a young 
 gal that came into the neighbourhood to visit her uncle. 
 I haven t time now to tell you how beautiful I thought she 
 was. I didn t believe she belonged on the ground at all 
 just touched it now and then to accommodate the earth, 
 you know. She flew down from a cloud that the sun was 
 a shinin on and didn t care to go back. Recollect how 
 astonished I was the first time I ever saw her eat. I 
 thought she just naturally sucked the honey out of the 
 honeysuckle along with the hummin birds, and when I 
 saw her worryin with an ear of boiled corn big enough 
 to scare a two-year-old calf I went out and leaned against 
 
 35 
 
36 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 the fence. But it didn t hurt my love any. I thought 
 she did it just to show that she might possibly be a human 
 being. She didn t want us all to feel bad. One night 
 I groaned so that mother came to me and wanted to put 
 mustard plasters on me. She lowed that mebby she 
 might draw out the inflammation. She thought I had 
 somethin the matter with my stomach because I had lost 
 my appetite. I told her that I had an inflammation she 
 couldn t draw out with a yoke of steers. Then she thought 
 I ought to have an emetic. I said that if she had one that 
 would make me throw up my soul she might fetch it along, 
 but otherwise it would be as useless as saying mew to a 
 dead cat. Then she thought I must be crazy and came 
 mighty nigh hittin the mark, I tell you. 
 
 "A few days afterward, about the time I was at the 
 height of my fever, I met the girl in the road and she 
 smiled at me, and I ran against a beech tree and if I 
 didn t knock the bark off I m the biggest liar in the world. 
 When I came to I had my arm around a sheep, a walkin 
 across the woods pasture. 
 
 "My, my, what a time that was to live. The sun had 
 just riz for the first time and they had just called up the 
 birds to give out the songs to them. They wan t quite done 
 settin the stars out in the sky, and they hadn t put more 
 than one coat of whitewash on the moon. Music it 
 wa n t there till she came, and the orchards bloomed as 
 she walked along down the lane. But she didn t appear 
 to know it, and I want to tell you that I marvelled at such 
 ignorance. 
 
ON FIRST LOVE 37 
 
 "I didn t have the courage to go straight up to her, and 
 one night at meetin , when I was feastin my soul with 
 merely lookin at her, up walked a feller and asked if he 
 might take her home. I looked at him, quick-like, ex- 
 pectin to see him drop dead, but he didn t. Then I 
 waited for the light nin to strike him, but it didn t. Then 
 I waited for her to kill him with a look, but she didn t. 
 She smiled and said yes. Then I sneaked outside and 
 whetted my knife on my boot. There wa n t power 
 enough on earth to keep me from bathin my hands in his 
 blood. Mother saw that there was somethin wrong 
 with me and she came out and asked me if I was sick. 
 I told her I was a dyin , but before I bid farewell to the 
 earth I was goin to cut a scoundrel into strips and feed 
 him to the dogs. But pap he came and took the knife 
 away from me and said if he heard any more such talk 
 he d tan my hide till it was fitten for shoestrings. I 
 don t know how I got home that night, but after a long 
 time I found myself a smotherin in bed. There was 
 a well in the yard and I thought I d slip out and drown 
 myself. Just then I heard a rooster crow, and recollectin 
 that there was to be a fight over across the creek within 
 a few days, I decided that mebby I still had somethin to 
 live for. 
 
 "But I didn t give up my idea of vengeance on that 
 feller, and one day I met him as I was comin along the 
 road. I lowed that before I knocked him down it would 
 be well to inform him as to how he stood in my opinion, 
 and I started out and I don t know what I might have 
 
38 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 said if he had given me a chance. But he didn t. He 
 didn t appear to think that there were stars enough, so he 
 began to knock them out of my eyes and I saw some of 
 them as they sailed away. Among them was a comet with 
 a tail about as long as a well chain. When I came to 
 a muley cow was ringin her bell over my head. I propped 
 my eyes open till I could get home, and then they covered 
 me with fresh meat and left me to think over the situation. 
 
 "It was no laughin matter, boys, I ll tell you that. 
 The next day the girl came over. She said that she heard 
 that a bull had met me and disagreed with me. What 
 a lie that fellow had told her; and she insisted on seein 
 me. She came into the room and I looked at her through 
 a hole in a beefsteak. She laughed. Oh, I don t blame 
 her now, you understand, but just at that moment my 
 love stubbed its toe and fell, and fell hard, I want to re 
 mark. She said she was awful sorry for me and I said 
 she acted like it. 
 
 "I tell you love can t stand much laughin at. It s 
 the tenderest plant that ever peeped out of the soft lap 
 of creation, and in laughter if there is no sympathy there s 
 frost. When a feller stops lovin he sees more than he 
 did before and yet he is blinder. He sees more in other 
 folks, but sees that they ain t like the one he loved. And 
 the reason that so few people marry first love is because 
 that sort of love takes hold as if it wanted to kill. Don t 
 appear that anything else will satisfy it. There s no use 
 tryin to dodge it, boys; a thief in the night can t slip up 
 on you half so sly. It is the oldest thing in the world, but 
 
ON FIRST LOVE 39 
 
 it is so new that nobody knows yet how to handle it. It 
 makes ignorance as wise as a god and hangs a lamp with 
 perfumed oil where darkness always fell before. A good 
 many of the old chaps make fun of it, but when they do 
 you may know that they ain t nothin but money getters, 
 and that marks the death of the soul. Does me good 
 to look at you young fellers; I like to think of the sweet 
 misery you ve got to go through with. Oh, yes, there s 
 more than one love. It s like the rheumatism. One 
 attack may be worse than the others, but i /s all rheumatism 
 just the same, and no matter how light you ve got it you 
 know when it s ftierc. So you are Ab Sarver s boy. What s 
 your pap doin to-day?" 
 
 "Arguin politics with a feller when I left home." 
 
 "Well, he was always a mighty hand to argue. I 
 haven t seen him in a long time. It s a good ways to your 
 house, ain t it?" 
 
 "About ten miles." 
 
 "Yes, and the miles get longer and the days shorter 
 as we grow older. But no matter how old we get, if the 
 heart remains sound, we never forget that rheumatism 
 I told you about. I wouldn t give the memory of it for 
 hardly anything in the world. One of these days you will 
 see her comin down the road, a makin the orchards bloom 
 as she passes along, and you ll wonder how you can live 
 another minit, and you ll wish yourself dead just to make 
 her feel bad. If she laughs at anything anyone else says 
 it will send a knife blade through your heart, and if she 
 sighs you ll think it s over some other feller. There ll 
 
40 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 be no such thing as pleasin you, but I d rather have it 
 in store for me than a mountain range made of gold. 
 Well, boys, it s about time I was a goin on home. There s 
 a woman there that I fell in love with years ago, and I 
 haven t fallen out with her yet. 
 
 "So you are Ab Sarver s boy. You make me think, 
 my son. It was your daddy that told the girl I had met 
 a bull, and it was your mammy that made the orchards 
 bloom." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 ON BOOKS 
 
 THE neighbourhood sale, held at an old homestead, 
 brings out the importance and the force of the man who 
 has been thrifty and who has ready money at command. It 
 is a sad picture the passing of the farm, the disintegra 
 tion of a family, the blighting of a thousand memories that 
 cluster about a hearthstone. At such a time the squeaky 
 voice of ready money becomes thunderous in tone, awing 
 the modest aspiration of a neighbour who looks toward 
 the purchase of a yoke of cattle, a wagon, a colt; and 
 when ready money seems determined the promissory notes 
 of the modest fall back into tameness and silence. But 
 ready money does not care to acquire everything at a 
 neighbourhood sale. Being material it looks to material 
 things, and its estimate of the spiritual is but shallow, 
 so, when at the Groggin sale Lim Jucklin outbid Stoveall, 
 and became possessed of a pile of old books heaped on 
 the floor, some of his friends marvelled that he should have 
 run the risk of exciting the opposition of the wealthiest 
 man in the community. 
 
 "Oh, I knew that he didn t want em," said Lim as 
 he climbed to a seat upon the rail fence, a low but estimative 
 throne of observation. "In his house they would be 
 
 41 
 
42 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 just so much rubbish. They don t talk to him, and when 
 a book don t speak to a man it is the dumbest thing in 
 the world. It can t make as much noise as a pig, for a 
 pig squeals; quieter than a duck, for a duck quacks it 
 simply takes its place along with the brickbat or the old 
 shoesole that curls up in the sun. But when a book 
 even whispers to a man it tells him the sweetest of secrets. 
 It tells him that he ain t a blamed fool, and this is a mighty 
 important piece of news. Whenever I see an old book 
 I think of Abe Lincoln. He gathered corn for two days, 
 keepin up the down row, for a life of Washington, and 
 you men that have humped yourselves all day behind a 
 wagon know what that means. He was lendin his body 
 to the work of openin up his soul. It come hard, that 
 book did; it meant backache, for it took Lincoln a long 
 time to reach down to the ground, but it meant more than 
 if he had been workin for a hundred dollars a day. Don t 
 understand me to say that every man that thinks so much 
 of a book will be great; he may never be able to go to a 
 sale such as this and buy a yoke of steers, but in the long 
 run it will be worth more to him than all the steers that 
 Old Elisha was a plowin when the call came for him to 
 go up." 
 
 "But the prophet was a handlin of steers instead of 
 books," remarked Stoveall, who had come walking slowly 
 to join Lim s audience. 
 
 "Yes, that s a fact," Lim replied. "He was a plowin 
 ten or fifteen yoke of cattle if I recollect right, but he didn t 
 go to Heaven till he took his mind off the cattle. Didn t 
 
ON BOOKS 43 
 
 take none of his oxen with him, but he took wisdom with 
 him, and a good book is the mouthpiece of wisdom. How 
 old are you, Brother Stoveall?" 
 
 "I m eighty odd." 
 
 " Gettin along putty well. And now, lookin back over 
 your life, what have you enjoyed the most ? " 
 
 "Well, it don t seem to me now that I ve ever enjoyed 
 anything since I was a boy. It has been a scuffle for me 
 to live and to take care of what little I had raked together. 
 I have had to watch man all the time to keep him from 
 robbin me." 
 
 "But he could only rob you of material things. If 
 you d been wiser you would have laid up somethin he 
 couldn t rob you of, and you could have set down by your 
 fire at night and dreamed over it without any fear. You 
 have known all along that they were goin to blow the 
 horn for you some day. It has always been certain 
 that you had to go, and then who is goin to take 
 care of the things you have raked together? Come 
 to think about it, I don t believe I ever heard you 
 laugh right good." 
 
 "I haven t had anything to laugh about," the old man 
 replied. 
 
 "And nobody else that was always afraid that he might 
 be robbed while he laughed. But you have been robbed 
 out of a mighty few pennies; ever since I can remember 
 you have been able to go to a sale and buy what you 
 wanted, and yet of all the men I know, Stoveall, your life 
 has been the biggest failure," 
 
44 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 " Jucklin, I could buy and sell you three times in a day, 
 with the price doubled every time I bought you back." 
 
 "Oh, you mean my land and my house. Yes, I reckon 
 you could, but you never saw money enough to buy me. 
 In lookin through advertisements for bargains did you 
 ever find happiness for sale? No, sir, for there ain t 
 no bankrupt stocks of happiness. Oh, I used to think 
 along your line. I didn t think that I d ever be happy 
 till I owned all the land adjoinin my farm, and I was 
 miserable because I saw.no chance of gettin* it. Every 
 day or so I d see a hearse goin down the road, haulin 
 some old fellow to the graveyard, and one day it carie 
 on me all of a sudden that I had to go along there, too. 
 Then I lowed that I ought to get as much happiness out 
 of the world as possible, and I was thinkin about it one day 
 while I was in town, and I says to the county jedge, says 
 I, Jedge, is there any way for a man turned forty-five 
 to be happy? He asked me if I could read, and I told 
 him I could make out my name if it was printed in a 
 sheriff s sale. Then he said: Well, read good books 
 and think about em. Don t read the things that will 
 stimulate you to argufy, but the things that will feed your 
 mind without raisin its bristles. Some books are full 
 of the sweet unselfishness of the human heart. Read 
 them. Some make the fancy play like you have seen the 
 light nin of an evenin on a low-hangin cloud far over 
 in the west. Read them. Don t read the vicious ones 
 any more than you d keep close company with a vicious 
 man. Do this and you ll find the world openin up toward 
 
ON BOOKS 45 
 
 the past and a brightenin toward the future. One man 
 is really stronger than another for what he knows and not 
 for what he s got. We know he can t take his material 
 things with him, but no man knows that he can t take the 
 spiritual things. Solomon was the wisest man, it is said, 
 but I believe he would have been a little wiser if he hadn t 
 been quite so rich. He wouldn t have been mixed up 
 with so many women, and right there is where he proved 
 he wan t any wiser than some of the rest of us. 
 
 "Well, I thought over what the county jedge said, 
 and I began to read, slow at first, for I hadn t been well 
 schooled, and the more I read the bigger my farm seemed 
 to grow, and now I ve got more than ten million acres 
 under cultivation. Laws a massy, what a chance you 
 youngsters have. Instead of bein happy only in the latter 
 end of your life you can begin now. I don t mean that 
 you should neglect any work that you may have to do, or 
 that you shouldn t want to make money, but I do mean 
 that you ought to lay up an estate that can t become bank 
 rupt. I am a givin you old talk, it is true, but it is the old 
 principles that touch man the most, for they have always 
 had a bearin on his life. Don t understand me to mean, 
 boys, that you should become bookish, but jest to mix 
 your readin in along with your life. It will keep you from 
 breakin yourself down tryin to keep up with some man 
 that can make money easier than you can, and he will 
 always be there, jest a little in front of you. Love your 
 feller-man, for he s all right in the long run. He s got 
 more sympathy than hate. Somebody may tell you that 
 
46 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 human nature is all selfish, but don t you believe it. Well," 
 he added, getting down off the fence, "I must box up my 
 gold now and cart it home. Goin my way, Brother 
 Stoveall?" 
 
 "Yes, Jucklin, but you are no company for me." 
 "I reckon that s right," Limuel replied. "I know it 
 must be right, for I haven t got anything you want." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 ON LAWYERS 
 
 A LAWSUIT had been tried on the veranda of the cross 
 roads store, and when it had been settled Limuel Jucklin, 
 who had watched the proceedings, took the home-made 
 chair, vacated by the justice, leaned back against the wall 
 and remarked: "Rather bad, this thing of goin to law. 
 And ain t it a peculiar state of society that educates men 
 to stimulate quarrels ? We may say that they ain t trained 
 for that purpose, but unless there are misunderstandings 
 the lawyer s work is cut off and he s got a little too much 
 of Old Adam in him not to look out for his own interest." 
 
 "You take a wrong view of the matter," replied a young 
 lawyer. 
 
 "That is just, about what I expected you to say. But 
 grantin to the lawyer all he can claim for himself, it must 
 after all be allowed that the bickerin s and shortsightedness 
 of the human family give him the most of his excuse for 
 livin . A perfect state of civilisation would argue perfect 
 honesty, and if such were the case the lawyers would be 
 powerful scarce. There is no denyin of the fact that 
 some of the greatest men have been lawyers and that the 
 most of our presidents have practised law. And so have 
 some of the immortal geniuses been soldiers, but if man 
 
 47 
 
48 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 had been just and peaceable there never would have been 
 any need for the soldier." 
 
 "According to your view, then," said the lawyer 
 "there is no real need for anybody that 
 
 "That doesn t build up," Limuel broke in, winking 
 at his former friends. "Every man ought to produce 
 somethin . If he don t he s livin on somebody that does. 
 The only real occupation is the one that makes the world 
 better. Understand, now, I have nothin against any 
 body s callin . I m just expressin my opinion and it 
 must be taken for what it is worth. But the lawyer shows 
 us one thing if nothin more how keen a man s mind 
 may be whetted. I recollect once that a fellow sued me. 
 We had swapped horses " 
 
 "And you had got the better of him, eh?" said the 
 lawyer. 
 
 "Well, that s the way it looked to him. The horse I 
 let him have died that night. He asked me if the horse 
 was sound and I said I never had heard any complaint, 
 and I hadn t. He had never been under the care of a doc 
 tor so far as I knew. His appetite was good and he d 
 bat his eye when you motioned at him. I might have 
 seen him fall down have seen men fall, but I didn t 
 think that they were goin to die. I told him a child 
 could drive him. A child did drive him out of the garden 
 that day. Well, we swapped, and, as I say, his horse 
 was taken sick in the night and died before day. He came 
 back to me and swore that I had swopped him a horse that 
 I know d was goin to die. I told him that if he d show 
 
ON LAWYERS 49 
 
 me a horse that wa n t goin to die I d give him my farm. 
 I felt that he had the worst of it and I would have evened 
 it up the best way I could, but before I got through havin 
 fun with him he got mad and went away and hired a lawyer 
 to prove that I was a liar and altogether the worst man in 
 the community. 
 
 "I never got such a scorin in my life. I felt sorry for 
 my wife and children. I didn t think that anybody 
 would ever speak to me again, and I told the lawyer that 
 I would make it a personal matter between me and him. 
 I expected the justice to decide dead against me, but he 
 didn t. He had been a horse trader himself. 
 
 "Well, after the thing was over with I took the horse 
 I got from the feller and went over to his house about ten 
 miles away and turned the nag loose in his lot. I did it 
 not because I was sorry for him, but because I was afraid 
 of myself afraid that I couldn t sleep, and I was workin 
 hard and needed rest. Well, sir, that night the nag that 
 I d turned into the lot ups and dies, and the feller swore 
 that I had hauled him there after he was dead, and 
 hanged if he didn t sue me again. He got the same 
 lawyer and he made me out a worse man than I was before. 
 Made it appear that I had poisoned the horse and dragged 
 him over there. Then I swore that the whole county 
 couldn t hold me back from takin it out of his hide. Wife 
 she cried and took on, but I told her it wan t no use, for 
 justice spurred me on. 
 
 "So the first chance I got I went to town to see the 
 lawyer. I went over to the courthouse and he was makin 
 
50 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 a speech, and I wish I may die dead if the feller he was 
 a skinnin this time wan t the very man that had sued me. 
 I never hearn anything like it. Tiptoed and called him all 
 sorts of a scoundrel; said that he had defrauded me, as 
 honest a man as lived in the state. I couldn t stand that, 
 I walked on out and after a while he came along and 
 held out his hand and called me Uncle Lim/ just as if 
 I was his mother s brother. Then he clapped me on the 
 shoulder and you could have heard him laugh more than a 
 mile. He said he was a comin out to go a fishin with me. 
 
 "Well, I let him off, and after we had got to be right 
 good friends, I asked him how he happened to be engaged 
 against my enemy, and this is what he said: Oh, I 
 wasn t. Some of the boys told me you were comin into 
 the house and I knew that you were troublesome when you 
 set your head to it, so as court wasn t in session I started 
 in to makin a speech against the fellow so you could 
 hear me/ and he clapped me on the shoulder and you 
 could have hearn him laugh more than two miles this 
 time. 
 
 "Get a lawyer with fun in him and he s all right. 
 Once I had some business on hand the settlement of my 
 brother s estate and I went to old Tom Cantrell and asked 
 him how much he would charge me, and he almost took 
 my breath with the amount he named. I knew he was a 
 man of a good deal of ability liked fun, and I says to him 
 like this: Tell you what arrangement to make, Colonel. 
 I ve got a mighty fine chicken out at my house and if you 
 can fetch out one to whip him I ll engage you and pay 
 
ON LAWYERS 51 
 
 your price, but if my chicken whips yourn, why you do the 
 work for nothinV He was a man of ability and he agreed. 
 Ah, me, there ain t such lawyers about here these days. 
 I recollect once he " 
 
 "But did the fight come off?" someone inquired. 
 
 "Oh, that fight? Yes, held tallow candles for it one 
 night, and you d have thought it was a snowin , the air 
 was so full of feathers. My wife kept on a callin out, 
 1 Limuel, what are you a doin there in the smokehouse ? 
 and I always answered, I m diggin up a rat. Go on to 
 bed. I ve most got him now. 
 
 "I don t know how long they fit other roosters were 
 crowin all around the neighbourhood when they got 
 through. But my chicken crowed last, and the Colonel 
 gave me his hand with feathers a stickin to it, and says, 
 says he, Lim, you ve got me and I ll take care of your 
 business. 
 
 "Best settlement I ever made. He took care of the 
 business right up to the handle, and when he had got 
 through he lowed, he did, that he could find a bird that 
 could whip mine for the estate said he d put up his law 
 books and his house and lot against it, but it looked too 
 much like gamblin , so I backed down. Oh, he would 
 have done it. Ablest lawyer in the county. It s a pity 
 all lawsuits couldn t be settled somewhat in that way 
 as fairly, I mean. 
 
 "I was just a thinkin ," he added after a few moments 
 of silence, " how much trouble the old world has been put 
 to tryin to govern man. Every year or so the Legislatures 
 
52 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 meet and make laws and unmake them, always experi- 
 mentin with man. The trouble with him is he don t 
 know what he wants and don t know what to do with it 
 after he gets it. And the lawyer is the outgrowth of his 
 restlessness and his ignorance." 
 
 "Think there will ever come a time when there are no 
 lawyers?" the young advocate inquired, and the old man 
 scratched his head. 
 
 "Oh, yes, that time will come, but it will be the time 
 when there isn t anything. The lawyer has come to 
 stay as long as the rest of us do. He s a smart man 
 and a good feller for the most part, and is nearly always 
 willin to forgive you when he has done you a wrong, and 
 I want to remark right here that this argues the extremest 
 of liberality." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 ON COUNTRY DOCTORS 
 
 A NEIGHBOUR had been lingering between life and 
 death, and the attending physician had just given his 
 vague and guarded opinion, when old Lim Jucklin looked 
 up from the box where he was sitting in front of tke grocery 
 store and remarked: "Every man that gets money 
 without stealin it earns it, I reckon; but I don t know 
 of anybody that comes nearer earnin it twice over than the 
 country doctor. He has to put forth all the skill he has 
 and then must lie to keep hope alive. And hope is the 
 best medicine ever discovered, for it not only aids the 
 sick, but helps the well to bear their burdens. 
 
 "I recollect once when old Dock Haines practised in 
 this neighbourhood, long before the most of you were 
 born. Satchett Smith was taken down with some sort 
 of new-fangled fever that was prowlin around the neigh 
 bourhood, and kept on a gettin worse. Finally, one day 
 his neighbours came in to be present at his death, and 
 they were a settin about a waitin for the dreaded end 
 when Dock he came in spoke cheerfully to everybody, 
 joked with a gal about her beau and jollied a widow 
 about an old feller that was seen hangin around on the 
 outskirts of her good graces. Well, the wife of the sick 
 
 53 
 
54 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 man she comes in, just able to walk, she was so grief 
 stricken, and puts her arms about one of the women and 
 begins to cry; and well she might, for Smith he was a good 
 husband and never found fault with a thing that was 
 or was not on the table at mealtime. All of the women 
 folks thought it was about time to cry, and they cried and 
 the men hemmed and hawed and Smith he lay there a 
 fetchin of his breath the best he could under the cir 
 cumstances. Parson Biglow went up to the bed and 
 asked Smith how he felt, and Smith said he wan t feelin 
 at his best, and no one in the room disputed the assertion. 
 But Dock he demurred to the proceedings; he lowed that 
 it wan t meet and it wan t fittin to cross-question the 
 patient in sich a manner. Biglow turned about and says, 
 says he : I am a preacher, sir, and I have a right to talk 
 to him about his soul. 
 
 " Yes, says Dock, but not till after I get through 
 with his body/ 
 
 "Biglow he was up in matters of retort, and he says, 
 says he: And when you do get through with his body 
 his soul will be gone, and Smith he lay there actin like 
 lie couldn t find another breath. Then Dock he straight 
 ened up and we all knowed that somethin extraordinary 
 was about to happen. If anybody believes strong 
 enough that Smith here is goin to die he s got a chance 
 to win some easy money, said he. Twenty dollars 
 ain t picked up every minute and I ll bet twenty dollars 
 in gold and put up the money right now that Smith ain t 
 goin to die this season. Any takers ? 
 
ON COUNTRY DOCTORS 55 
 
 "The preacher says, Yes, undertakers/ which showed 
 to us that along with his knowledge of divine things he 
 was sorter sarcastic. A discussion might have followed, 
 but up spoke Slip Buckner. He was the bettin ist man 
 probably that ever lived, and if a chance to bet ever got 
 by him it was in the night, when he was in bed and asleep. 
 Well, he spoke up and says that he will take the bet and we 
 all looked at him, but not with any particular admiration, 
 for he was bettin on a sure thing. He fished up his money 
 outen the seams of his clothes and his wife she scolded 
 him under her breath, but he shook his head at her and 
 proceeded with the business in hand. Here s my money/ 
 says he, and I just need twenty more to complete the 
 purchase of a yoke of steers that I ve had my eye on for 
 some time. He looked at Dock and so did we all, for 
 we couldn t see why he would throw away his twenty 
 dollars. But he didn t wince. He took out his gold 
 piece and Squire Patterson held the stakes, and after the 
 excitement of puttin up the money the women returned to 
 their cryin and things were putty much as they were 
 before that is, except with Smith himself. 
 
 " Now Smith he had travelled up and down the Missis 
 sippi River in his younger days, a bettin of everything 
 he had, and it had always held a sort of charm for him. 
 He had sorter sided off with the Church, but he couldn t 
 forget the excitement of a bet and, while he didn t indulge 
 durin his later life, he felt the thrill of it and would hang 
 round for hours a beggin the boys not to bet on hosses, 
 but stayin till the last race was run. And now he was 
 
56 OLD LIM JUCKLIN" 
 
 interested. It was the first thing that had claimed his 
 entire mind since the fever came along and spread its 
 heat over him. He ll be a walkin about in less than 
 two weeks/ says Dock, and Slip Buckner begins to search 
 himself. l Somewhere about me I ve got twenty more 
 that says he won t/ he declared, and Dock he sorter 
 winced at this, but he was game, and without sayin a 
 word he outs with another gold piece and Buckner he 
 covered it with silver and paper, and the women folks 
 lowed that the world was gettin closer and closer akin 
 to old Satan every day. 
 
 "For a long time Dock he set there swearin that he 
 was sure to win, and finally he says to Smith that he will 
 give him half the money. And Smith laughed yes, sir, 
 laughed, not a loud haw-haw, it is true, but a chuckle, and 
 the women cried afresh, for they thought that Smith was 
 goin into eternity a laughin , which to them was a mighty 
 bad promise for the future. Well, we set about till evenin , 
 and when the candles were lighted the fire on the hearth 
 began to sing a low sweet song, imitatin the sound of 
 somebody walkin through snow, and we heard Smith 
 breathin in a natural sort of way and we looked at him 
 and he was asleep. Well, to make a long story short, he 
 was better the next mornin , and within the time set he was 
 walkin about, and Dock not only gave him half the money, 
 but all he had won. And Buckner well, some time 
 afterward, when Smith was a candidate for jestice of the 
 peace, Buck he lows, I ain t goin to vote for him. He 
 done me a bad turn once beat me out of a lot of money/ 
 
ON COUNTRY DOCTORS 57 
 
 Dock told me that he expected to lose the money, but it 
 was one chance in a thousand that he might save Smith 
 by excitin his mind. 
 
 "Yes, sir," the old man added after a few moments of 
 meditation, "a doctor must know human nature as well 
 as medicine, and this knowledge mixed with medicine is 
 what makes one doctor better than another. Fve known 
 em to git out of their beds the coldest nights that ever 
 blowed and ride ten miles to doctor a man they knowed 
 wan t a goin to pay a cent. It takes great strength 
 always to handle weakness; it takes a god-like patience to 
 deal with the fretful and not be warped over to the side of 
 continual peevishness, and whenever I hear a doctor a 
 laughin I always rejoice with him. Science in medicine 
 travels slow, it is true, for each human body is an individual 
 machine, and every mornin has a new way to go wrong. 
 And I have known men to be such liars that they wouldn t 
 tell a doctor the truth as to how they felt, fearin that they 
 were givin him some little advantage. The average 
 doctor has a good sense of humour and has stored up some 
 of the oldest jokes I ever heard, and this is in the direct 
 line of his usefulness, for a sick man can t understand a 
 new joke as well as an old one. The old one may bring 
 up the memory of a former laugh and thereby do him 
 good. 
 
 "The saddest time for the sick man is not when the 
 doctor is comin to see him, but the time when the doctor s 
 bill begins to pay its visits. It ought not to be, but a 
 doctor s bill is a mighty hard thing to pay. It is like 
 
58 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 payin for a January overcoat in July. When old Alf Bug 
 was gettin well just about the time the doctor pro 
 nounced him out of danger he said to him: Doctor 
 you have been mighty faithful, and I thank you, but I m 
 sorry that I can t pay you nothin . If I had died you 
 would have got your money, for my life is insured, but 
 as it is I can t give you a cent. 
 
 "The doctor looked at him a minute and says: Bug, 
 I think you need just one more dose of medicine. 
 
 " Much obleeged to you/ replied Bug, but I ve got a 
 plenty. " 
 
CHAPTER X 
 ON GAMBLING 
 
 "A LOVE for gamblin was born about the time that 
 human nature first opened its eyes. A disposition to 
 steal somethin was born just a few moments before, but 
 a man may gamble and not be a thief. There is such a 
 thing as an honest gambler that is, a gambler who is 
 willing to give a man a fair chance to lose his money. 
 The gambler wants your money, and it ain t much trouble 
 for him to accommodate his conscience as to the way he 
 gets it. If he is sharper than you are he compliments 
 himself with the fact that he understands his business, and 
 every man that has a trade likes to know its details better 
 than the other man does." 
 
 Thus spoke old Limuel to a few friends who were gath 
 ered about the fireside in the Jucklin home. The wind 
 was howling and the snow, like shreaded sheets, was flying 
 past the windows. 
 
 "But you don t believe that all gamblers are thieves?" 
 remarked old man Brizintine. 
 
 " I said I didn t. But there ain t nothin that will strain 
 a man s honesty more than gamblin will." 
 
 "That s been preached on many a time," Brizintine 
 
 spoke up. "But I never gambled in my life and " 
 
 59 
 
60 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "And you don t know just how far you are honest," 
 Lim broke in. 
 
 "I don t know that I understand you." 
 
 "Didn t think you did," replied Jucklin. "But I can 
 explain. The man that gambles has more temptations 
 to steal than any other man. When he has lost everything 
 a strong resentment arises against life. It is almost im 
 possible for him to believe that he has been fairly beaten, 
 and if he is broad enough to acknowledge this he then 
 questions Fate for her onesidedness. He wants to know 
 what right she s got to discriminate so against him. It has 
 been said that all men are natural gamblers, and it may 
 be true, for the most of us have had to fight against it. 
 
 "Unfortunately for man, work was put on him as a 
 curse. The fact is, it enobles him, but he accepted it as 
 a curse. And when his brother has committed a crime, 
 not grave enough to hang him, he says: I will sentence 
 you to work. In the olden times a man that worked 
 wan t respected as much as the highwayman. They 
 hanged the robber, it is true, but they respected him more 
 than they did the man that handled the hoe. And the 
 gambler is a sort of social highwayman. I don t say he 
 is a bad feller. In many instances he persuades himself 
 to believe that his profession is right. He puts up his 
 money, takes chances, and if he wins he has come by the 
 money as honestly as if he had dug in the ground for it 
 he thinks. And as long as he wins he may be honest. 
 But his principles undergo a change when he begins to 
 lose. Then he can t help feelin that he is givin the 
 
ON GAMBLING 61 
 
 other feller too much show. When he has lost all he 
 must have money in order to carry on his business. Sup 
 pose he is employed to collect money suppose he is in a 
 bank. If he refrains from takin money to gamble with 
 he is honest desperately honest, you might say. And 
 he may refrain day after day for years; but some day he 
 may find himself weak. This weakness may consist of an 
 overconfidence in self in an overabundance of hope, 
 in a faith that he will win and can pay back. Right there 
 he is gone. Think you are strong enough to stand such 
 a temptation as that, Brother Brizintine?" 
 
 "I would not use any man s money," Brizintine an 
 swered. "I surely have sense enough to know what is 
 my own, and knowing what is not my own I have honesty 
 enough not to take it." 
 
 "Yes," replied Jucklin, "and what you have said is the 
 answer that nine out of ten men would make and 
 honestly, too. But the fact is, you don t know." 
 
 "What! do you mean to say I don t know whether or 
 not I m honest?" 
 
 "I mean just what I say you don t know. It is all 
 very well for the untried man to believe himself strong, 
 but unless he has been severely tried he does not know." 
 
 "Do you know, Brother Jucklin?" 
 
 "Well, I ll tell you just how far I know. Many years 
 ago I was workin at a mill that took in a good deal of 
 money. Finally they gave me charge of it. Along about 
 that time a party of us used to meet two or three times a 
 week to play a social game of poker. It got to be so 
 
62 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 sociable that it kept me broke. I knew that it was largely 
 a game of luck and that the cards would break even after 
 a while, and that may be true, in the long run, but the 
 run is too long. In the course of a thousand years they 
 might have broke even, but as it was, they broke with 
 just enough promise to hold me tied in fascination to the 
 game. I began to borrow money and it took all of my 
 wages to pay it back. One night I went over to meet the 
 boys. I didn t have a cent of my own, and I wouldn t have 
 gone if I hadn t thought that someone would lend me 
 enough to get into the game. But everyone hemmed and 
 hawed and spoke of the extreme need for money, of hard 
 times and the like the very men who had week after 
 week got all of my wages. Just then it flashed across me 
 that in my pocket were more than a hundred dollars 
 belongin to the mill. With this amount as a backin I 
 felt sure that I could win back some of the money I had 
 lost. It was perfectly plain I could do it. At some 
 stage of the game I had nearly always been ahead, but 
 wouldn t quit. But why couldn t I quit? The other 
 fellers jumped, and with my money. Why couldn t I 
 do the same ? I broke out in a sweat. I strove to bring 
 up arguments against rny sitting in the game and couldn t. 
 Luck whispered that it was with me, and it didn t seem 
 possible that I could lose. Never before had I felt so 
 strongly that it was my night. I arose and walked up and 
 down the room. I could hear my blood singin*. I turned 
 and looked at the boys, each one with an expression of 
 eagerness on his face. I felt myself superior to them. I 
 
ON GAMBLING 63 
 
 could beat them. There they sat, completely within the 
 power of my skill and my luck. I could win enough to 
 pay back the money that I owed, and with my wages I 
 could buy clothes and I needed em. Suddenly I rushed 
 out of the house, and I ran ran all the way to the home 
 of the mill owner snatched his money out of my pocket 
 and gave it to him. I told him what I had gone through 
 with, and he turned pale and took hold of the mantel 
 piece to steady himself. My son/ said he, I have been 
 all along there, only I didn t run away until afterward. 
 They caught me and brought me back, and it was only 
 by the grace of human nature that I didn t go to the 
 penitentiary/" 
 
 In the company there were three young fellows. The 
 old man s recital had moved them. "And did you play 
 again, Uncle Lim?" one of them inquired. 
 
 "No, I didn t. And although it may appear narrow 
 in me, but let me say that a playin card shan t come into 
 my house. In itself a deck of cards is innocent enough, 
 and so is a bottle of licker if you don t drink it. It is 
 true though, so far as my experience counts, that nearly 
 every gambler begins in a social way, without any thought 
 of becomin one. Very few of them set out with the aim 
 to make gamblin their profession. Take bosses, for 
 instance. Nearly all men like a fine hoss like to see 
 him run. They develop a judgment as to the runnin* 
 qualities of a hoss and finally are willin to back it up 
 with money. Whose business is it ? The money belongs 
 to them and was honestly earned. Understand now, I 
 
64 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 ain t a preachin a moral sermon for I ain t fitted for that. 
 I just want to talk in a human nature sort of way for the 
 benefit of these boys. Don t bet on anything. That s 
 the safest plan. If there s no fun in goin to boss races 
 unless you bet, don t go." 
 
 "But haven t you bet on roosters?" old Brizintine in 
 quired, looking wise. 
 
 "Well, I have seen the feathers fly from the wrong 
 chicken," Lim answered. "And if I have bet, and have 
 seen the evil of it, I am all the fitter to talk to these young 
 chaps. Boys, if you don t want to be on trial all your 
 life, don t bet on anything." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 ON DRINKING 
 
 AN old log distillery, famous throughout the county, 
 had just been destroyed by fire, and several men, sitting 
 in the courthouse, were talking about the passing away 
 of this landmark, dating back to British rule, when 
 Liinuel Jucklin spoke up: "And I understand that it s 
 not to be rebuilt. This shows how sentiment has grown 
 in a certain direction. Why, I can remember the time 
 when if a stillhouse had burned down they would have 
 begun to rebuild it before the ground cooled off. Every 
 man in the community would have been interested. It 
 would have been almost like shutting off the supply of 
 milk from a youngster. In those days if a man 
 hollered hello you d ask him to have a drink 
 before you inquired the nature of his business. That 
 much was naturally to be inferred. But a good 
 many folks will tell you that there wan t as much 
 drunkenness then as there is now. Well, there wan t 
 as many people. If there had been as many people 
 there would have been more drunkenness. The fact 
 is that a good many men were about full all the time 
 and as no one had ever seen them sober nobody could tell 
 when they were drunk." 
 
 65 
 
66 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Then you don t believe that a dram is good for a man ?" 
 said the county judge. 
 
 "Well, if he thinks it is, mebby it is as long as he is 
 justified in thinkin so. But in these days it requires about 
 all of a man s keenness his freshness, you understand 
 to make a livin* or to push anything to success, and a 
 good-sized horn of liquor nearly always takes off the wire 
 edge. I can recollect when the average lawyer thought 
 he had to be about half drunk before he could make a 
 speech. Whisky gave him a bigger flow of words, and as 
 whisky was the jury and sometimes the judge as well as 
 the lawyer, liquor appeared to have pretty nigh everything 
 its own way. A trial wan t hardly anything but a talkin* 
 contest. The loudest talker was usually regarded as the 
 smartest man, for of all critics in the world whisky is the 
 worst. 
 
 "Whisky not only furnished the argument, but very 
 often supplied the cause for litigation. Most of the 
 trials were of a criminal nature, the cause for an ordinary 
 lawsuit having resulted in a fight. And I could always 
 believe the story they told on old Tom Marshall, one of 
 the greatest lawyers of his time I reckon. One day he 
 was rather hurriedly engaged to defend a feller, but as he 
 was pretty far along in his cups quart cups at that 
 he got off on his wrong foot and began to prosecute. He 
 tiptoed in his wrath. He painted the feller as bein the 
 worst scoundrel on the earth. Just then somebody pulled 
 at his coat tail and says, Tom, you re on the wrong side. 
 What did Tom do apologise? No, he just sloshed his 
 
ON DRINKING 67 
 
 liquor over on the other side and there he was. He said, 
 Such, gentlemen of the jury, is the false argument 
 that will be brought forward against this inoffensive 
 gentleman/ and so forth, and then he proceeded to clear 
 him. The young lawyer had to drink because the old 
 feller set him the example. Why, in those days a 
 man didn t think he was at himself until he had about 
 three drinks. There was hardly any such thing as 
 farm machinery. They cut wheat with a cradle and 
 plowed with cast iron thrashed grain with a flail 
 and " 
 
 Here old Uncle Ben Weatherby spoke up. "Yes, and 
 folks were a dinged sight better off then than now. There 
 wan t half as much stealin a goin on." 
 
 "No," Limuel admitted, "because there wan t half 
 as much to steal nor half as many folks to steal it. But 
 when a man thinks as you do, Uncle Ben, there ain t no 
 use to arguy with him. Nobody can successfully arguy 
 with a man that s a livin in the past. It is of no use to 
 dispute the writin on a tombstone. But I happen to 
 remember that in them good old days I had to work on a 
 farm and I know what it was. There wan t hardly a book 
 in the whole neighbourhood, and a newspaper was looked 
 on as the agent of old Satan himself. The result was that 
 when a man went a few miles from home he was in a 
 strange land. There wan t a stove anywhere, and in the 
 winter we nearly froze to death. But there s no use in 
 recountin* all of the inconveniences. You won t acknowl 
 edge em anyhow." 
 
68 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Well, that s all right," said the Judge, "but with all 
 the liquor drinkin folks lived longer then." 
 
 "That so? The reports of the life insurance com 
 panies don t say it. The faster we get out of the good old 
 days the longer the average of life. They say it s on ac 
 count of sanitation. But there hasn t been much of a 
 change in that respect in the country. But here the 
 average length of life is increasin the same as in the towns. 
 It s liquor, boys; just liquor. The most important truths 
 are the slowest ones we learn, and it took a long time to 
 find out that even one drink of whisky a day is bad. It 
 builds up the substance of trouble and gives merely the 
 shadow of pleasure. Of course, I know there is no use to 
 talk this way to you old fellers. Your opinions are 
 formed and your habits are set, but there is a generation 
 a comin and the youngsters are the ones I m after. 
 
 "So far as liquor makin a lawyer or a doctor smart, 
 why there ain t a thought in a whole distillery not one 
 any more than there is a truth in a deception. There is 
 still a good deal of whisky mixed up in politics, and 
 there is also a good bit of Old Nick left in the same. But 
 there was a time when the man that could furnish the 
 most whisky was the surest of election. I recollect once 
 a seein a whisky keg used for a ballot box, and I never 
 knew of anything more appropriate. And say, Uncle Ben, 
 while you are turnin your eyes back into the past, see if 
 you can find a statesman that was a drunkard. Some 
 of the most entertainin speakers got drunk occasionally, 
 but they wan t statesmen. Now, a statesman ought to be 
 
ON DRINKING 69 
 
 able to see the comin of a great calamity. But not one 
 of those men called statesmen because they were enter- 
 tainin could foresee the almost never-endin calamity of 
 our Civil War. On both sides they thought it would be a 
 muster, the firm of a few guns and then a subsidin of the 
 whole thing. Wine helped to blow the flame, but it never 
 helped to put out the fire. 
 
 "Yes, I d like to talk to the young fellers. There ain t 
 no hope for the young man that drinks. He may be just 
 as moral in a general way he may be more moral than 
 hundreds of fellers that don t touch liquor at all but in 
 these days liquor on a young man s breath offsets a 
 thousand letters as to character. I notice in a newspaper 
 that the Emperor of Germany says that beer is ruinin 
 thousands of his people. Temperance folks used to hold 
 up beer as a means of escapin whisky. But when a 
 man s drunk it doesn t make much difference what put 
 him there. I ve noticed that a right industrious man can 
 get drunk on beer, and when it comes to drinkin the 
 average man ain t wantin in industry. 
 
 "A good while ago, when I didn t have quite as much 
 jedgment as I ve got now, someone told me that I ought 
 to take beer as a tonic. He took it and was the healthiest- 
 lookin man I ever saw. Well, havin a little leanin 
 that way anyhow, I took his advice. I started in one day 
 when I d come into town to get some barbed wire, and the 
 more I drank the more I was convinced that it wouldn t 
 make me drunk. I fell off my horse goin home and as 
 I couldn t get back, I slept right where I was. And when 
 
70 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 I woke up nobody could have convinced me that I hadn t 
 eaten the barbed wire. I haven t touched a drop since, 
 but it took me about ten years to live down that day s 
 report. Folks would say, Oh, yes, I know Lim Jucklin 
 gets drunk and falls off his horse. So, boys, whenever 
 some feller finds a good temperance drink for you, go him 
 a little better and stick to water. I beg your pardon for 
 preachin to you, Uncle Ben, but I believe you needed it." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 ON DOGS 
 
 A BIRD hunter, having become enraged at his dog, 
 seized him by the collar, snatched up a stick and ad 
 ministered to him an unmerciful beating. On the fence 
 not far away sat old Lim Jucklin, and he called to the 
 hunter: "By the way, there, when you get through with 
 that dog, and if you ain t in too big a hurry to go some 
 where else, I d like to say something to you. I have an 
 idea that it may do you good." 
 
 "I don t know that I ve got any too much time for you, 
 old man," the hunter replied. 
 
 "Well, I didn t ask for too much time. It won t take 
 me long to tell you what I think." 
 
 The hunter came slowly forward, and at the same 
 time two of his companions, having overheard what 
 had been said, came out of the corn field and, speaking 
 pleasantly to the old man, waited for him to proceed with 
 their friend. The dog, true to the instincts of his generous 
 race, came up to forgive and to renew his promises of 
 eternal fidelity. 
 
 "What is it you want with me?" the hunter inquired. 
 "As I said before, I haven t much time." 
 
 "Ah, hah," replied the old man, "but you ve got the 
 
 71 
 
72 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 time to quit your business whatever it may be and to come 
 over here and to hunt on my land without ever havin 
 asked for the permission." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir; I didn t know this was your 
 land." 
 
 "Yes, that s the trouble with such fellers as you are 
 you never know. However, I don t mind your huntin on 
 my land, but as long as I pay taxes on it you shan t beat 
 your dog on it. Don t be impatient, now, and listen 
 a minute to what I ve got to say. I don t set myself up as 
 a lecturer, you understand, but once in a while I drop into 
 a talk, if the occasion brings it up, and the occasion happens 
 to do so just at present. Why did you beat the dog?" 
 
 "Flushed a bird when he had no business to." 
 
 "It come out of his eagerness and his enthusiasm I 
 reckon. And while he was a workin for you, too. Some 
 times you get so excited that you shoot too quick, don t 
 you? Ah, hah, I ll bet you do. But you lay it to the 
 keenness of your blood and don t look on it as a crime. 
 But you think that your dog ought to have more self con 
 trol and a readier exercise of reason than you ve got. 
 And, as a general thing, I bet he has." 
 
 "He s putting it on you, Jim," said one of the com 
 panions. "Go ahead, old man, we ll make him take it. 
 
 "Oh, there ain t much to take just a little talk that 
 may not do him any harm. Every man knows that he 
 ought not to be cruel to an animal, but sometimes we 
 know a thing so well that we forget it. Some men have 
 passed all of their lives lookin for a big truth and have 
 
ON DOGS 73 
 
 i 
 
 overlooked all of the little ones. And the hardest thing 
 to convince a man of is the thing he already knows. It s 
 no use to talk to you about the intelligence and faithfulness 
 of a dog; you know all that as well as I do, but I just want 
 to ask you this: What has that dog got to look forward 
 to except to please you? In the tone of your voice he 
 finds the colour of life dark or light. When you frown 
 it is cloudy weather for him ; but when you smile it doesn t 
 make any difference to him how the rain pours or how the 
 snow flies. He is ready to go with you. The night can t 
 be too dark nor the wind too bitin . When you want to 
 go out the most cheerful fire would be uncomfortable for 
 him. Talk about the influence of a man in his family! 
 Talk about ownership! Why, you own the dog s body 
 and he gladly makes you a present of his soul. The Bible 
 teaches us to forgive, and in this the dog is more religious 
 than man. You may say that this comes through fear, but 
 the dog is not afraid to give his life for you; and I don t 
 want to hurt your feelin s here on my own land, but I ve 
 always noticed that the feller that will beat a dog will 
 cheat a man if he gets a right good chance." 
 
 "Look here, old fellow, you may be going too far. I 
 never cheated a man in my life." 
 
 "And I was goin to add that the man that would beat 
 a dog would also lie if you give him the chance," said 
 the old man. 
 
 "What, and you mean that you have given me the 
 chance?" 
 
 The companions began to laugh and old Limuel 
 
74 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 quietly chuckled. "Well, Fm liberal enough to give a 
 man almost any sort of a chance he may be lookin for. 
 By the way, what s your business?" 
 
 "I run a coal yard." 
 
 "Sell coal. Now that can be made as honest a business 
 as any in the world. But don t you sometimes guess at 
 the weight of a ton?" 
 
 "Well, not exactly guess at it. I ve been in the business 
 so long that I can come pretty close to a ton by looking 
 at it." 
 
 "Then you guess at it; and did you ever know one of 
 those close guessers to guess on the wrong side ? It s 
 like the man that makes a mistake in givin change 
 usually makes it in his own favour. This may be honest, 
 you know makin a mistake in your own favour but it 
 comes out of an underlyin principle of selfishness. And, 
 before I forget it, let me say that I ve always noticed that 
 the feller that beats a dog is one likely in a perfectly 
 honest way to short-change you. 
 
 "A man may be honest as to dollars and cents and at 
 the same time cruel. I knew a man who always paid his 
 debts, but who beat his wife. Honesty and gentleness are 
 not always companions. But the cruelty that applies to 
 the dog seems to be different from any other sort. When 
 the dog sees by your countenance or understands from 
 your voice that he has done wrong he throws himself 
 completely on your mercy, and if in his struggles to get 
 away he should bite your hand, the greatest favour you 
 can grant him is to permit him to lick the wound. Just 
 
ON DOGS 75 
 
 look at that dog now. No man in the hot sun ever 
 thirsted for water more than he thirsts for a kind word 
 from you. 
 
 "I was readin in a book where an old man says to a 
 king, You can shorten all my days, but you can t grant 
 me one hour of life. Over this dog you ve got more 
 power than that, for with a word you can kill his soul 
 or bring it to life. You may arguy that a dog hasn t got 
 a soul, but when a man is possessed in a full degree of the 
 very qualities exhibited daily by the average dog we 
 speak of the development of his soul. Dogs fight over a 
 bone. Men fight over money. A dog is deceitful in 
 order that he may be more pleasant in the eyes of his 
 master. Man studies politeness and politeness isn t 
 anything but a creditable form of deceit. 
 
 "A dog is the only thing that glorifies his slavery. A 
 hoss works for what he eats. He s always got his mind 
 on the stable. A dog works to give pleasure to his master. 
 He is the only animal that enjoys a joke because the man 
 does. He studies a man so close that he is a mind reader. 
 When you get up of a mornin he knows your temper the 
 moment he sets eyes on you. Old man Cartwright out 
 here declared that his dog knew in a moment when he had 
 professed religion; and Cartwright told me, says he, 
 the dog quit chasm rabbits on Sunday, after this. He d 
 walk about the yard as solemn as any presidin elder you 
 ever saw, but the minute I cussed a cow and lost my 
 religion, one Sunday, why the dog he jumped over the 
 fence and started out trackin a rabbit. Well, make 
 
76 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 friends with your truest friend there, and go 
 ahead." 
 
 The dog was listening. The hunter turned toward 
 him and smiled. The grateful animal leaped forward 
 with his eyes beaming, strove to embrace his master, and 
 then, with new spirit, sprang over the fence to take up 
 his neglected work. "Old gentleman," said the hunter, 
 "I m not as bad a fellow as you think I am." 
 
 "Oh, I guess you re all right, but you are so bent on 
 your own enjoyment that you don t think enough of others, 
 and I want to say that dogs are others." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 ON TRUTH 
 
 USUALLY it is age rather than wisdom that establishes 
 a man as the oracle of a rural neighbourhood. But some 
 times it is a sort of quaintness, a readiness and an aptness 
 in the expression of opinion, and often it requires more 
 judgment than is likely to be found in most communities 
 to detect the difference between facility of speech and that 
 intellectual virtue which the ancients regarded as sapience. 
 One night at a social gathering to celebrate the golden 
 wedding of a justice of the peace old man Brizintine had 
 for more than half an hour held forth on the beauties of 
 uncompromising truth when Lim Jucklin remarked: 
 
 "Yes, there are very few things more beautiful than the 
 truth sometimes. But I don t know of anything that has 
 given the vicious a better opportunity to vent their spleen 
 than truth at all hazards. The man that don t know 
 when to tell the truth or to sidestep a trifle from it hasn t 
 enough judgment to be trusted with a dangerous article." 
 
 "Do you mean to say," said Brizintine, "that truth is a 
 dangerous article?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, sometimes as dangerous as gunpowder in the 
 hands of an idiot. That is, when truth is restricted to its 
 narrowest sense, and that is the way that some men insist 
 
 77 
 
78 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 upon using it. Mack somebody I came across him 
 somewhere wanted to know if there was such a thing as 
 administerin to a mind diseased. There is, and it is the 
 withholdin from that mind the true state of its own 
 condition. A good deal of the sickness of this world is 
 in the mind only. This don t make it any the less real, 
 for the mind is as real as the body and a good deal more 
 so. We see that a man s mind is diseased. He asks our 
 opinion, and if we tell him the truth it confirms his own 
 belief and makes him worse, and maybe a few doses of our 
 truth will finish him. No matter how big a liar a feller 
 may be, we believe him when he tells us we ain t lookin 
 well." 
 
 "I don t exactly follow you," replied Brizintine, "but 
 wouldn t you rather know the truth on all occasions?" 
 
 "Well, not perhaps until afterward. I recollect that 
 one time I went on three notes for a man. When the first 
 one fell due the feller that held all three came to me and 
 said that the man I had accommodated had signed over 
 property enough to meet the other two, but that I would 
 have to pay the first one. It didn t amount to enough to 
 warrant me in sellin my farm, so I went to work with 
 extra force and made the money and paid it. Well, 
 about six months afterward here came the feller again 
 and said a mistake had been made and that it was the 
 third note that was to be taken care of and that I d 
 have to pay the second one. This shocked me a good deal, 
 but he declared by all that was good and bad that the 
 third one would give me no trouble, so I strained again, 
 
ON TRUTH 79 
 
 doubled the forces of my energy and soon met the other 
 note without sellin my farm. Then I knew I was all 
 right; but, sir, in due time here came the holder of the 
 notes and said that he was sorry to have made such a 
 mistake but that the property set aside was worthless and 
 that I d have to pay the third note. This hit me between 
 the eyes, but I strained again and paid the note." 
 
 "But I don t see where the virtue of all that lyin come 
 in," said Brizintine. 
 
 "Well, I do. If it had been made known to me at 
 first that I had to pay the three notes I would have let my 
 farm go at a forced sale and would have been worse than 
 homeless; but as it was, believin that I could meet the 
 small amount, I went to work with a vim and when I 
 got through I found that the surplus of my extra exertion 
 had put me beyond where I had ever been before. The 
 holder of the notes was a wise man. He knew that the 
 feller I had signed for had left the neighbourhood, dis 
 honest and broke; and he knew, also, that the full knowl 
 edge of it, told to me right off, would crush me. In a way 
 he was a liar, but both him and me benefited by it. 
 There is such a thing as bein a professional truth teller 
 just as there is a professional honesty. I recollect once 
 there was a toll gate over here on the pike, and it was 
 kept by an old man named Bowles. He and his son worked 
 out in the field while his wife took care of the gate. On 
 one occasion she went away to look after some young 
 chickens and left the gate open. Along came a man on a 
 boss. He helloed and no one came out. Then, lookin 
 
80 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 across the field, he saw the old feller and his son at work 
 hoein corn; so he got down off his hoss and trudged 
 across the clods of the field and came up to where Bowles 
 was swettin under the br ilin sun. 
 
 " There wan t anybody down at the house to let me 
 through the gate/ said he. 
 
 " That so? the old man inquired, lookin at him 
 sharp. 
 
 " Yes, so I have brought you the five cents. 
 
 " Oh, you have/ he said, takin the five cents and lookin 
 at it as if it was a curiosity. Nobody there, eh? But 
 wan t the gate open? 
 
 r Yes, the gate was open all right. 
 
 "But you wouldn t ride through? 
 
 " No, I didn t. 
 
 " And you come trudgin all the way across this field 
 in the hot sun to pay five cents ? 
 
 "Yes, sir, I ve done that because I m honest. 
 
 "The old man turned to his boy and called out: Jim, 
 watch this feller. He ll steal somethin before he gits 
 off the place. " 
 
 Some of the boys laughed and Brizintine said: "Well, 
 but the man proved his honesty." 
 
 "Ah, hah, and that was the trouble: He wanted to 
 prove it. He was too particular, and a good many such 
 little things were brought up in his favour some time 
 afterward when he was arrested for forgery, but they 
 proved it on him and sent him to the penitentiary just 
 the same. If honesty hasn t become so much of a thought- 
 
ON TRUTH 81 
 
 less habit as to be unconscious it will bear watchin . 
 There ain t nothin more beautiful than the principle of 
 truth, and its highest aim is to benefit man. But when 
 it is turned into a profession they make a sort of art of it, 
 and, from what I can gather, art as art always goes a little 
 too far to be real." 
 
 "But you wouldn t teach a son to lie ? " said Brizintine. 
 
 "No, but I would teach him truth so sly as to make 
 him believe it was born in him. One bit of inherent 
 virtue is better than a hundred virtues acquired. The 
 constitution we are born with will stand more of a strain 
 than the one we build up. You can fatten a razorback 
 hog, mebby, just the same as the Berkshire, but give him 
 a chance and he will run off his fat, because he was born 
 that way. But keep on a fattenin razorbacks, and after 
 several generations they will lose their disposition to run 
 wild. Gettin back to truth, it ought to be an uncon 
 scious quality, like a healthy organ in the body. A 
 man don t begin to doctor his stomach until he feels that 
 he s got one, and truth that needs medicine ain t of the 
 best sort. You know what the Son of Man said when they 
 asked him if he would pay tribute to Caesar. He didn t 
 say yes or no, but he gave em a beautiful figure. A blunt 
 truth would not have been any truer and not half so wise." 
 
 "But, Uncle Lim," said a young fellow, "how about a 
 possum dog that barks up the wrong tree jest to encourage 
 a feller?" 
 
 "My son," replied old Limuel, "I ve been talkin about 
 men and not dogs." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ON HORSE SENSE 
 
 THE wiseacres of the neighbourhood were discussing 
 the question of common sense, sitting about the black 
 smith shop, waiting for their horses to be shod, when a 
 silence that had suddenly fallen warned old Limuel 
 Jucklin that it was time for him to say something. 
 
 "Yes," he remarked, "good, hard horse sense is of so 
 rare a quality that it is nearly always taken for genius. 
 All that most any man needs is a little jedgment, the very 
 governor on the machinery of this life; and bein so 
 needful it is what we seem to be most lackin in. To 
 know how to do a thing isn t much more important than 
 knowin* what not to do. Knowin* when to do it is real 
 genius. If you cut your wheat before it s ripe you get 
 sappy straw for your labour. If you wait too long you 
 get but dry straw. Jedgment comes from experience, 
 and common sense is the wisdom beat into the heads of 
 men that have gone before." 
 
 "You leave out education," spoke up a schoolmaster. 
 
 "Oh, no, I don t, for education is the experience of 
 the mind. It goes back beyond all books, and the first 
 book must have been written out of experience. But to 
 read of the common sense of other men don t always give 
 
 82 
 
ON HORSE SENSE 83 
 
 us common sense of our own. In my house is a book 
 written by a man named Kant; and he calls it the Critique 
 of Pure Reason. Well, since I have more or less let up on 
 hard work Fve given a good deal of attention to the books 
 that fortune and a little lookin around have thrown in 
 my way, but this here one stumped me. I read it forward 
 and I tried it backward, up and down, and it seemed like 
 I wa n t goin to get a thing out of it. My wife, seein how 
 I was bothered, begged me to throw it away and eat a 
 boiled dinner that she put on the table. I did eat, but 
 all the time I was a thinkin about that thing all set out 
 there in words plain enough, but what didn t appear 
 to have any meanin . After dinner I took it up again and 
 fought with it, holdin it this way and that, up and down, 
 in the sun at the window and in the shade; but I ll be 
 hanged if I could get at the juice of it. Finally, however, 
 I struck one thing that paid me for all my trouble, and it 
 was this, as near as I can remember it: A man may 
 read all books and understand them, and he may be able 
 to speak all languages, and yet all this cannot atone for a 
 lack of what we know as mother wit. Mother wit 
 horse sense you understand." 
 
 "But how are we to get or rather I should say, after 
 maturer consideration, how are we to proceed toward the 
 acquirement of that quality denominated by the great 
 German philosopher as mother wit ? " protested the school 
 master, and old Lim replied: 
 
 "I ll be blowed if I know." 
 
 "Then education is useless," said the schoolmaster. 
 
84 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Oh, no, but sometimes it does seem like an experiment. 
 There are two sorts of education, you know one of 
 memory only and one that teaches a feller how to think 
 for himself. I knew a feller that could hear a sermon 
 once and could come away and repeat every word of it, 
 but he didn t have ability enough of his own to write a 
 notice and tack it on a tree announcin that he had a 
 mule for sale. He was like a blanket that is rained on. 
 You couldn t wring out of him any more moisture than 
 fell on him. Yes, sir, common sense is mighty nigh 
 everything. And when it rises into a sort of enthusiasm 
 it is inspiration. Sometimes ignorance takes fire and in 
 its light we see beautiful pictures. If the man is altogether 
 unlettered we call him crazy. But if he can write he may 
 prove to be a genius. It is a sudden lurch of common 
 sense, an overbalancing as it were." 
 
 "Then you call genius insanity," said the school 
 master. 
 
 " No, not that, but it is a sort of passion that don t halt 
 to reason by slow means, but that sees all reason in one 
 flash. Now there was Shakespeare " 
 
 "Written by Bacon; but proceed," broke in the school 
 master. 
 
 "I don t care if it was written by ham, lard or soap 
 grease, its sentences are staked off with stars, snatched 
 out of the sky on a June night. It took the world several 
 hundred years to catch up, and neither the railroad train 
 nor these pantin wagons that, bull-eyed, plunge across the 
 country has outstripped that book yet. And what is it ? 
 
ON HORSE SENSE 85 
 
 A torch held high by common sense. A lantern ray 
 flung into the black face of human nature. Up shows a 
 grim countenance, and then we wonder how a man could 
 have been so smart. Of course, the man that wrote that 
 book had to have words, but common sense finds all the 
 words that are needful to its purposes, all the words there 
 is if there should be a demand for them, and then make 
 a few." 
 
 The schoolmaster shook his head. "Those immortal 
 plays were written by a man of the world, and a world 
 man, of that day, could have come from no place other 
 than a university." 
 
 "That s all right and it may be true, but the university 
 is a premium put on common sense* It is a flower bloomin* 
 on the top of the buildin . And I believe that it would be 
 better for every man and every woman to go through 
 a university. It is the warehouse of the ages. It might 
 not teach us how to make a better livin , but it would 
 enable us better to enjoy the livin we have. I don t 
 believe in this fool idea that ignorance is any ways kin to 
 bliss. I know what the sayin is, where ignorance is bliss, 
 and so on, but the world got it wrong and thought it was 
 a plea for ignorance. And neither do I think that a little 
 learnin is as dangerous as much ignorance. If a man s 
 got little the chances are that he ll get more. If we ve 
 got mother wit, and it has come out of nature, let us 
 thank nature for it and try to improve it. But trace it on 
 back and mebby you ll find that it comes from some care 
 that our forefathers took of themselves. One of these days 
 
86 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 we ll be forefathers, and right here, I want to say, rests 
 somethin of a responsibility. Let us all try to light up 
 the future with common sense." 
 
 Old man Brizintine said that he was willing. He 
 was sure that he was indebted to his forefathers. His 
 great grandfather had been noted as the best horse trader 
 in the state, "and," he added, "if it hadn t been for him 
 I might not have been such a good judge of a colt." 
 
 "Yes, might not have been here at all," Limuel spoke 
 up. "But, not wishin to do the old man an injustice, I 
 may remark that horse sense don t particularly lend itself 
 to horse swappin . One of the best features of common 
 sense is honesty, and the shrewdness that is required in a 
 horse trade is sometimes a twistin of that quality." 
 
 Brizintine had begun to swell with a resentful reply 
 when the schoolmaster spoke. "But giving genius the 
 place of high common sense, undergoing, I might say, 
 some of its own and peculiar evolutions, don t you believe 
 that it sometimes goes through this world unappreciated?" 
 
 "Well, I have heard folks say that they wan t taken at 
 their worth. I know some that haven t been taken at 
 their word. Recollect old Gabner Hightower, over on the 
 creek ? He had a son that was a born genius. His name 
 was Elihu and he looked it all right. They didn t want 
 him to soil his hands for fear that it might smirch his 
 genius. His mother wanted him for the Church because 
 he wan t strong of body, and his dad wanted him for the 
 law, because his habit of silence would prove him a good 
 jedge. In the meantime Jim, Elihu s brother, worked 
 
ON HORSE SENSE 87 
 
 in the field. Well, they first tried the pulpit and then they 
 tried the law, but Elihu had too much genius for either 
 one. Then they thought he was designed by nature to 
 write hymns, and he tried his hand at it, but failed. 
 They tried many things before they found out what he 
 had a genius for." 
 
 "And what was it?" the schoolmaster inquired. 
 
 "Well, nothin but for just lookin like a genius. And 
 Jim, his brother, invented an evaporator for makin* 
 sorghum molasses and now owns about a third of the 
 county. Yes, sir, hoss sense." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 ON WOMEN REFORMERS 
 
 OLD Lim Jucklin put aside his newspaper, arose, stood 
 on the hearth, and remarked to his wife, who sat in a 
 rocking chair, half dreamily knitting: "They must hire 
 folks by the year to do nothin else but to write about 
 women." 
 
 "They want to furnish the men somethin to read," 
 his wife replied. 
 
 "Furnish the men somethin to skip so s to read some- 
 thin* else," said the old man. "Once in a while I read 
 em though, and I ve just read a lot of stuff that I know 
 wan t written by anybody, man or woman, that had 
 anything else to do a whole column and a half tellin 
 how to raise children; and I ll bet a steer it was written 
 by an old maid." 
 
 "Limuel, what are you talkin about?" 
 
 "An old maid, I said; and one of the sort that snatches 
 up her skirts and runs like a turkey hen whenever she sees 
 a child a comin toward her. Oh, I know their brand." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so," said his wife. "But a woman 
 that s a raisin children hasn t got time to write, and one 
 that has them already raised is so tired she don t feel 
 like it." 
 
 88 
 
ON WOMEN REFORMERS 89 
 
 "Oh, I expected to get it, one way or another," replied 
 the old man. "It was due and I deserved it. But it 
 does seem that the writers on the subject of women ought 
 to stumble on somethin new. But man has been studyin* 
 women now, let me see. Well, particularly ever since 
 Sampson s wife cut his hair off, and he hasn t stumbled 
 on anything new yet. I ve given her a good deal of my 
 time and I m ready to make my acknowledgments. 
 I ve summed up my account book. Two and two make 
 four anywhere else. But with woman two and two 
 sometimes make six. You can t tell. Figgers don t lie, 
 but with her they are mighty accommodatin . And, 
 Lord bless her, she has finally discovered that man is her 
 enemy. The old maids have told her so and she has 
 begun to believe it. Over here across the creek the other 
 day a party of em had a meetin and resolved that man 
 was a tyrant and ought to be ousted. Old Miss Patsy 
 Page, that has chased every chance to get married that she 
 could find through a spyglass a comin her way, was the 
 president. She called attention to the number of divorces 
 throughout the country, and she sighed over all this waste 
 of raw material. She read a paper, too, on how to manage 
 a husband. Bet she d like to read a book on how to 
 catch one." 
 
 "Limuel, she s a good woman. She sets up with the 
 sick." 
 
 "Yes, and when she does the well folks catch it. 
 She d sour a mornin s milk by lookin* the cow in the eye." 
 
 "Well," replied the old lady, "she says that you used to 
 
90 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 come to see her, and she has hinted that she could have had 
 you." 
 
 "Ha, if I d married her she would have had me you 
 can bet a settin of eggs on that." 
 
 "It was the talk of the neighbourhood how you used to 
 go to dances with her." 
 
 "Yes, it was the talk of the neighbourhood whenever 
 anybody went with her at all. Gad, she had a tongue 
 that would pick out a briar. And now she is a reformer, 
 an uplifter of downtrod women. Well, she spent about 
 two-thirds of her life tryin to tread em down. I can 
 recollect when every girl in the neighbourhood was afraid 
 of her. An old gypsy came along one time and had some 
 love powders for sale, and Miss Patsy she bought some 
 and managed to give em to Zeb Collins. She must have 
 given him about half a pound from the way he acted. 
 Went out and hung over the back fence and called hogs 
 for ten minutes, he did. After a while when he was 
 silent she looked out after him and he was a ketchin of 
 his horse. We called him Bakin -Powder Zeb after that. 
 But he didn t rise." 
 
 "I don t believe she gave him the powders." 
 
 "No, just loaned em to him. At any rate, he got 
 em. And now you trace back some of the biggest of 
 these women reformers and you ll find love powders in 
 their lives somewhere. There ain t nothin on the earth 
 brighter than a bright woman and there s nobody the 
 Lord ought to shower his favours down on more than her. 
 No matter how good a man is he can t begin to ketch up 
 
ON WOMEN REFORMERS 91 
 
 with her. She is tenderness, love, truth, religion all in 
 one. But when she s pizenous look out. That is the 
 time for Satan himself to dodge. And Fll bet every time 
 he sees old Miss Patsy comin he takes to his flinty heels. 
 When a man s disappointed with life he generally tries 
 to keep it to himself. But with a woman she not only 
 wants it to be known, but wants to make others dis 
 satisfied." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Jucklin, "for when a man s a failure 
 it s his own fault. A woman could never have helped 
 herself." 
 
 "You ve got me again and I ll have to get out the 
 best way I can. Yes, the cause of failure lies with the 
 one that has failed. It was a lack of energy, a lack of 
 jedgment a lack of some thin . A man must make 
 circumstances, but sometimes circumstances won t be 
 made. Under the law all men may be born free, but they 
 ain t born equal. Neither minds nor constitutions are 
 on a par with one another in different men. Man ac 
 knowledges this and quietly knocks under, takin hold of 
 the next best thing and doin with it what he can. I m 
 talkin about the sensible man. But the woman of the 
 Miss Patsy stripe she does her best and then tries to get 
 even by doin her worst. She looks for happiness in the 
 misery of others. In a sorrowful countenance she finds 
 the reward of her efforts. She holds man accountable 
 for the fact that she was born a female. The dog that 
 barks at the moon sees something but the woman that 
 rails against nature sees nothin but herself. I know 
 
92 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 that some of the women folks would like to shoot me for 
 sayin it, but I do say that the mother of a child is greater 
 than the woman that makes a speech five columns long and 
 has the whole community talkin about how smart she is." 
 
 "How about the father of a child? Isn t he greater 
 than the man that makes a speech?" 
 
 "He may be. About as no account a man as I ever 
 came across could make a speech for the clouds, I tell you. 
 But when he got through he was just a seashell that the 
 musical wind had been blowin into. That was all. 
 He never had the joy of carin for a little human bein . 
 He was jest a feller that folks could call great because he 
 could talk. We may not have a mission on this earth, 
 but if we have it is to obey the lovin instincts of nature. 
 The man that hates and the woman that has no love in her 
 heart are both the enemies of nature. You may say that 
 old Miss Patsy would have loved if the opportunity had 
 been given to her. She would have married, that s true 
 enough; but I don t believe she, nor any of her ilk, ever 
 had any real love in her heart. I m not standin here 
 talkin up for man. Bless you, he s hopeless. He s 
 gone all the gaits. But the best of us have loved and 
 honoured our women. We haven t called them the enemies 
 of man simply because nature set a limit to our minds 
 and because fate, or whatever you may call it, showed 
 us our weaknesses. We ve played some cards and have 
 drunk a good deal of liquor, but the best of us have re 
 formed and we hope the Lord has forgiven us." 
 
 "Oh, of course," said the old lady, "any man is willing 
 
ON WOMEN REFORMERS 93 
 
 enough to ask the Lord to forgive him when he knows 
 that it is nearly time for him to die. During all the time, 
 night after night, while these dear little ones that he 
 thought so much of have been growing up, he has been off 
 at elections and other things; and when he gets old enough 
 to quit then he talks about the mission of nature and all 
 that sort of stuff. If man doesn t want women to go 
 around makin speeches why doesn t he marry her and 
 take care of her ? If he thinks that marriage is so beautiful 
 for a woman why doesn t he prove that it is beautiful 
 for him ? Summing up my book, as you summed up 
 yours, why doesn t a man learn earlier how to behave 
 himself?" 
 
 "Well, I reckon you ve got me again," said the old 
 man. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 ON WAR AND PRAYER 
 
 A TRAVELLING evangelist who had halted for the night 
 at old Lim Jucklin s house had said that he hoped to see 
 the time when there would be no more war, when the old 
 man remarked: 
 
 "Yes, and I reckon King David hoped to see the same 
 blessed day. In this life there are two sets of prayers that 
 don t appear to have had much effect prayer for rain and 
 prayer for war to cease. But there never was but one 
 time when there wasn t no war nowhere on earth and 
 that was when rain wasn t needed. I refer to the time 
 of the flood when Noah held his peace congress in the ark." 
 
 "But the time of universal peace will come," insisted 
 the preacher. 
 
 "Yes," agreed the old man, "when all of the kinks have 
 been straightened out of human nature. It s a mighty 
 hard matter to correct a thing that has started off wrong, 
 and man seemed to have set out with his worst foot fore 
 most. He got hungry and he fought for somethin to 
 eat. He fell in love and he fought for woman, and then 
 kep on fightin because he d got his hand in. And ever 
 since I can recollect they have been holdin peace con 
 gresses every once in a while; and whenever they hold a 
 
 94 
 
ON WAR AND PRAYER 95 
 
 right good one a war is sure to follow. One nation has 
 always got somethin that the other one wants. States 
 manship shows a nation what it needs and then the soldier 
 goes out to get it. The statesman that has avoided war 
 is nearly always put down as a failure. If he goes into 
 war and gets the worst of it, then the people know that he 
 wasn t a statesman after all." 
 
 "But I am inclined to believe," said the evangelist, 
 "that with the passing of the war between Russia and 
 Japan the great wars will have come to an end." 
 
 "Yes, a big war always has been the last one. When 
 they got the machine gun the wise men said that the end 
 of war had come, and it looked that way till another war 
 came along and asserted itself, and then it was observed 
 that the machine gun didn t cut any very ugly capers. Man 
 has always shown sense enough to outwit the machine he 
 invents. Whenever they find that to stand off five miles 
 is effective, they ll stand off five and a half and go a little 
 closer when they want to be desperate. The Japs have 
 taught the world that war hadn t quite reached the top 
 notch. Every age has thought that it had the best of 
 everything, but compared with the time to come every 
 age has been a dark age. Ever since time began the sun 
 has just been comin up, and no man has lived in the noon 
 of the world. He thought he did, but his clock was wrong. 
 Unfortunately about all he can study with any degree of 
 accuracy is the past, and you may know all the past and 
 yet be a poor guesser as to the future. The college is the 
 storehouse of the past, but the little chap that can t 
 
96 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 talk yet is the future, and you may know all that has been 
 said and not foreshadow what he is goin to say. There 
 ain t nothin that is more of a constant experiment than 
 wisdom is. It keeps man on the dodge. The man that 
 writ the Decline and the Fall of the Roman Empire* 
 could sit amid the ruins and look back a thousand years, 
 but he couldn t look forward as far as his eyelash." 
 
 "The Lord is opposed to war," said the minister, "and 
 in his own good time will bring it to an end." 
 
 "Yes, in his time, but not in ours. It was said that the 
 Lord was sorry that he made man, and it ain t on record 
 that he was ever glad again." 
 
 "Limuel Jucklin," said the old man s wife, "you 
 ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk that way, and in 
 the presence of a preacher, too." 
 
 "Sister," remarked the preacher, smiling kindly ? 
 "he might as well say it as to think it, for what a man 
 thinks he thinks in the presence of the Lord." 
 
 "There," said the old lady, "what do you think of 
 that?" 
 
 "I think it s all right, Susan, because I don t see how 
 he could have said anything else. But gettin back to 
 the subject of war: After we have printed an extra 
 million or so of tracts and blowed particularly hard over 
 the work of our furrin missions, we always like to think 
 and believe that the world has been made kinder, that 
 even war itself is more humane, that men are killed in a 
 softer and gentler way than before. And then we read of 
 barbed wire and intrenchments full of spikes and secret 
 
ON WAR AND PRAYER 97 
 
 mines ready to blow a whole division of an army into the 
 clouds. But after all, war is war, and when a man s 
 killed, no matter whether it s with one of these nice little 
 bullets or a snortin minnie ball, he s dead, and so far 
 as he is concerned the whole earth has been split asunder. 
 I recollect that while our Civil War was a goin on the 
 folks over here at Ebeneezer Meetin House used to as 
 semble and pray for it to end. Old Lige Anderson was the 
 principal prayer and sometimes it seemed that he would 
 command the Lord. He never came into the house of 
 prayer that he didn t have some special information for 
 Providence. Yes, he was goin to hold the Lord person 
 ally accountable if the war didn t end putty soon. The 
 folks that had been conservative with Providence after 
 a while turned radical, and I remember that we were all 
 mightily astonished one night when Lige he suddenly 
 flopped." 
 
 The preacher looked up in astonishment, and the old 
 man explained: 
 
 "To flop, you know, means to make a quick break for 
 the other side. Yes, Lige he flopped. And the cause 
 of his sudden turning was this: He come into possession 
 of a beef contract for the army. I don t know whether 
 the Government got afraid that he might have an influence 
 with the heavenly powers or not, but at any rate he got the 
 contract. And the next meetin afterward, when old 
 Brother Haskill had poured forth the usual dose of 
 lament because the war hadn t come to a close, why Lige 
 he suddenly gets up and without strikin* the usual attitude 
 
98 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 of prayer, snorts out: Lord, before any action is taken, 
 I think it might be better to use your own jedgment in 
 this matter. Of course, we would all like to see the war 
 close when you feel that it ought to close but " 
 
 "The blasphemous old beast," said the evangelist. 
 
 "Well, yes," Limuel admitted, "but it didn t sound so 
 then. And the war lasted till old Lige he was rich; and 
 afterward I heard him say how thankful he was for what 
 the Lord had done for him." 
 
 After a time the preacher said: "It does not appear, 
 then, Brother Jucklin, that you believe in the effective 
 ness of prayer." 
 
 "Oh, bless your life, yes. But the greatest good it can 
 do a man is to make him feel his dependence on the divine 
 will his humbleness. The man that prays for somethin 
 he needs is simply selfish. I know an old fellow that was 
 kneelin beside a log off in the woods prayin to beat 
 the " 
 
 "Limuel," his wife broke in. 
 
 "To beat the Salvation Army Band, and everybody 
 that saw him was struck with his piety. But I happened 
 to be lyin off on the other side of the log, watchin for a 
 wild turkey, and I hearn what the prayer was about. 
 And it was simply a beggin petition that he wanted the 
 Lord to grant wanted to make money on a certain 
 venture that he had set on foot. Tryin to set up a bucket 
 shop in the new Jerusalem. That sort of prayer ain t 
 half as honourable as cussin o But don t understand me 
 to say that prayer never does any good, for it does: It 
 
ON WAR AND PRAYER 99 
 
 makes a man better able to stand misfortune. It doctors 
 his mind and fortifies it against sufferin . I know that 
 prayer rightly employed is a good thing on the farm. 
 The most religious man I ever saw raised the best crops. 
 Prayed twice a day night and morning." 
 
 "And the Lord blessed him," said the preacher. 
 
 "Yes, sir. Prayed night and mornin , but between 
 prayers he worked harder than any man in the neigh 
 bourhood. His prayer was for strength so he could 
 labour. I tell you that there is many an amen in good 
 digestion and many a hymn in a muscle. Yes, sir; and 
 I want to say to you that war will cease not when the world 
 becomes more merciful, but when every nation is so 
 well prepared that no other nation can afford to attack it. 
 The big battleship is the plea for peace." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 ON THE YOUNG HUSBAND 
 
 OVER at the cross-roads there had been a wedding. 
 Into the sunlight had come the faded finery, the yellow 
 lace and the almost lustreless silk that had been hidden 
 in caves during the war. An old man, who had married 
 and buried generation after generation, had joined in 
 life s copartnership a young man and a timid girl. The 
 couple, too much awed with the new relationship to be 
 happy, sat in a sort of daze, looking at each other. A 
 wagon was soon to haul them to the county seat, where 
 on an accommodation train half passenger and half 
 freight they were to be "whirred" through one county 
 and almost into the heart of the next a journey not 
 undertaken without much marvel. The girl s mother had 
 wept, her father had looked uncomfortable in a shirt 
 that did not fit him, and the old-maidish sister had wrung 
 out a few envious tears. Old Limuel Jucklin was in the 
 midst of the company. 
 
 "Well," said he, speaking to the father, "a man never 
 loses a daughter, you know, until she s dead." 
 
 The father nodded assent, and the mother said she 
 wished she could think so. Limuel replied that she 
 could, and without putting much of a strain upon herself. 
 
 100 
 
ON THE YOUNG HUSBA^t) 101 
 
 "The experiment of every weddin is the husband," he 
 remarked, looking at the young man. "No matter how 
 wise he may be, how good a judge of a hoss and the 
 weather, somethin altogether different arises in his 
 life when he takes unto himself a wife. He thinks she is 
 the simple rule of three, but before long he finds out that 
 she is all mathematics, with a side light that dazzles but 
 don t explain astronomy." 
 
 Mrs. Jucklin spoke up. "Limuel, what are you trying 
 to get at? You would have it appear that a woman is 
 somethin not to be understood." 
 
 "Oh, no; she is perfectly plain and so is sunshine, 
 but nobody can t pick it up and examine it to his own 
 satisfaction. Woman s all right. It s the young husband 
 that I m gettin at if I can. Marriage is a time when a 
 mote gets into the eye of all experience. Things are looked 
 at through winks half light and half dark; makin a 
 sort of twilight for the soul; and in the golden dusk every 
 thing looks different from what it really is. Marriage was 
 made to protect woman, and havin been cut out for her 
 like a garment, it fits her." 
 
 "But don t it fit a man, too?" the bride timidly in 
 quired. 
 
 "Yes, my dear, with a takin in here and a lettin out 
 there," the old man replied. "The man is the one that 
 has to be tamed. He has to be broke in and made 
 bridle wise, like a colt. With him marriage is an end; 
 with her, a beginnin . Do you follow me?" 
 
 "No, I m afraid not," said the bride. 
 
102 1 ( \ : OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "I thought not. But what do you think, Billie?" 
 This was addressed to the bridegroom. 
 
 "Don t know exactly. All I know is I love Sallie and 
 will always love her," and the pretty eyes of the bride with 
 silent music sang out, "now there." 
 
 "I don t doubt that/ said the old man. "But the 
 mornin sun is a shinin on you now and the noontime 
 of trial hasn t come. But it will come. This beautiful 
 book you now possess is shown to you only a page at a 
 time. You can t turn over the leaves and look at the 
 pictures of the future. The plot must come to you a line 
 at a time. The fact is, you ve got to draw your own 
 pictures for the book. Some of them will be painted and 
 some made with charcoal." 
 
 "I wish the wagon would come," spoke up the bride 
 groom, glancing through the window. 
 
 "Yes, we start out a waitin for the wagon," replied the 
 old man. 
 
 "And we end silently lying within its gloomy precincts," 
 said the old minister. 
 
 "Gracious me!" exclaimed Mrs. Jucklin, "are they 
 goin to preach a funeral right here ? " 
 
 Old Liinuel laughed. "I m not. I m just tryin 
 to give Billie, there, a little bit of advice. And as I 
 was goin to remark, I don t know of anything that 
 stands more in need of common sense than marriage 
 the young husband, I might say. He is as raw as unginned 
 cotton. He begins by yieldin to every persuasion and 
 after a while rebels against himself. A woman never 
 
ON THE YOUNG HUSBAND 103 
 
 understands why she should surrender a territory that has 
 graciously been presented to her. And the sweetest of 
 all territories is the enjoyment of the spare time of her 
 husband. She finds her mellowest pleasure in his society, 
 and can t very well understand why she doesn t supply 
 his every want. He has told her time and again that she 
 did. But there comes a time when he wants to stay out 
 at night, to sniff the air of his former reckless freedom. 
 It s his nature. It was her nature as an obedient daughter 
 to stay at home of nights. And when she finds that she 
 hasn t been strong enough to remodel his nature she 
 grieves in her soul." 
 
 "Many a night I ve sat up waitin for you," said Mrs. 
 Jucklin. 
 
 "Yes, but I came, didn t I?" 
 "Yes," she admitted, "but at what time?" 
 "Oh, I didn t have to keep track of the time. But 
 I want to say to Billie that stayin out at night is one 
 of the worst habits a man can fall into. It is the dark 
 side of married life. No matter how truthful a man 
 may have started out, it makes him more or less of a liar. 
 Midnight and the truth ain t twins. And a man hasn t 
 reformed when he cusses himself for bein a fool. The 
 wisest man feels he is a fool when he stays out too late. 
 There ain t no reproach more fetchin than to see the 
 moon a fadin away in the heavens. Of course, a man 
 can t stay at home all the time. The fact is, I ll be hanged 
 if I know what he is to do. I m not talkin about the 
 saint, but the flesh-and-blood man. You may try all you 
 
104 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 please to make a hymn of life, but the first thing you know 
 a jig tune pops in. So, Billie, when you catch yourself 
 inclined to whistle too many of the jigs, stop and ask 
 yourself if they pay in the long run. I don t mean that 
 you should be serious. Nothin is gained by bein solemn. 
 David is remembered as well for havin danced before 
 the ark as for some of his psalms wherein he wanted the 
 Lord to wipe out a whole lot of folks. Have all the fun 
 you can, but recollect it ain t the healthiest of fun if you 
 have to lie about it to your wife. The old idea that a man 
 is excusable for lyin to his wife ain t a good one. Com 
 panions ought to be as truthful with each other as they 
 can. And above all, Billie, don t let your wife ketch 
 you in a lie. This is about as bad a thing as can happen, 
 for always afterward no excuse will be valid. I d almost 
 as soon be convicted of perjury as to have my wife ketch 
 me in a lie. You may be able to lie out of a lie to a man, 
 but when a woman gets the notion you are a liar you are 
 so far as she is concerned, no matter how big may be your 
 reserve fund of truth. When you have lied, and she has 
 caught you, I am not at all certain that a generous ac 
 knowledgment will pay. And yet if you stick to it a 
 long time must pass before you can live it down. A 
 woman s memory is like the sun it rises fresh every 
 mornin . Sometimes a simple lie is a fingerboard 
 pointin toward the courthouse where they keep divorces. 
 A woman may admire a man because he s a good dancer, 
 but in her heart she loves truth and honour. So, be as 
 truthful as you can, and when you find that you have 
 
ON THE YOUNG HUSBAND 105 
 
 exhausted your stock ask her to help you to replenish it. 
 Make a distress of your scarcity of truth and she will 
 be pleased to nurse it. It will do her good. Marriage 
 may start out as a picnic, you know, but a picnic has its 
 cold victuals. To sum the whole thing up, do the best 
 you can. Be patient. Remember that you are a man 
 and that the foot of a man is nearly always on the verge 
 of slippin . And when it has slipped put it back with 
 as little noise as possible. Tell the truth just as often 
 as you can, and you will find it an investment that draws 
 compound interest in gold." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 ON WEALTH 
 
 AT the schoolhouse there had been a lecture in sweeping 
 denunciation of all wealth. Shaking his black mane and 
 seeming to pop his forefinger, the lecturer, in a sort of 
 frenzy, had declared the dollar to be the enemy of the 
 human race. There was no hotel in the neighbourhood, 
 so the lecturer went home with old Limuel Jucklin. 
 Several of the neighbours dropped in. Having been 
 dazzled by the speaker, they wondered if Limuel were to be 
 "flashed into silence." The speaker, Professor Conners, 
 had been pleased with his audience. He had not been 
 able to distinguish the difference between acquiescence and 
 dumb astonishment. Beside the Jucklin fireside he would 
 continue the conquest. He regarded himself as a factor 
 in the coming revolution, and he knew that all great 
 revolutions begin at the hearthstone. 
 
 "I always like to hear a man talk when he appears to 
 believe what he has to say," remarked old Lim. "The 
 fact that the fiddler is in earnest adds a good deal to the 
 quality of the fiddlin*. But a man may be sincere and at 
 the same time fiddle out a tune that there ain t much 
 music in. So, Professor, you say that the dollar is the 
 curse of the human race?" 
 
 106 
 
ON WEALTH 107 
 
 "Well, yes, I may so concentrate the trouble of the 
 world into the dollar." 
 
 "Ah, hah. But don t you think that the dollar repre 
 sents the concentration of man s incentive to work? 
 The greatest curse that could fall upon man would be 
 idleness. In all ages, so far as I have been able to gather, 
 work has been the salvation of man. Enjoyments and all 
 sorts of sports and pleasures wear out, but labour en 
 dures." 
 
 "You forget," said the Professor, "that labour was 
 first put upon man as a penalty, as a curse for dis 
 obedience." 
 
 "No, I don t forget that. I don t forget that it may 
 appear that way. But Adam wa n t thoroughly satisfied 
 with idleness. If he had been he would have let good 
 enough alone. He wouldn t have eaten tke forbidden 
 fruit when Eve offered it to him. He didn t have any 
 thing to occupy his mind and he yielded. But leavin the 
 things that we can never know much about and comin 
 down to man of to-day, we see the virtue of work and 
 the evil of idleness. Money is the essence of industry. 
 Without it all life would be confusion." 
 
 "But the love of it has been aptly termed the root of all 
 evil," said the Professor. 
 
 The neighbours looked at Jucklin, and old Brizintine 
 silently pressed a dollar which he had received that day 
 for the hire of a horse and breathed hard. 
 
 "Yes," admitted Lim, "that s so. But the love of 
 money ain t money itself ain t the use of it. We com- 
 
108 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 mend a man for savin his dollars, but if every man were 
 to save to the very closest life would hardly be worth 
 livin . That s where an abundance of money comes in as 
 a virtue whereas a little money might be an evil. When 
 we have a great deal we are inclined to spend, and this 
 makes others prosperous. Out of wealth grows leisure 
 and out of leisure there grows and blooms a very precious 
 plant. Its name is knowledge. Money is the mother of 
 science and therefore of health. It ain t true that poverty 
 is always blessed with good digestion. Poverty is not 
 cleanliness and therefore is not next to godliness. Poverty 
 is a crime, not restin on the individual, perhaps, but havin 
 its cause somewhere among the errors of those who went 
 before. I see, Professor, that you are rather apt in citin 
 the Bible. If it hadn t been for money the book would 
 be locked up in a few places. As it is, money has given 
 it to the poor. And, gettin down a little closer to the 
 Bible, it appears to me that about all the Lord s most 
 favoured servants were rich. On one man He smiled and 
 his cattle increased." 
 
 "Very true," admitted the Professor, "but don t you 
 believe that in America the present struggle for money 
 is about to ruin the country?" 
 
 "When men race at full speed for money they drop out 
 some that is already in their pockets, and those who pick 
 it up profit by it. And, when the end of the mad race is 
 about reached, the racer halts, draws a long breath and 
 then decides to build a college or to found a library. 
 He wants to leave a footprint. He wants to be 
 
ON WEALTH 109 
 
 remembered by the racers who are to come after 
 him." 
 
 "Ah," sighed the Professor, "but how about those 
 who are run over whose lives are crushed out? How 
 about the millions that are ground down? How about 
 the man who is not willing that labour should have its 
 due?" 
 
 "He is an evil until he is dead, and then he may 
 become a blessin ," old Lim replied. "Poverty- 
 stricken men have committed murder. But murder is 
 not the principle of the poor. Riches have oppressed, 
 have been heartless, but that is not the spirit of 
 money. Money is every man s servant. If he permits 
 it to become his master he suffers for it. Money dis 
 covered America, and you must admit that this country 
 has been a blessin to the human race. Columbus was 
 looking for a road over which he could transport wealth. 
 Men seeking for fortunes have made about all the dis 
 coveries on the face of the earth. The rudder of the 
 ship is the universal tongue of the gospel. Science may 
 sail and discover and come back and report; but com 
 merce halts and builds up the country." 
 
 Then the Professor thought to sound a deadener with 
 the following: "But do you think it right to marry for 
 money?" 
 
 "Well," drawled the old man, winking slyly at one 
 of his neighbours, "not unless you love the woman that 
 has money. Most of men love women on account of 
 beauty or some other attraction, and money has the faculty 
 
110 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 of makin both men and women powerful handsome. I 
 recollect an old maid that used to live not far from here. 
 She was so ugly that hosses would get scared at her. And 
 her homeliness waVt goodness, either. She had a dis 
 position like a porcupine. No matter from what direction 
 you might approach her, there was a quill. Folks didn t 
 like to pass her house, for she d come out on the veranda 
 and shout vitriol at them. The hip bones of poverty 
 stuck up through her farm. She just about made a 
 iivin . But one day her old uncle died, report said, and 
 left her a hundred thousand dollars. Then the folks 
 began to travel by her house. Some of them stopped to 
 pay their respects. Among them was Squire Goodall. 
 He pretended that he hadn t heard of her good fortune. 
 He asked her how her uncle was gettin along, and re 
 marked that if she needed a side of bacon or two he would 
 willingly fetch it over to her. She beamed on him and 
 he dodged, but stood it. He told her he d like to make 
 her a present of his horse, and she thanked him and took 
 it, and he walked home. He dreamed about her that 
 night and it was a nightmare, but he decided that he was 
 in love with her. Two days later he went back and made 
 her a present of a cow. She smacked her mouth and 
 took the cow, and lowed he was the sweetest man. He 
 thought so, too, but didn t say so. Well, shortly after 
 ward, he proposed and she accepted him. They were 
 married and the folks came in to drink cider and eat ginger 
 cake. Just after the ceremony up comes a feller an* 
 says to her: Miz Goodall, I was in the Sycamore 
 
ON WEALTH 111 
 
 country the other day and met your old uncle, and he told 
 me to tell you that he was mighty in need of help and that 
 he wished you would send him a dollar or so if you could 
 spare it. 
 
 " What uncle is that? the new husband inquired; and 
 the wife answered: Why, the one that was reported 
 dead some time ago. Poor man; I think, lovey, we d 
 better send him a cow/ 
 
 * Goodall sneezed out some ginger cake and was never 
 known to smile after that. So, you see, Professor, even 
 the love of money did good in that instance. It got a 
 husband for a deservin woman." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 ON THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER 
 
 AT a party over at old Brizintine s one night they were 
 talking about the progress of the world. There were 
 present all of the wise men of the community. Medicine 
 was represented by "Doc" Peters, horse surgeon; the law 
 by Anthony Botts, justice of the peace; sculpture by 
 Rufe Goodall, stone-quarry man; art by Miss Nancy 
 Hodge, drawer of a map of the county; literature by 
 Stephen Blue, writer of for sale notices and epitaphs; the 
 ministry by the Reverend Gustavus Nudge and agri 
 culture by Limuel Jucklin. So, it may be seen, that here 
 was assembled a goodly twentieth century company, 
 prepared by experience and stimulated by education to 
 discourse upon any subject. 
 
 "The tire revolves faster than the hub," said the minis 
 ter, Mr. Nudge, "and it is but natural that we, now on the 
 outer rim of time, should move with more accelerated 
 motion than our forefathers, who were nearer the centre, 
 so to speak. Ah, Brother Jucklin, what changes have 
 taken place since we can remember." 
 
 "Yes," replied old Lim, "a good many. I can recollect 
 when we had to go of a mornin to a neighbour s house for 
 a chunk of fire. Wa n t any matches." 
 
 112 
 
ON THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER 113 
 
 Miss Nancy Hodge, elevating her eyebrows, exclaimed : 
 "For pity sake." 
 
 "Yes," said old Lim, "and the chances were that the 
 feller that was sent after the chunk of fire would be drunk 
 before he got back. Everybody kept liquor in the house, 
 and if a feller stopped and helloed at the gate they d ask 
 him to get down and take a drink." 
 
 "In the matter of whisky there has been great reform 
 and, I may therefore say, progress," remarked the Reverend 
 Mr. Nudge. 
 
 Limuel nodded assent. "But," said he, "the reform 
 has been with man and not with liquor. The greatest 
 good that whisky has done is to be so mean that nobody 
 wants it. But I can remember when it was the milk in the 
 cocoanut of of paradise, I tell you. In comparison to 
 what it is now, Parson," he added, to soften the remark, 
 which he was quick to observe had somewhat disturbed 
 the countenance of the preacher, "but, Parson, do you 
 know what has done more toward the civilising of us all 
 than any other agency?" 
 
 Modesty restrained Mr. Nudge from mentioning what, 
 in his opinion, was the real cause, so he hazarded the one 
 word "education." 
 
 "That s all very well," said Lim, "but there s a shorter 
 way of gettin at it. I should say the drummer." 
 
 The minister winced as if he had suddenly bitten into a 
 pickle too- sour for him. 
 
 "Yes, sir, the man that goes about and sells goods," 
 said Lim. "He has the progress of the world buckled 
 
114 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 up in his sample case. He is the circuit rider of trade. 
 He not only brings what the people already want, but 
 teaches them to need things; and the man that shows 
 us what we need moves us forward a good many degrees. 
 Take our town over here. For more than fifty years the 
 churches had been in full blast pardon the expression 
 and the schools had been in operation; and yet the hotels 
 were so bad that a hungry dog might be excused for 
 giving it the go-by. Why, whit leather was as tender as 
 a lamb s tongue compared with the beefsteak. The 
 biscuits were just about as digestible as door kn-obs. 
 The salt pork might properly have been labelled 
 the enemy of mankind/ The butter looked as if 
 it had been made of the milk of a cow that had 
 just seen a ghost. What s the name of that place 
 where they used to torture folk the Inquisition ? 
 Yes. Why, if a man had been snatched out of the 
 Inquisition and put into that hotel he would have 
 complained of the change. And the stores around 
 the square. Here pig pens, ornamented by a dry-goods 
 box outside. Such was the state of affairs found by the 
 drummer when he came along. Mind you, no other 
 reform had been able to touch it; and why? Because the 
 people didn t know any better. But the drummer 
 showed them that the other parts of the world didn t live 
 that way. He didn t get up and make reform speeches. 
 He stabbed it with his quaint humour. He turned on the 
 flashlight of real civilisation. He made em build a rail 
 road. He compelled em to put in electric lights so that 
 
ON THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER 115 
 
 the people comin home from church at night wouldn 
 run over the hogs in the street." 
 
 Mr. Nudge sighed and sadly shook his head. " I grant 
 much of that," he admitted, "but vanities were also 
 introduced." 
 
 "Vanities!" echoed Limuel. "Brother, there ain t 
 no meaner vanity in this world than the vanity of igno 
 rance. A man may be vain and never take a bath, but 
 we are told that cleanliness is next to godliness. The 
 drummer brought in new styles, but there s no more 
 vanity in a new style than an old one. He compelled the 
 hotel to clean up and to get beefsteak that could be eaten; 
 and show me a neighbourhood that has bad meat and at 
 the same time you have pointed out a community where 
 religion is at a low ebb." 
 
 "But you must agree," Mr. Nudge interposed, "that 
 our young men have been inspired with a spirit of un 
 rest." 
 
 "Yes, I acknowledge that," said Lim. "And a spirit 
 of unrest is the first step toward advancement. The 
 young fellers saw that they needed a better, a more prac 
 tical education, and they set about to get it. If there is 
 a better teacher than experience it is example. Envy as 
 generally understood may be a bad thing, but it is active 
 envy that makes the world move forward. The drummer 
 brought stories with him. They illustrated life. A 
 community that has only old stories lives in the past. 
 The drummer s new stories quickened the intellect. 
 They made the mind jump. Trade " 
 
116 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Ah," Mr. Nudge broke in. "I thank you for the 
 timely introduction of that well-worn word. You would 
 place trade above everything." 
 
 "Well, I wouldn t place it below everything. Trade 
 is the exchange of materialised ideas. It is the circulating 
 blood of a nation. Art is a sort of fever and marks 
 disease. Literature is a prescription, and if it don t help 
 life fails to do it any good. I want to tell you, a drummer 
 first set me to readin . Of course I knew what books were. 
 But I thought that when a man got along well in life he 
 ought to think of everything except books. They were 
 for boys and girls. But this drummer that stayed all 
 night at my house said that the greatest books had been 
 written by old men. Therefore they ought to be read by 
 old men. He opened up a new view of life. He showed 
 me that as long as a man lived and kept his health he 
 could develop and expand. He left a book with me, and 
 it wa n t long before I discovered that I had just begun to 
 live. This man sold things and in meeting men came 
 away from them with a better knowledge of human nature. 
 Knowing so much of the weakness of man, he could better 
 admire his strength or pardon his faults." 
 
 "But you are forgetting the Gospel," said Mr. Nudge. 
 
 "Oh, no. The drummer is a good exemplification of 
 the Gospel. He goes into all the world. The Gospel 
 was never commanded to stand still. It is a running 
 stream. Stagnant water breeds pestilence. The Saviour 
 of man was the most liberal man that ever lived. He 
 had no home. The drummer is liberal because his home 
 
ON THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER 117 
 
 is the world. He meets a local prejudice and turns it into 
 a national liberality. He demands a place where he may 
 spend his leisure hours, and public libraries mark his 
 course. The unrest you speak of has stimulated travel, 
 and travel is the picture that goes in the book of education. 
 The drummer must be active and therefore he must be 
 sober. His achievement over drunken competition is the 
 greatest, the most vivid temperance lecture ever delivered. 
 It makes sobriety a business rather than a mere inactive 
 virtue. What are you fetchin on here, Madame? 
 Lemonade? We ll drink it to the drummer." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 ON THE FARMER 
 
 COLONEL HENRY BALCH, having acquired his military 
 title from his successful shaving of notes, and having 
 taken his place at the crest of society in consequence of the 
 few thousands of dollars held tight within his grasp, halted 
 at the house of Limuel Jucklin and inquired of the old 
 man if he desired to sell a red steer that was walking about 
 a small enclosure as if he owned the place. 
 
 "Get down," called out Jucklin, "come in and we ll 
 talk it over." 
 
 The Colonel dismounted from his old nag, came 
 forward and seated himself on a hide-bottomed chair in 
 the hallway that ran between the two sections of the old 
 log house. Limuel resumed his seat in an Andrew 
 Jackson rocker made of hickory saplings. "Well, how 
 are things out your way ?" he asked of his visitor. 
 
 The Colonel, loosening a red woolen scarf from about 
 his Adam s-appled throat, remarked that everything was 
 at a standstill, as the farmers must wait on the humour 
 of nature before they could do anything. "I was just 
 thinking as I came along," said he, "that the farmer s 
 is the hardest life of all. I ve heard a good deal of talk 
 ever since I can remember about the freedom of the 
 
 118 
 
ON THE FARMER 119 
 
 country, but I haven t found it. They tell me that my 
 life has been a success, but I don t know." 
 
 " I think I do know/ the chicken fighter replied. 
 
 The Colonel, expecting a compliment, smiled upon him 
 and said "Yes?" 
 
 "Yes, I think I do know. It has been about as near 
 a failure as any man s life could be." 
 
 "Why, Jucklin, what do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that when a man at your time of life regrets 
 havin lived his life, he is a failure. That s what I mean. 
 You are lamentin on behalf of the farmer, but you don t 
 represent him. He lives close to nature, but your struggle 
 has been to get away from it. You are a fence-corner 
 speculator." 
 
 "Everybody grants you the privilege of saying what you 
 please, so go ahead." 
 
 "Much obliged. Now, let us look at him for a mo 
 ment. The farmer ranges nearly over all the landscape 
 of life. In him all of the emotions of human nature are 
 embodied. His world is his neighbourhood, and every 
 community contains every shade of the human mind, unde 
 veloped but there in the rough, you might say. Children 
 and old people love the country." 
 
 "Yes, but about that red steer." 
 
 "All right. We ll get to him pretty soon. The man 
 who has worked on a farm all his life has just as many 
 pleasures to look back upon as the city merchant. The 
 farmer may in his time have bought the gold brick, but 
 maybe the merchant has been taken in by a bigger swindle. 
 
120 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 And along toward the end they both have somethin to 
 think about. And that is about all there is to life 
 somethin to think about. At a very early age we begin 
 to live in the past. The farmer has his past closer about 
 him than other men have. They have seen the same 
 seasons pass over the same endeared fields." 
 
 " That is very true," the Colonel admitted. " Now, what 
 will you take for that steer ? I am in something of a hurry." 
 
 " All right. I don t know of a finer steer anywhere than 
 that one. But just wait a moment. Let s go at the farmer 
 a little closer. In a small way the successful farmer is a 
 statesman. Experience is his guide, and we are told that 
 all wisdom dates back to experience. It is true that he 
 doesn t handle as much money as the banker, nor does he 
 handle as much bread as the baker, but the baker can eat 
 only a certain amount; and the money that the banker 
 handles money that can t relieve a real want of nature 
 ain t doin his soul any particular good. The doctrine 
 of contentment is an old one, but a better one was never 
 preached. And the farmer ought to be the very model of 
 contentment. He would be if he stopped to think. 
 Men that set the world afire die in the flames. Greatness 
 at least acknowledges its weakness. In this there is a 
 valuable lesson. It should teach us to be contented. 
 We all ought to ask ourselves this vital question: What 
 is success? It ain t noise, for silence must follow, and 
 silence can last longer than sound. There never was a 
 storm as long as the calm. They that find happiness in 
 bluster will find misery in quietude." 
 
ON THE FARMER 121 
 
 "Your lecture is very good," said the Colonel, "but 
 really I should like to get down to that steer." 
 
 "We ll get down to him pretty soon. But you spoke 
 about the farmer, and let us take one thing at a time. 
 The steer will wait. That is a part of his duty toward 
 man. Don t let him outdo man in politeness. The 
 greatest thing about man is to teach some other man 
 somethin . Each man is an illustrator of life. And the 
 farmer, instead of bein the joke of the ignorant folks 
 that live in towns, ought to be envied by the philosopher. 
 He could give at least half of his time in winter to fruitful 
 meditation, and in doing this he would not only store up 
 contentment and pleasure for himself in the future, but 
 out of it might come great benefit to mankind at large. 
 1 nought is the food of the soul. I remember when old 
 Sam Porsey was dyin . I don t suppose there was a 
 poorer man in the neighbourhood. But some of the 
 shallow minded used to reproach him for his happiness. 
 They said he was thoughtless. But the fact is that 
 he had more of the right sort of thought than any man 
 for miles around. He worked hard, made a livin and 
 didn t grumble. That was thought to be some sort of 
 mental disease the fact that he didn t complain; and a 
 joker told him he d better take somethin for it. He did. 
 He took things as he found them and tried to make them 
 better and more cheerful. Well, when he was lyin on his 
 deathbed one of the neighbours asked him if there was 
 anything he particularly regretted. Yes, he said, in 
 lookin back I remember an old nigger who had the 
 
122 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 rheumatiz mighty bad. I went to his cabin one night 
 just before he died, and in lookin back I recollect I forgot 
 to tell him he might be better next day. Everybody 
 thought that old Sam s mind was wanderin . And it 
 was wanderin back to the time when he had neglected 
 to do a poor old fellow a moment of good. The other day 
 I passed through an old orchard where Sam was buried. 
 The apple tree above him is always the first one to bloom, 
 and in it the sweetest singin birds make their nests. 
 Nobody has tried to keep the grass green, but it is green 
 of itself; and the wild flowers that grow there are like 
 psalms burstin up out of the ground. There s a sermon, 
 Colonel. He laughed nearly all of his life, and now the 
 weeds about his grave come out in summer time and 
 with their blossom seem to be echoin his merriment. 
 The man that makes the weed blossom is greater than the 
 man that causes the rose to die. Wait a minute. The 
 Bible was written mostly for the farmer. It is his book. 
 We read it and established liberty in England. The 
 king said, Oh, no; it is my book. I am the anointed. 
 Pay me. But the book had taught the farmer to think, 
 and action was but a natural outcome." 
 
 "Yes, that is all very true," said the Colonel arising. 
 But now let us talk about that steer. I am in a hurry. 
 What is he worth?" 
 
 "What do you suppose he s worth?" Limuel replied. 
 "He looks all right, doesn t he?" 
 
 "Yes, but steers are cheap," said the Colonel. 
 
 "That may be; I m not keepin up with them very close/* 
 
ON THE FARMER 123 
 
 " But what will you take for him ? " 
 
 "Take for him? You said you wanted to talk about 
 him and I ve humoured you. The fact is, he jumped in 
 there just now to rest himself, and he doesn t belong to 
 me. Don t be in a hurry, Colonel; don t be snatched." 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE HORSE TRADER 
 
 IT was court day in the county seat. Long-legged 
 colts ran after their mothers. On the public square dogs, 
 meeting one another for the first time and exercising the 
 right of that ancient enmity which science has not been 
 able to explain, fought desperately. A great day surely, 
 dating back to the dawn of Anglo-Saxon liberty. Amid 
 the gathering throng, heavy of foot and weighty in bearing, 
 walked the sheriff, spurred like a fighting cock and 
 splashed as if he had ridden far to arrest offenders. 
 Merchants hung out their most tempting wares. Red 
 calico blazed in the sun. The restaurant announced cat 
 fish, fresh from the creek. Old-time citizens whose 
 minds ran back to the day when lawyers, with more of 
 oratory than of statute, travelled from one court to 
 another, stood about the livery stable. And who is this 
 shrewd fellow with hawk eye? It is the horse trader. 
 He knows the age of every colt that has come into town 
 this day. He knows that the old clay-bank mare, tied 
 over yonder against the fence, will balk. He knows that 
 a shrewd farmer has filed her teeth to disguise her ad 
 vancing years. He has the record of yonder mule. He 
 
 124 
 
THE HORSE TRADER 125 
 
 knows that last spring, a year ago, he left a print of iron 
 between a darkey s eyes. How ready he is to pass opinion, 
 on all phases of life. Book learning is the word bluster of 
 the ignorant. To sit down to read is to sit down without 
 thought of your own. The reader is the borrower. In 
 short, he knows tkat all intelligence is to be summed up in 
 one s knowledge of a horse. Old Limuel Jucklin came 
 into the stable, the great hallway of intelligence, and took 
 a chair which the proprietor commanded a boy to fetch 
 for him. When the old man had taken his hat and placed 
 it on the ground beside his chair, the horse trader came 
 forward and spoke to him. 
 
 "Jucklin, ain t it about time you were gettin rid of that 
 old sorrel?" 
 
 "Well, I don t know; he hasn t done me any particular 
 harm." 
 
 "But has he done you any particular good?" 
 
 The old-timers gathered about the two men. The 
 clearing house of wisdom was about to open its session. 
 
 "His right eye is failing" said the trader. 
 
 "Well, but his left eye is all right," replied Limuel. 
 "And with one eye he can see only half of a load, be 
 deceived as to its weight, and in consequence will pull 
 better." 
 
 "But he is threatened with a spavin," retorted the 
 trader. 
 
 "Maybe so. But when a spavined horse gets warmed 
 up he feels so good over the relief that he travels faster. 
 It s a renewal of his youth." 
 
126 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "But he s losin flesh," persisted the trader. 
 
 "That s a fact. He was gettin too fat. Anything else 
 the trouble with him? Don t you think he s afflicted 
 with bad dreams? Examine his mane and see if the 
 witches haven t been ridin him. But first tell me 
 what you want me to do with him. I guess you want me 
 to swap for that bay you ve got." 
 
 "Well, I didn t know but we might strike up a trade. * 
 
 "But why do you want a horse that s so out of fix as 
 mine is? Jim," he added, "I was thinkin of you as I 
 rode in town. I was wonderin if you d eventually 
 trade your way into the middle of eternity and then be 
 driven out on the other side. Your life has been a con 
 tinuous whettin of yourself, to make yourself sharper. 
 You are a fox among men." 
 
 "But nobody can say I m a liar, Uncle Lim." 
 
 "Oh, no. But the worst lie is not the direct lie, but 
 the one that leads man on to one of his own findin , 
 for then he is doubly deceived. You let a man set a trap 
 for himself. With apparent openness you warn him against 
 yourself, but you don t warn him against himself. The 
 worst deceiver in this world is the one that puts a man in 
 a position to deceive himself. A half truth is worth more 
 than a whole lie. It ketches more people." 
 
 "You are too hard on me, Uncle Lim. Horse trading 
 is my business, and under the law it is an honest callin ." 
 
 " Honest enough from the point of view that self interest 
 takes," Limuel replied. "But if you were perfectly 
 honest and gave the other feller as much of the bargain 
 
THE HORSE TRADER 127 
 
 as you get, you d never have more than you started in 
 with. You must have a shade the best of it." 
 
 "But isn t that true of all business ?" 
 
 "Pretty much," the old man admitted. "But the man 
 that lives by his wits lives on the lack of wit in other men. 
 He is a hawk sailin around the barnyard of life. In 
 swappin hosses you first make it a point to find objections 
 in the other hoss. Your aim is to make the owner dis 
 satisfied with him. Gradually you show the strong 
 points of your own hoss. You are so persuasive that the 
 victim hears and thinks he sees. Virtues drummed into 
 the ears become virtues in the imagined sight. Then 
 you ve got him. The limp in your own hoss is turned 
 into a sort of grace. It is the main feature in your hoss. 
 A cast in the eye is not the forerunner of comin blindness, 
 but the promise of better sight. You couldn t keep from 
 deceivin your best friend. It isn t gain you are after so 
 much as it is the thrill of beatin someone. With you it 
 is an appetite just the same as a man s thirst for drink." 
 
 "Hold on, you would make me out a thief." 
 
 "No, but a man that wants to intoxicate himself. 
 It s politics applied to hosses. To mislead a man is to 
 acquire a sort of majority. If you owned all the hosses 
 in this community you wouldn t be satisfied. Then you d 
 start out with cows. And ownin all the cows, you d take 
 the dogs. There d be no such thing as satisfyin you. 
 You know the other feller is always tryin to get the 
 best of you, and this soothes your conscience. It is 
 much easier to soothe a conscience than a stone bruise." 
 
128 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "But you know I wouldn t cheat you." 
 
 "Oh, you wouldn t cheat anyone," Limuel replied. 
 "But the very fact that you want to swap your hoss for 
 mine proves that you want to do something and it s 
 natural to suppose that you don t want the worst of it. 
 Now, we ll take the circuit jedge, for instance. He is 
 your uncle, I believe. You think well of him. You 
 know that a hoss is a part of his life, for he has to ride 
 horse back from one courthouse to another. But you 
 swapped bosses with him until he was seen walkin , 
 carryin his saddle. And now you want to see me walk." 
 
 "That s where you do me wrong," declared the horse 
 trader. " I swapped several times with my uncle and " 
 
 "Yes, and shortly afterward he walked into town, 
 didn t he?" 
 
 "Well, I don t insure a horse s health. I m not a horse 
 prophet. I can t tell how long a horse may live. I 
 swapped with Uncle Dan three times and 
 
 "And he walked, just as I say," Limuel broke in. 
 "And is it that you want to see whether or not I can beat 
 him walkin ? We might settle it by walkin round and 
 round the courthouse square." 
 
 "That s all right, Uncle Lim, but I traded with the 
 Judge three days ago and he rode into town this mornin*. 
 He says he never had a better saddle horse in his life. 
 And the horse I got from him I m willin to let you have. 
 I don t want to see you walk want to see you well 
 mounted. Now you go and ask the Judge what sort of a 
 horse I let him have the other day. * 
 
THE HORSE TRADER 129 
 
 Just at this moment the Judge came walkin* into the 
 stable. "Jim/* said he, speaking to the trader, "I wish 
 there were some law under which I could shut you up in 
 the penitentiary. I went around to the barn just now 
 to look at my horse, and and the thing is dead." 
 
 Old Lim looked at the trader. "Don t believe I want 
 to swap with you, Jimmie. It s ten miles from here to 
 where I live and I don t care to walk." 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 THE REBEL AND THE YANKEE 
 
 ABOUT the stove in the cross-roads store they sat, the 
 wise men of the neighbourhood. What they knew they 
 rejoiced in, and what they did not know was not worth 
 knowing. They possessed the wisdom of satisfaction 
 with self. Among them was old Henry Balch, the 
 neighbourhood s shrewdest guesser at the weather. 
 When he guessed rightly he reminded them of his fore 
 cast. When he missed it he said nothing. In many 
 of life s departments great reputations have been made in 
 this way. 
 
 The conversation had turned into its accustomed by 
 paths, and it appeared that there was nothing more to 
 be said on any conceivable subject when old Lim Jucklin 
 remarked, addressing Henry Balch: "You used to be 
 a Yankee, didn t you, Henry?" 
 
 "Who, me? Yes, think I was, about the time you 
 were a Rebel. Seems funny now, don t it ?" 
 
 "Yes, like a dream that gradually fades away. And 
 did you ever think of the fact that notwithstandin all the 
 bloodshed and the bitterness that necessarily followed, 
 our family trouble taught the world the greatest lesson of 
 modern times? Ever think of that?" 
 
 130 
 
THE REBEL AND THE YANKEE 131 
 
 "Well, I don t know as I have," old Henry replied, 
 reaching over and pulling out the damper of the stove. 
 "But what s your p int of view?" 
 
 "It s just this: Almost from the very beginnin of 
 the world the wisest of men have said that a democracy 
 couldn t exist for any great length of time. Nearly every 
 republic had begun with blood and all of them had ended 
 with failure. And when the American Government was 
 established they said that it was not established. They 
 knew that it was an experiment and they pointed to 
 history to prove it, and history nodded and said, Ah, hah, 
 that s a fact. When our war came they cried out, 
 Here you are. And it seemed that we were to fly off 
 into jagged fragments, thus provin for the hundredth 
 time that republics were merely the dreams of idle men. 
 It seemed to be the world s final test. But we came 
 through it all, more cemented than ever before, and the 
 nations of the earth looked at us and said: Well, we ll 
 be blowed. So, our war, the test and its outcome, the 
 proof, finally proved to man that after all it is man that 
 governs the world. Ignorance in the furtherest parts of 
 the universe has been inspired with hope. The result of 
 the success of democracy in America has given to man 
 a broader idea of God. It has shown that a few men only 
 wan t anointed by the Almighty. It has proved that the 
 throne is a man-made seat, and not any more divine than 
 the workbench. The Lord may have been represented 
 a settin on his throne, but the one that redeemed the 
 world stood at the workbench. The time is comin when 
 
132 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 the whole earth will be Americanised. Every great book 
 that a man reads helps along this idea. Yes, sir, there s 
 comin a time when a man will be ashamed to live in a 
 country where he s called a subject instead of a citizen. 
 I wish I had a chance to talk to every schoolboy in the 
 world. I d impress these facts on his mind." 
 
 "Yes," replied old Henry, "but it seems to me that 
 those fellers in the East are a tryin to make a monarchy of 
 this country as fast as they can." 
 
 "Looks that way," Jucklin admitted, "but you might 
 just as well say that a tricklin spring branch is about to 
 make the ocean fresh. All the power on the face of the 
 earth couldn t make a monarchy of this country. But 
 speakin about bein a Yankee, do you remember old 
 Sam Nesbitt? Of course you do. Well, just about the 
 time the war got well under way, old Sam took it into his 
 head that he ought to come over to my house and kill me 
 to help things along. He had raised a squad of fellers 
 and they wanted to make a name for themselves. So, 
 one night when the moon was a shinin here they came. 
 I d been mustered into the service and was stayin home a 
 few days to straighten things out a little. And I wa n t 
 sleepin down in the parlour. I was in the garret, I tell 
 you ; and I looked out and saw the gang a comin . There 
 wa n t any chance to get away, and I lay low and waited. 
 Putty soon they came a thunderin at the door. My 
 wife let em in. They asked where I was and she said 
 she didn t know. She didn t, exactly didn t know 
 which corner of the garret I was hidin in. Old Sam 
 
THE REBEL AND THE YANKEE 133 
 
 lowed that he was glad I wa n t in the house, for ue was 
 goin to set fire to it and that it would be a shame for a 
 man to be burnt up in his own house. When I hearn 
 this I sorter caught my breath, and so cold a chill ran up 
 my back that it was all I could do to keep from sneezin . 
 My wife told him that the house was old and would burn 
 easily. It had been our intention to build a new one and 
 that if he set it afire it would save the trouble of tearin 
 it down. There was a pot of coffee on the fire. Now 
 coffee was a scarce article and when the perfume of it 
 began to arise old Sam he began to sniff. He asked her 
 if it was Lincoln coffee, all other sort bein made of rye 
 or potatoes and such like. She told him it was and he 
 told her to pour it out. So she got some cups and poured 
 out enough for all five of them and they drank it and 
 smacked their mouths. When they had put down their 
 cups she went to the door, stepped out and with the door 
 about a third of the way open she said : If you are goin 
 to burn this house down you d better be about it. The 
 fact is I was expectin you and that coffee was fixed. 
 Didn t you notice how bitter it was? It was dosed with 
 strychnine. And as Doctor Seymour lives at least ten 
 miles from here, you will all be dead before you can get to 
 his house. Good-night and good-by. With that she 
 shut the door and ran away. Well, I never hearn such 
 scufflin in my life. Some of them didn t wait to get out 
 at the door. They broke through the windows, and one 
 of them carried a window sash for upward of a mile. 
 I heard em goin over the hill and I laughed and took this 
 
134 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 opportunity to sneeze. Well, they galloped all the way 
 to the doctor s house, threw themselves off of their hosses 
 and knocked down the door in their haste to get in; and 
 the doctor he treated them, pumped them out and charged 
 them a hoss for his services. Years afterward I met old 
 Sam in town and I asked him if he liked coffee and he 
 looked at me and said: Lim, you blamed fool, I ll give 
 you the finest game rooster in the county if you won t 
 say anything about that affair/ I told him to send over 
 the bird, and he did, and I never mentioned it again as 
 long as he lived ; but about a year afterward I heard that he 
 had a chicken from the Spanish cockpits of New Orleans 
 and I wanted it. But knowin how much he must be 
 attached to it, I couldn t think of insultin him by offerin 
 him money. But I went over to see him one day. He 
 was out at the barn talkin to his chicken. And it was a 
 beauty. I says to him, says I, Sam, that s the finest 
 bird I ever saw. Yes/ he says, with an air of pride, 
 he s the finest. I reckon that s so, says I. And he 
 reminds me of one I used to own. But misfortune over 
 took him. He came into the kitchen one day and jumped 
 on the table and drank some coffee and it killed him. 
 You don t say so? says old Sam, with a dry grin on 
 his face. I told him I did say so and then remarked 
 that I was in somethin of a hurry and must be goin*. 
 Don t be pulled, says he. Oh, by the way, don t you 
 want this chicken? Well, as the other one you gave 
 me has about run out, I believe I do. So I took the 
 chicken and went home. We lost a good man when old 
 
THE REBEL AND THE YANKEE 135 
 
 Sam died. His jedgment of a rooster was above reproach, 
 and was of great benefit to me. By the way, Henry, 
 didn t you shoot at me one night along in sixty-four, 
 down here at the turn of the county road ?" 
 
 "Well, now, really, Lim, I don t recollect. But I was 
 putty sociable in them days and it might have been me." 
 
 "Ah, hah. I ve intended a number of times to ask you 
 about it. It was a sort of long fire, as if it hated to give 
 up and as you always hated to give up anything, Henry, 
 I lowed it must be you." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 OLD LIM S RIDE 
 
 "WHO is that a comin down the road?" old man 
 Brizintine inquired of his friends who sat beneath the 
 tree that shaded the blacksmith shop. 
 
 "Whoever he is he looks and walks the worse for wear," 
 someone replied. "He s got no hat. Why, it s Lim 
 Jucklin." 
 
 Old Limuel came along with a limp. His coat was torn 
 and the sole of one of his shoes had been wrenched off. 
 
 "Why, hello," said Brizintine. "You come like a late 
 spring." 
 
 "Yes," Jucklin replied, "and I feel like the lag end of 
 a hard winter. I ve just got through with a pleasure 
 trip," he added as he sat down. The men looked at one 
 another and smiled, waiting for the old fellow to explain. 
 
 "Pleasure trip?" said Brizintine. 
 
 "Ah, hah. I ve just had my first ride in an automo 
 bile." 
 
 "Is that so? Tell us about it." 
 
 "Don t need to," said Lim. "Just look at me." 
 
 They looked at him. "Yes," he added, "I was a 
 walkin along the road and here came a goggle-eyed 
 feller in one of these grunt wagons. He stopped to fix 
 
 136 
 
OLD LIM S RIDE 137 
 
 one of its lungs and I helped him to hold the thing to keep 
 it from shakin itself to pieces while it was standing and 
 when he got the lung fixed he asked me if I didn t want to 
 ride. Well, I had ridden in everything else buckboards 
 and wheelbarrows and the idea occurred to me that it 
 might be well to ride in the thing just for experience. A 
 man that likes to talk must keep on addin to his stock 
 of experience or he gives out. People begin to say, 
 Well, I must go/ as soon as he comes up to where they 
 are, and this makes him feel that he is a gettin old. So 
 I said, Yes, I might ride a few hundred miles with you/ 
 He smiled and told me to get in. The thing cringed and 
 sorter dodged as I got in, and I asked him if it skeered 
 much, and he laughed and said it was as gentle as a lamb. 
 I got seated and theji the feller turned on his invisible 
 juices and the machine jumped across the road and landed 
 against the fence. I says, She must have been stabled 
 for a good while and is sorter pranky. 
 
 " She s sulkin a bit/ he replies, and then touches 
 her somewhere in the off ribs. She kicked up behind and 
 I remarked that she didn t seem to be willin to tote double. 
 By this time she was a prancin about, a gettin ready to 
 do somethin else. What s her name, or have you had 
 time to name her? It struck me that she wouldn t hold 
 still long enough to be named. She quit prancin for a 
 few moments and he lowed that her name was Blue 
 Streak. 
 
 "All right/ says I, tickle her again. By this time 
 I wanted to ride. So he gave her a twist and she said, 
 
138 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 pah, pah/ and was on the top of the hill about a quarter 
 of a mile away, a standin across the road, a pawin up 
 the dirt. He got out and I asked him if her liver was 
 wrong. He got down under her and I heard him a 
 swearin up into her secret works. Every time he touched 
 her in a tender place she d hiccough. Let her take ten 
 swallows of water without breathing says I, and he 
 ripped out some cuss words I never heard before, and 
 shoved them up into her vitals. When he came out 
 from under her you could have sold him for soap grease. 
 Just wipe your hands on her jaws and come on. I want 
 to ride/ says I. 
 
 "By this time he was mad and didn t say anything. 
 But he stepped off and gave that machine a look that 
 would have barked a beech tree. He got in and she 
 began to back down the hill. Then she jumped up into 
 the air and came down with a grunt. Then she hoisted 
 up one hind wheel and shook the dirt off it. Then she 
 ducked down in front and sneezed. 
 
 " I told him he must have had her out where distemper 
 was epidemic among hosses. He gave her another 
 twist and she shuffled like a hen in the dust. I told him 
 I was enjoyin my ride. He twisted her again and she 
 says z-z-z-z-e-e and everything that ever was in the world 
 was left behind. My hat was gone, but I held my hair 
 on. I says, Let me know just before we get to the Pacific 
 Coast. I don t want to jump off. Suddenly she whined 
 like a hungry dog and stopped ; and she stopped so sudden 
 that him and me went on out in front. I had just breath 
 
OLD LIM S RIDE 139 
 
 enough to tell him that I wan t in that big a hurry. But 
 he didn t appear to mind it. That was putty much the 
 way he always got out, I reckon. And he riz up with a 
 monkey-wrench in his hand. That wrench was the 
 soothin syrup of his family. Well, he got down under her 
 again and tightened her tonsils. I asked him if he needed 
 any help, and he cussed me. Then I understood why he 
 wanted me to ride with him. He needed somebody to 
 cuss. 
 
 "When he came out this time he looked like a screech 
 owl with his feathers singed off with hot lard. He didn t 
 say a word. He got in and touched a nerve and the 
 thing struck the fence. He touched another nerve and it 
 jumped about eighty feet down the road, halted long 
 enough to do a sort of shuffle, and then disappeared over 
 the landscape. We disappeared with it. I looked 
 around to find my friend, but I couldn t see him. All I 
 saw was a greasy streak. She slowed up, but was still 
 goin about eighty miles an hour when I saw a hog in the 
 road, over in the next county. I said somethin about the 
 hog, but the wind blowed my words away as fast as I 
 uttered them; and the next moment there came a short 
 squeal and well, the hog didn t belong to me. 
 
 " Keep among the hogs, but look out for that bull away 
 down yonder, says I. And I ll give the greasy man 
 credit for believin that he tried to stop the machine. He 
 twisted her under the jaw till I could see her back teeth, 
 but she kept on a goin just the same. I take it that the 
 bull had led a sort of humoured life and thought he owned 
 
140 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 the road. He must have taken the premium at the 
 county fair. I heard him a hummin of his tune as he 
 came along. He put me in mind of a feller I heard a 
 singin* in one of these operys a long time ago. You 
 could understand what one said just about as well as the 
 other. 
 
 "I told my friend that if he would slack up to about 
 seventy-five miles an hour I d get out, and he twisted the 
 upper lip of the thing, but she wouldn t give in. She 
 went cavortin down the hill with her hind wheels off the 
 ground about half the time. The bull well, I was in 
 hopes that he would see us and recognise the fact that we 
 were in a hurry. But he didn t he just came along with 
 his opery. I hate to see trouble a comin and not know 
 how to avoid it. I don t like to wonder as to how I am 
 goin to feel when the thing is over with. I thought of a 
 good many things and then I got up from the side of 
 the road, a wonderin if I was goin to be struck again. 
 I looked around. I knew that my friend must be dead. 
 But bless your life, he was under that machine with his 
 monkey-wrench. The bull? Well, he was goin on up 
 the road, on three legs and with only one horn. My 
 friend came out from under the machine and says to me, 
 Well, hop in. 
 
 " Thank you, I ain t a frog and know when I ve hopped 
 enough, says I. 
 
 " What! don t you want to ride? 
 
 " Well, not in a combination of a snort wagon and a 
 balloon. 
 
OLD LIM S RIDE 141 
 
 " Why, this is nothing says he. This is one of my 
 good days. 
 
 "I told him it was good-day so far as I was concerned. 
 He begged me to get in, but I told him no; and I climbed 
 up a leanin tree till he got started. I don t know whether 
 the thing jumped the fence or knocked it down, but any 
 how it started across the field. It struck a stump and he 
 went up into the air, but he came down with the monkey- 
 wrench in his hand. No, that sort of travellin don t 
 suit me. It s a nightmare in the daytime. I may be old 
 fashioned, but I am not a bull fighter. I don t want to 
 live in grease with a monkey- wrench," 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE CONGRESSMAN 
 
 THE Congressman of the district had returned from 
 Washington. Those who had openly indorsed his 
 candidacy and had secretly voted against him felt free 
 to call upon him and to question him concerning the affair 
 of State. The Congressman, the Honourable Mr. Jim 
 Horn Adams, welcomed his friends. It was the part of 
 his wife to inquire of each man, "Oh, why didn t you bring 
 your wife ?" And she did it well just as if she meant it. 
 
 "I reckon they keep you putty busy," said old man 
 Brizintine. He had years before visited the Legislature, 
 had been invited to a seat on the floor, the least of all the 
 honours that a legislative body can extend, and ever 
 since that time had posed as an exponent of parliamentary 
 procedure. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, very busy," replied the Hon. Jim Horn 
 Adams, taking some papers out of one pocket and putting 
 them into another. "And by the way, did you get the 
 seeds I sent you?" 
 
 "Haven t seen a seed," said the old man. 
 
 "Why, that s singular. I sent you a package of im 
 proved tobacco seed. I heard the President speaking 
 
 142 
 
THE CONGRESSMAN 143 
 
 about the fine quality of tobacco that came from them 
 and I got some at once and sent them to you. By the way, 
 Mr. Jucklin," he added, looking at old Lim, who sat with 
 his chair tipped back against the wall, "I thought of you 
 the other day when I called on one of the representatives 
 from Louisiana. I think he s got the finest game rooster 
 I ever saw, and I remarked to my wife that I was going 
 to get him if possible and send him to you." 
 
 "Much obleeged," said old Lim. "Sure it was the 
 member from Louisiana, are you?" 
 
 "Oh, quite sure of it." 
 
 "Thick-set fellow with a short beard?" 
 
 "Yes, that s the man." 
 
 "His name s Horner, ain t it?" 
 
 "I think you re right, sir quite sure of it. Yes, his 
 name is Horner," Mr. Adams continued, pleased at his 
 own invention and the lucky chance of old Lim s in 
 dorsement of it. "Horner that s the man." 
 
 "Did you make him an offer?" 
 
 "Well, no. The fact is, I was very busy at the time, 
 having been summoned to meet the Committee on Ways 
 and Means, and hadn t the opportunity, but I shall as 
 soon as I return." 
 
 "You are certain it was Horner?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, quite certain." 
 
 "Well, now you know that s strange. There was a 
 feller along here about a month ago from Louisiana and 
 we got to talkin about chickens and he told me that Con 
 gressman Horner was it L. B. Horner?" 
 
144 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "L. B. that s his name. Yes, I recollect perfectly. 
 And I said to my wife, I m going to get that rooster for 
 my old friend.!" 
 
 "Well, now," drawled old Lim, "I m glad you are sure 
 as to his name. This feller told me he reckoned that 
 L. B. Horner was the finest judge of a chicken in all the 
 whole country, and so I thought I d write to him. And I 
 did. I got me some of the finest paper they had at the 
 store and took down some polkberry ink I d made in the 
 fall and wrote to him. And, sir, he wrote back from 
 Washington that he never owned a game rooster in his 
 life, that he didn t care anything about em, and that if 
 he had his way he d have em all killed and stewed up for 
 a darkey picnic. I m glad you told me, Mr. Adams, for 
 I ll write to him again on the commonest sort of paper 
 and tell him what a liar he is." 
 
 "Why, I wouldn t do that," protested the Congressman. 
 
 "Yes, I will. There s nothing that does me more 
 good than to ketch a representative of the people in a lie. 
 It is a duty we all owe to the public to expose such frauds. 
 Sure now his name is Horner, are you?" 
 
 "Horner. Now let me see. Mary," he added, speak 
 ing to his wife, who sat near him, exhibiting her uneasiness, 
 "is that man s name Horner or Warner?" 
 
 "I think it s Warner," she answered. "I m quite 
 certain of it." 
 
 "Yes, Warner," said the Congressman. 
 
 "What, B. D. Warner?" Jucklin exclaimed. 
 
 "Well," hesitated the Congressman, "I m not sure 
 
THE CONGRESSMAN 145 
 
 as to his initials. But I don t think, however, it s B. D. 
 I think they call him Samuel." 
 
 "Samuel R.," said his wife. 
 
 "What!" again exclaimed old Lim, "it is old Samuel 
 Radner Warner. I know him like a book. Sorter lame 
 in the right leg?" 
 
 "Not that I noticed," replied the Congressman. 
 
 "Oh, not at all," spoke up his wife. 
 
 "No?" said Lim. "Well, come to think of it, neither 
 was the one I know. It s his brother that s lame. I ll 
 write to him to-night and tell him that I must have that 
 chicken." 
 
 The Congressman s wife was equal to this or almost any 
 other occasion. "You mean the chicken with the black 
 neck?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Limuel. 
 
 "Well, I m sorry, but he sold him the very day we left 
 Washington." 
 
 "I ll take one of the others," replied Limuel. 
 
 "But that was the only one he had," said the Congress 
 man s wife. 
 
 "Why, that s a fact," exclaimed the Congressman. 
 "But Washington is a great place for roosters, Mr. Jucklin, 
 and before the next " 
 
 "Election," suggested Limuel. 
 
 "Well, I was going to say that before the end of the 
 coming session I would find you one. Don t be in a 
 hurry, gentlemen." 
 
 As Limuel and Brizintine were going down the road, 
 
146 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 the rooster lover remarked: "That feller s got a good 
 wife. She finally cornered me, and when a woman does 
 that I am inclined to think she is all right. I m always 
 glad, Briz, that I m not in politics. I don t mind lyin 
 for politeness sake, just to be neighbourly, but I d hate 
 to find it necessary in my business. And I d hate still 
 worse to have to prove a lie by my wife. The Lord calls 
 on a woman to do many things, and what He don t call 
 for necessity nearly always does, but I don t think that a 
 man s wife ought to be taught to lie. It appears to be 
 easy enough to teach her though, and this makes it all the 
 more deplorable. It shows how fast we are driftin in the 
 wrong direction." 
 
 "But I reckon a politician s wife has to lie," said old 
 Brizintine. 
 
 "Yes, mebby so and when a woman thinks she s 
 helpin to re-elect her husband by her wits she ll have 
 more wits than truth. No, don t think I want to be a 
 Congressman. From a distance his bed may look like a bed 
 of roses, but nettles have blooms on them, you know. 
 And the fear that he ain t goin to get back is a nettle. 
 Now that man never thought about me while he was off 
 there. But he thinks, or at least thought, that he could 
 ketch me with a cock-and-bull story. He left out the 
 bull. Wonder why he didn t ring him in, too ? Recollect 
 Congressman Conners from this district ? Now, there was 
 a liar for you. He simply acted a lie. And finally when 
 they beat him I asked him one day, says I, Uncle Ben, 
 how did you manage to get back so often? You might 
 
THE CONGRESSMAN 147 
 
 as well tell me, as you are done with politics/ He laughed 
 and says, Well, it was makin people do things for me 
 instead of doin things for them. Let a feller do things 
 for you and his interest in you is always fresh. Do things 
 for him and he begins after a while to dodge you. Your 
 very countenance begins to accuse him of ingratitude. 
 Whenever I d meet a feller in the road I d ask him for a 
 chew of tobacco. I might have a pocketful, but I d 
 ask him for some. Instead of sendin seeds from Wash 
 ington I d write to a feller somethin like this: "Wish 
 you d tell your wife to send me about a half a dozen of 
 her biscuit." To someone else I d write: " Don t 
 think I ve had a good meal since I was at your house. 
 Send me some sausage when you kill hogs." By this 
 means I kept nearly every man in the district under 
 obligations to me. 
 
 "Yes," old Lim added as he came to the place where 
 his road turned, "that Congressman s wife is smart and 
 knows how to dress, but if she were my wife I d a little 
 rather she didn t know how to lie so quick." 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 ON POLITENESS 
 
 "LiMUEL," said Brizintine, "what do you regard as 
 about the most necessary quality in man?" 
 
 The two old men were sitting in the sun, the May side 
 of an April day, discussing that ever-present subject: 
 The World. 
 
 "Well," Jucklin replied, "there are so many qualities 
 that thaw and run into each other, like snowbanks tricklin 
 down into the creek, that it wouldn t be easy to determine 
 which. But the one that occurs to me at this moment is 
 one that has been preached on time and again one that 
 mothers try to enforce on the minds of their sons. It is 
 politeness." 
 
 "Useful enough in its way," said Brizintine "that is, 
 at parties and funerals but do you think it s business? 
 In these days, you know, a man must be quick^ but 
 politeness is slow." 
 
 "You ve said just about what I wanted you to say," 
 Lim replied. "Politeness is not necessarily slow. It is 
 the gesture of the mind and may be just as quick as gruff- 
 ness is. One of the reasons that men who have been 
 prosperous begin to fail along in later years is because they 
 have forgotten the necessary politeness of the earlier 
 
 148 
 
ON POLITENESS 149 
 
 day. Politeness when once forgotten can rarely be re 
 membered. It ought to come when a feller is young in 
 order to seem natural. The fact is, it must be natural, 
 for there s nothin that is much more awkward than a man 
 in his maturer life tryin for the first time to be polite. 
 If a young feller just startin out in business would sit 
 down for ten minutes a day and give his mind to the study 
 of politeness, not from a book or any set form, but from 
 his own reflections, he would find it the best investment 
 of time he ever made. Politeness is the actor of kindness. 
 It is intended to picture the even and well-intended mind. 
 It is a pleasant thought set in visible motion." 
 
 "Lim, as the old nigger preacher said, you are now 
 puttin the fodder a little too high for the calves." 
 
 "Not at all. Fm simply speakin common sense as 
 I see it, and if I see it anybody ought. We very often 
 hear of polite old men, but there are more polite young 
 felleas than old ones. Ailments and disappointments 
 make the old man gruff, unless he has kept company 
 with books. He believes that he has lived to see the use- 
 lessness of politeness, while with the young chap it is 
 still a matter of advancin experiment." 
 
 "Ah," Brizintine spoke up, "but if the old man finds 
 that politeness is a failure why tell the young feller to 
 practice it?" 
 
 "Very well put, old man. Now let me see if I ll have 
 to shift my ground. Let me look about and see if you ve 
 got me cornered. You see, I never know whether a 
 thing is true or not until I have to defend it. What is 
 
150 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 the use of a young feller bein polite if he sees that an 
 old man has failed in it ? The fact is, that the old man 
 began to fail about the time he forgot his politeness. 
 Think I ve got you there, Briz. If I haven t I m willin 
 to change the subject." 
 
 "I don t know that you have. Anyhow, I d like to 
 ask you this : What s the use of a man tryin to be polite 
 if he don t feel it ? Why should he act a hypercrit ?" 
 
 "Shouldn t act a hypercrit. The fact is, that if a 
 man begins early to practice politeness it will after a 
 while come natural to him. There ain t nothin that 
 tastes much worse at first than a chaw of tobacco does, 
 but after a while it s sweeter and more to be desired than 
 pie. It becomes second nature and second nature is 
 twin brother with first nature and is sometimes stronger 
 than the first-born. Let a man make politeness, by which 
 I mean acted kindness, just as much of a second nature 
 as he makes tobacco. He can do it. There never was a 
 man that couldn t find some way to change his nature 
 from bad to better. He can be surgeon to his own de 
 formity. The greatest man of all said that there was 
 nothin good nor bad, but that thinkin made it so." 
 
 "Was he a preacher?" Brizintine inquired. 
 
 "Yes, preached inspiration at first hand. He wrote 
 Hamlet. Did you ever read it?" 
 
 "Don t recollect, but I ve read Tempest and Sun 
 shine. My daughter brought it from school with her, 
 where she was a teachin , and I got holdj of it. I didn t 
 know but it was somethin about the crops and I set 
 
ON POLITENESS 151 
 
 down, I did, and began to read it. And I don t know 
 yet what it was about. Seemed that folks in love was a 
 havin trouble. Caught myself a wipin of my eyes. 
 Didn t want my daughter to see me in that weak fix, so I 
 goes out and called up the hogs and fed em. Feedin 
 of the hogs is an offset to all appearances, you know. 
 But speakin about politeness, how can a farmer be polite 
 with his sign stuck up, Keep off this place!" 
 
 "Well, it would make the sign stronger to say, Please 
 keep off. It would appeal more to a feller. A thousand 
 men may be influenced by politeness where one is scared. 
 I knew a man that spent half his life tryin to scare folks. 
 He wanted to be known as a bad man. Got started wrong 
 when he was a boy read Up the Gulch stuff. I saw 
 him not long ago and I asked him if he had scared anybody 
 yet. He sorter hemmed and hawed and wanted to talk 
 about somethin else, but I pinned him down. Then 
 he told me that he thought he had one man scared, about 
 three years before, and had just begun to believe that his 
 work for all that long half a lifetime was about to be 
 rewarded by a terrified countenance. But suddenly the 
 feller whipped out a knife and came at him. Afterward 
 he discovered that what he took to be fright on the feller s 
 face was a scar left by a scald. Now if he had spent 
 all that time in practisin politeness it might have netted 
 him somethin . It wouldn t have humiliated him. Very 
 few men have ever been humbled by practisin politeness. 
 You ve heard the old story of a great man ridin along the 
 road. They tell it on Washington and Jackson and Clay; 
 
152 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 but the moral is the same, no matter who it was. He was a 
 ridin along and met an old negro. The negro took off 
 his hat. Then the great man took off his hat. Someone 
 spoke to him about it. Why/ said he, I can t afford 
 to let a negro be more of a gentleman than I am. There s 
 a lot of good sense in that. And take it in the matter of 
 a fight a moral or a physical fight. At the very beginnin 
 the polite man generally has the other feller more than half 
 whipped. If I were givin advice to a youngster goin 
 away from home to seek his level I d say somethin like 
 this: As long as you are polite you have full control of 
 your temper, and master of your temper you are master 
 of the situation. If it becomes necessary to cuss a man 
 do it in the very best terms at your command. And if 
 you have to hit him hit as hard as possible, for in a fight 
 hard hittin is a politeness unto yourself. There is a 
 difference, Briz, between the polite man and the fawner. 
 One is a man and the other has missed it. His intention 
 is too plain. He shows that he wants to do you. He 
 stoops in his humbleness in order to get an under hold. 
 No, sir, politeness is not humbleness. It is dignity made 
 pleasant. It is a countenance with a lamp behind it. Do 
 you think there would be so many divorces if men and 
 women practised the politeness they did before they were 
 married ? Politeness sometimes carries the torch for love." 
 "There is a good deal of truth in all that you have 
 said," remarked Brizintine, "but I can t help rememberm 
 that you wan t very polite to that feller Atcherson, over 
 the creek, several years ago." 
 
ON POLITENESS 153 
 
 "Oh, Bill Atcherson," Jucklin replied. "I think I was. 
 He called me a liar and I didn t dispute his word." 
 
 "No, but you knocked him down." 
 
 "Yes, but knocked him over toward a place where 
 the ground was the softest. I did the best I could for 
 him under the circumstances. I could have gone further 
 could have called him a liar and knocked him down in 
 addition. But I didn t. I was polite." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 ON OPPORTUNITY FOR THE AGED 
 
 SPRING had begun to creep up out of the valley. The 
 day breathed scents not yet quite ripe enough for perfume. 
 It was like youth delightful in promises. In the court 
 house yard, in the county town, beneath the locust 
 trees, there sat the county judge, several old lawyers, the 
 oldest man in the village, and Limuel Jucklin. In the 
 spring, when we see the renewal of nature s purposes, we 
 talk of opportunity. We feel that we are to have one more 
 chance. The old man s blood, the reminiscent sap of a 
 declining life, is quicker. "Opportunity is ever present," 
 said Jucklin. "It is one of the staples in life s store 
 house. Man doesn t need to make opportunity. It s 
 here anyhow. He can t make it. He can sometimes 
 arrange combinations, but he doesn t have to create the 
 material. Opportunity throws its light into the eye of 
 the young feller. It is like the glow worm. He can t 
 help seein it, more or less. It is the old feller that 
 needs to have opportunity pointed out to him. 
 His sight has failed him and he can t see the 
 light. Youth don t need encouragement. Its own swift 
 blood encourages it. What we ought to do is to 
 encourage age." 
 
 154 
 
ON OPPORTUNITY FOR THE AGED 155 
 
 "Then you think the old man ought to have a chance ? 
 said the county judge. 
 
 "That s exactly what I think. And the young chap 
 ought to be interested, since if he lives he is soon to be old. 
 It won t be half as long a comin as he thinks it will, 
 lookin forward. We are too much inclined to compli 
 ment the old folks for what they have done and then 
 politely, and sometimes even impolitely, tell them to stand 
 aside to keep from bein run over by the procession. It 
 is true that the old man ain t supple enough for a drum 
 major, but he can beat a bass drum a long time after 
 some people think he can t; and out of the fife he may get 
 a mighty sweet tune. But of course the procession is in a 
 hurry and can t be expected to wait on him. I don t say 
 it should wait. However, it ought not to tread on the old 
 man simply because it is in a hurry." 
 
 "A feller came within an inch of drivin a hoss over 
 me the other day," said an old man, too literal to see a 
 spiritual inference. "And I yelled at him, I did, and I 
 told him that if I could call back about twenty years I d 
 give him a thrashin . That s what I told him." 
 
 "And right there was where you were doin yourself 
 an injustice," Lim replied. "You were makin yourself 
 older. You went back into the past. It would have been 
 better if you had told him that if he were twenty years 
 older you would thrash him. Never go back to where 
 you were, but bring tilings to where you now stand. 
 Remember one thing, that it is mind instead of physical 
 activity that has made this world great, and that as 
 
156 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 long as a man feeds his mind it will grow. One of the 
 greatest of men that lived away before the Saviour said 
 that age always has youth enough left to learn. And as 
 long as we learn we grow. If we forget old things let us 
 learn new ones. The egotist gets old quicker than any 
 body else for the reason that he thinks he knows it all. 
 Ignorance is always old. Wisdom is always young. 
 Many years ago there lived a man named Louis Cornaro. 
 At forty he thought himself old enough to die. His 
 health was bad. He had worn himself out. But he had 
 sense enough not to believe that he knew it all. So he 
 began to diet himself. He ate just as much as was good 
 for him. He discovered that his appetite was treacherous 
 and called for more food than was necessary. Then he 
 took up a system of readin . He made it a point to learn 
 somethin out of a book or out of nature every day. Well, 
 at ninety he wrote a book, and it was a good one, too. 
 It was filled with the keenest sense. No one that has 
 ever written on life has beaten it. Then he waited ten 
 years and wrote another book, just to see if he could. 
 The book was strong, full of fun a smile. And it 
 tickled him so that he laughed for three years before he 
 died. He never did anything until he was old. The 
 youngsters could thrust aside his body, but his mind 
 wouldn t be thrust. He kept it active with learnin 
 things." 
 
 "But," said the county judge, "don t you believe that 
 a man s brain grows old ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, and so does his hair if he keeps it; and so 
 
ON OPPORTUNITY FOR THE AGED 157 
 
 does his house. But the brain isn t the mind and the 
 house is not his life. If the brain were the mind the 
 man with the heaviest brain would have the greatest 
 mind. Webster had a heavy brain, and these fellers that 
 make much of that sort of thing raised a great to-do over 
 it; but while they were in the midst of their wonder a 
 negro was hanged for murder. They weighed his brain 
 and found that it was a third heavier than Webster s. 
 He was not only a murderer, but was little short of bein 
 an idiot. No, sir, the mind isn t physical. It doesn t 
 have much of kinship with the body. Alexander Stephens 
 was almost a dwarf. The poet Byron wore a six and a 
 quarter hat. But old Bill Sanderson that lives out here 
 hasn t more than sense enough to drive up the calves, 
 and he can t get a hat in town big enough for him. A 
 man is useful as long as he can think. He thinks as long 
 as he learns. When he gives up his mind, why, his mind 
 gives him up. Old men talk too much and read too 
 little. The mind needs food. And this mind food is not 
 to be raked up out of the past of your own life. The 
 past is worth nothin except as it serves as a light for the 
 future. This has been said more than once, but that 
 doesn t make it less true. An old man dreams that he is 
 young. It is rare that he dreams of bein older. And in 
 his dream of youth great ideas sometimes come to him. 
 He awakes younger, but his disappointment at findin 
 himself still old robs his mind of the freshness it drew 
 from the dream. Sometimes a suddenly awakened 
 determination will make a man younger. There was old 
 
158 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 Buck Jamieson. He was not only shoved aside, but 
 jammed up against the fence. Well, one day he got 
 into a row with a feller younger than himself forgot his 
 age and whipped him. Then he went home and caught 
 his hoss and put the plow gear on him. 
 
 " Why, Buck/ said his wife, what on earth are you 
 goin to do? 
 
 " I m goin out in the field to plow. That bottom 
 field is mightily in the grass. 
 
 " Why, Buck, says she, you can t plow. 
 
 "Can t? Who said so? 
 
 " But you re too old. 
 
 " Is that so? said Buck; and with that he went on out 
 into the field and plowed. The neighbours were as 
 tonished, but Buck kept on a plowin and I reckon if 
 he hadn t been killed tryin to break a colt he would 
 have been plowin till yet." 
 
 "Tried to break a colt/ said the judge. "That shows 
 that age went too far." 
 
 "Yes, but it showed also that age was young again or 
 it wouldn t have gone too far. Nothin is a better proof 
 of youth than to go too far. And that brings us down to an 
 important point. Youth goes too far and age doesn t go 
 far enough, as a general thing. It is when a man strikes 
 a compromise between the two that he has reached his 
 best. But his best lasts longer than some folks suppose. 
 It is said that the most of the poetry is written by young 
 men. I reckon this is true. But the most of the poetry 
 isn t worth readin and doesn t live much longer than it 
 
ON OPPORTUNITY FOR THE AGED 159 
 
 takes them to write it. The most valuable writin comes 
 out of experience, which is wisdom; and without age there 
 can be no very great experience. I reckon the best prize 
 fighters are between twenty and thirty, certainly not 
 much more than thirty; but the world could manage to 
 get along without prize fighters. Old Oliver Cromwell 
 was somethin of a fighter, but he was unknown until he 
 was gettin old. I have noticed that age makes a bigger 
 liar of a liar. As long as a liar can grow he is improving 
 and if a lie can grow it seems to me that wisdom can 
 manage to move up a few pegs as we go along. Let the 
 old man take his mind off his ailments and put it on a book. 
 And the first thing he knows his mind will be bigger and 
 his ailments less. Yonder comes old Jerry Dabs. Now 
 Jerry is nearing eighty, and nobody ever caught him in a 
 truth. And suppose he should make an effort now and 
 tell the truth. Wouldn t that be an improvement? 
 Wouldn t it show an advance, even at his age ? I want to 
 tell you, gentlemen, we ve all got an opportunity to do 
 somethin*. We can at least go home and tell our wives 
 that business detained us." 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 IT was a ginger-cake-and-cider social at the house of 
 Limuel Jucklin. Miss Pauline Rainey had sung some 
 thing which, as it was whispered about, had come out of a 
 grand opera, and the minister had told a story which 
 might have come out of the ark, when Josh Dolittle 
 remarked: "Uncle Lim, on several occasions we have 
 heard you mention a feller named Shakespeare. I take it 
 he lived a good deal before our time was a circuit jedge, 
 mebby; and we d like for you to tell us a little somethin 
 about him, bein as he must have been one of the early 
 settlers." 
 
 "Oh, please do," cried Dolittle s sister, an oldish girl 
 who had begun to "respruce" herself since the death 
 of the minister s wife. 
 
 Old Limuel smiled. "Yes," he said, "Shakespeare 
 was an early settler. He was one of the earliest ones to 
 settle the fact that the grandest thoughts of man and the 
 strongest passions of the world had been set forth in words. 
 Shakespeare was a poet." 
 
 "You don t say so?" replied Dolittle, with his mouth 
 remaining half open, as if it were not in good keeping 
 to close it so soon upon his own astonishment. 
 
 160 
 
SHAKESPEARE 161 
 
 "Yes, sir, a poet," said Lim. "And his book is next 
 to the Bible." 
 
 The minister, with his head turned toward Miss Do- 
 little, slowly nodded an agreement to this judgment; and 
 old Mrs. Benson remarked: "Well, I didn t know that. 
 Tell me about it." 
 
 "Owned a good deal of land I reckon," observed Jim 
 Daggart, who held mortgages on the domains of several 
 of his neighbours. 
 
 "Oh, yes," Lim replied. "He owned all the land there 
 was and all of the sea; and the stars paid rent to him, 
 for they lived in his territory." 
 
 "Well, I wouldn t say that," said the minister; and Miss 
 Dolittle remarked, "Oh, no; I wouldn t say that." 
 
 "I don t say it profanely," replied Limuel. "It was 
 a figger of speech. But a figger of speech may have 
 truth in it. The universe is no greater than the human 
 heart. And of the human heart Shakespeare was the 
 confidential friend. As soon as a thought was born any 
 where in the world he knew it. He was the nurse of 
 ideas. He said things that hundreds of people had already 
 thought, but which had lain dumb in their souls. He 
 also knew things that were goin to be said in the future, 
 and said em. It didn t make any difference to him that 
 he was a livin away back there in the past. Why, for 
 him there wan t any past and no future. With him all 
 was the eternal now." 
 
 "Well, just think of that," said Miss Dolittle, looking at 
 the preacher. 
 
162 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Bet they sent him to the Legislature every time he 
 wanted to go," declared Daggart. 
 
 " Well, as to that, I believe he did get to be a justice of 
 the peace or somethin of the sort," said Lim. "But 
 money was as powerful then as it is now the average man 
 was just as short of sight; and wisdom cried out in the 
 street and no man took heed/ In this respect the world 
 hasn t changed. Why, there were men that nobody has 
 heard of since that time men with a few thousand, with 
 titles and ribbons tied about their shanks men that 
 wouldn t have spoken to the poet if they had met him in 
 the post office; and a man that won t speak to you in the 
 post office has got you down putty far underneath his con 
 tempt. The folks that saw Shakespeare every day didn t 
 think he was great. The fact is, that the oftener they saw 
 him the less great he was. He built a playhouse for the 
 children of men and he wrote down things for the children 
 to say; and the pufTed-up chaps that come to the play 
 house lowed, Well, yes, that will do putty well for 
 the sort. They didn t know that the sort was for all time. 
 Proud men were a thunderin in the churches where there 
 were gold candlesticks and books bound in silver and set 
 with diamonds. But these proud and educated men 
 didn t know that the Lord s inspiration had found its 
 way to that playhouse where common folks stood up to 
 listen. The men that sat down were the rich. And when 
 they had heard they forgot, but the words spoken by the 
 children of men that were playin remained in the minds 
 and the hearts of the poor. Ah, and no man that didn t 
 
SHAKESPEARE 163 
 
 breathe his words upon the lowly heart has ever been 
 great. They may have called him great, but he wa n t. 
 The greatest man is the one who has had the most sym 
 pathy with man. The highest pinnacle that this world 
 ever reached was when it listened to the Sermon on the 
 Mount. The roar of cannon may have meant human 
 liberty. But the Sermon on the Mount meant human 
 brotherhood; and brotherhood is the flower and the per 
 fume of liberty." 
 
 "I reckon he s a-talkin some now," said Dolittle. 
 
 "He s treed the thing sure enough," declared Daggart. 
 
 "Very worthily expressed," said the minister; and Miss 
 Dolittle smiled and in her smile might have been read the 
 words, "Put your mind down on that if you can." 
 
 "But," observed the preacher, "Shakespeare wrote in 
 most exalted style. He could not have been addressing 
 himself to the poor." 
 
 "His exaltation of language was the raiment of the poor," 
 Lim replied. "The wealthy didn t need the rich garb 
 of his words. They had silks woven in the hand loom. 
 The velvets and the satins woven in the loom of a God- 
 given imagination were too shadowy for them. But out 
 from among those shadows the poor in purse but the rich 
 in fancy gathered his wardrobe and clothed himself. And 
 every man that has been able to do this has been purpled 
 like an emperor." 
 
 "He keeps on a travelin ," said Dolittle. 
 
 " He s mendin his licks every minit," Daggart remarked. 
 "Lim, we ll have you up a preachin before long." 
 
164 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Now, don t blaspheme," said old Mrs. Benson. And 
 turning to Jucklin she added: "I ain t forgot, Limuel, 
 that I heard you cuss your steers one day." 
 
 "Yes, ma am," Lim replied, "and the man that could 
 drive them steers without cussin ain t got spirit enough in 
 him to cast the shadow of immortality into the eternity 
 of a jaybird. I m a talkin to you, ma am. Them 
 critters they ran away with me, ran through a thicket of 
 wild plum bushes and tore me into shreds ; and if I hadn t 
 cussed em the Lord never would have forgiven me." 
 
 "Limuel," said his wife, "don t humiliate me any 
 further, please. Talk about your man that could make 
 clothes outen shadows, but don t humiliate me." 
 
 "All right, Susan, I beg your pardon." 
 
 "I think, myself," said the minister, "that you show 
 to much more of advantage when you talk on the I might 
 say the subject of your favourite poet. It is then that you 
 forget many of your, well, I might say mannerisms." 
 
 "Yes, a man can talk best on the subject that interests 
 him the most. But it would seem that everything has 
 been said on Shakespeare that could be said, and yet he is 
 still the most fruitful text that the mind of man can take 
 up. I mean any text that applies to what we know and 
 not what we speculate over. He knew more about the 
 body and guessed shrewder at the soul than any other man. 
 His mind was an ocean with so many tides that it never 
 grew stale." 
 
 "But he s dead I take it," said Dolittle. 
 
 "Well, yes, he complimented death by dyin . But he 
 
SHAKESPEARE 165 
 
 left his great wardrobe to all succeedin generations. Not 
 only that, he gave to humanity the key to his exhaustless 
 corn crib. He left unlocked the stable where the swiftest 
 steeds are standin in the stalls, waitin to be rid across 
 the country, over the mountain, up into the clouds; and 
 comin up over the hill right out yonder is the moon, his 
 moon, that he spoke about so often. He made it tenderer 
 for you and me. And the man that makes the moon 
 brighter and tenderer makes the road to Heaven easier." 
 
 " Must have had a big funeral," spoke up Abner Hower- 
 son, the neighbourhood undertaker. 
 
 "Yes," Lim replied. "The procession started nearly 
 three hundred years ago and the tail end of it isn t in sight 
 yet. And the descendants of men that wouldn t have 
 spoken to him in the post office would now give their 
 wealth for a handful of the straw he slept on. But you 
 can t blame man. He was born blind and sometimes 
 his eyes are never opened." 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 AT THE THEATRE 
 
 THE newspaper had said that at a certain time there 
 would begin in the city a Shakespearian revival. From 
 the Jucklin neighbourhood there was one contribution 
 old Limuel himself. The city a town of about thirty 
 thousand inhabitants was sixty miles distant. Out in the 
 woods of the past such a journey is still looked upon with 
 respect if not in wonder; and several of the neighbours 
 went with the old man to the county seat, to shake his hand 
 at the steps of the train. Four days later it was known 
 that he had returned. His friends gathered about him, 
 and in the evening he broke warm bread with them. At 
 the table were the "intelligence and the morality" of the 
 community. The country editor afterward remarked that 
 not a word was spoken that would have offended the most 
 fastidious. Why there should be a defense against the 
 possibility of the use of such a word is not known, but the 
 genius of the country editor lies in the utterance of the 
 unexpected. 
 
 "Well," said old man Brizintine, mopping a hot biscuit 
 into a plaster of molasses, "I reckon you went to the revival 
 you so spoke about." 
 
 "Yes, I was there both early and late," Limuel replied. 
 
 166 
 
AT THE THEATRE 167 
 
 "Putty good preachin at the revival?" Brizintine 
 inquired. 
 
 "Preachin ?" 
 
 "Yes. Didn t you say it was a revival?" 
 
 "Ah, hah; but it was a Shakespeare revival. It was 
 what you might call a show." 
 
 Old Aunt Becky Wigglesworth raised her hands. 
 "Limuel, is it possible you went all that distance to a 
 show ? I should think you had lived long enough not to 
 want to see a feller dressed scandalous turn a back ard 
 summerset through a hoop with a piece of paper pasted 
 over it. But my, you can t tell about the men these days. 
 I don t reckon, however, they ve changed very much. I 
 recollect that shortly after me and Mr. Wigglesworth 
 was married we went to a circis, and when a woman 
 dressed as no daughter of mine would dress unless 
 mebby she was a goin in a swimmin come out and 
 began to flop about on a hoss, I says to my husband, says 
 I, Dan l, it is time for us to go. And he says, Well, no, 
 not as long as this sort of thing keeps up. Said that to 
 me and we hadn t been married more than three weeks. 
 Did they have the sacred ox, Limuel?" 
 
 " No," Lim answered, " they didn t have any beef cattle 
 at all. This wa n t a circus, Aunt Becky. It was a theatre, 
 a play." 
 
 "Oh, somethin like Old Sister Pheby, How Merry Was 
 She? I should think you was too old for that sort of 
 cavortin , Limuel. I lay you didn t go with him, Susan," 
 she added, addressing Mrs. Juckliu. 
 
168 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Double deed I didn t. I had somethin else on my 
 mind. The hens are a nestin . Lim has been tryin to 
 tell me about it, but I can t make heads or tails of it." 
 
 "At our college," said the preacher, "we performed 
 a Shakespearian play with certain eliminations. I well 
 remember thfe declaiming of young Oscar Pruitt as Ham 
 let. Ah, but the applause he received was his ultimate 
 downfall. It lived in his mind, and years afterward he 
 shamelessly deserted the pulpit and took to the stage. But 
 in a godless town where he made his first appearance a 
 minion of the evil one struck him between the eyes with a 
 goose egg in the soliloquy scene and he was so morti 
 fied that he fled to the Mississippi River and spent the 
 remainder of his life in playing poker on a steamboat. 
 But what play did you see, Brother Limuel?" 
 
 Macbeth/ I had read it over and over many a time. 
 I could see night scarfin up the eye of day could see the 
 bats skimmin the dark edges of the comin night, and 
 could hear the screech owls. I could hear the wind 
 mournin* among the winter-stiffened twigs of the trees 
 could see the ocean turnin red as Macbeth tried to wash 
 the blood off his hands could hear the poor wretches 
 mutterin in their sleep as Duncan s gore was smeared 
 on their faces could see and hear everything. It was 
 real. But the thing I saw in the theatre fell short. I 
 knew that the walls were canvas. And then I thought 
 of a great fact that Shakespeare carried his scenery be 
 tween his lines, that he threw a valley, a hill into the 
 mind and made it live a reality. This play I saw was over- 
 
AT THE THEATRE 169 
 
 loaded with flimsy things, flaps that shook and the men 
 and women didn t make me believe they were in earnest. 
 I d rather read it, for then Shakespeare acts it himself 
 and we know he was in earnest and believed it was all a 
 truth. I waited for the utterance of the great ideas that 
 sometimes in the dark of the night when the wind was a 
 blowin and the creek a roarin had pulled me up out of my 
 chair; and I looked forward to the wonderful pictures that 
 in my loneliness had been flashed upon me, but they 
 didn t come the ideas nor the pictures. There wa n t 
 no I hardly know what to call it there wa n t no jolt. 
 I didn t get scared. I didn t feel like somebody had 
 jumped out of the dark at me." 
 
 "Then you were disappointed," said the preacher. 
 
 "Yes, for I didn t meet the appointed thing on the 
 hilltop. I couldn t climb the hill, for it crumbled under 
 my feet. The woods moved up toward me like shadows. 
 Mebby I m loo old I don t know. But after I got back 
 I took down my book and turned to the play, and the first 
 thing I knowed there was that somethin a creepin up 
 my back, and I lived in it again. Yes, I d rather play it 
 myself. Then the old castle is made of real rocks. Then 
 I can look away up and see the banners floutin the sky 
 and fannin the people cold. I reckon that is what you 
 call imagination. But too much paint and cloth kill it. 
 There is too much of a label everywhere, tellin you what 
 it is." 
 
 " I like a right good sleight-of-hand show,"said Brizintine. 
 "There was a feller over at our schoolhouse one night 
 
170 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 not long ago that could call the cows home, I tell you. 
 He swallered a knife as long long as a stick of stove wood. 
 And he done the funniest thing you ever seen. He called 
 on somebody to go up on the platform and Bill Hancy 
 he went up, and he took Bill s hat and pulled out baby 
 clothes till it looked like a week s washin . Oh, he done 
 a good many things about as great a man as I ever saw. 
 And now mebby he could have helped your show out, 
 Limuel. Wouldn t you have liked it better if a few of 
 them sort of tricks had been put into it ? That would have 
 made it look real. Why, you couldn t ketch this feller, 
 a lookin right at him. Talk about things bein real! 
 Stuck a butcher knife through his arm and there it was 
 beat up a gold watch and put it into a pistol and shot it 
 right into the middle of a lemon and it come out, i gad, as 
 good as ever and with a ribbon tied to it. Why, Miss 
 Sallie Lane s got the ribbon till now, and it s a real ribbon, 
 too. Don t you think he would have helped your show, 
 Lim?" 
 
 "Yes, he might have kept some of them mush-utterin 
 fellers from talkin . They talked as no human being 
 ever talked on this earth and the faces they made at 
 each other would sour a mornin s milkin . But they had 
 some right good fiddlin . They played all the evenin 
 and didn t break a string. Dock Spillers, over here on 
 the creek, would have broke five or six in the same length 
 of time. But I guess they must be better fiddlers than he 
 is but I believe he can play louder. Mebby it is because 
 he generally has more room. He sets out on the shed and 
 
AT THE THEATRE 171 
 
 plays. Yes, I was disappointed in my trip. All of my 
 life I had been a longin to see Shakespeare played. But 
 turnin* from the book to the actin was like puttin aside 
 the Bible to listen to some jim-crow of a preacher I beg 
 your pardon, parson. I mean one of these fellers that 
 answers when the Lord has called someone else. Nobody 
 likes good preachin better than I do. But I want sincerity. 
 I want to be convinced that the preacher has himself been 
 convinced. And that was what them actors didn t do. 
 They didn t make me believe that they waVt actin . 
 They didn t tell me the truth; and you may have all the 
 music and all the pictures and fail to tell the truth and 
 you have accomplished nothin ." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 ON THE POKER PLAYER 
 
 OLD Limuel had occasion to remain over night at the 
 little hotel in the county town. After supper he observed 
 several men moving about mysteriously. They went 
 up the stairs. Not long afterward a young fellow came 
 down, spoke to old Lim and took a seat beside him. It 
 seemed that he was struggling with himself to keep quiet. 
 
 "Well, Harvey, how are you gettin along?" the old 
 man inquired, looking at him with a knowing eye. 
 
 "Oh, very well. Say, Uncle Lim, I came to town 
 rather hurriedly to-day and didn t bring as much money 
 as I needed and if you will let me have ten dollars till 
 to-morrow I ll be much obliged to you." 
 
 The old man looked at him. "Broke you about the 
 firsthand, didn t they?" 
 
 The young fellow strove to appear surprised. "Broke 
 me!" 
 
 "Ah, hah. I guess you picked up somethin you 
 thought couldn t be beaten. Three aces do look beau 
 tiful." 
 
 "Uncle Lim, I hope you don t think 3 
 
 "Oh, no, not at all. But I was just thinkin how putty 
 three aces look to the young feller that hasn t been playin 
 
 172 
 
ON THE POKER PLAYER 173 
 
 long. They are three delightful tunes made visible. 
 Each one is sweeter than the other one; and they are puttier 
 and puttier as the pot is raised until finally they go into 
 a sudden decline. And when some feller shows down the 
 power of mathematics or the potent glow of colours a 
 straight or a flush why then the north wind mourns 
 among the gravestones." 
 
 "Uncle Lim, I hope you won t say anything about it 
 out our way, but I was in a little game just now; and if 
 you will let me have ten dollars till to-morrow I believe I 
 can win out. The fellow just happened to make a flush 
 against my three aces, and " 
 
 "Yes, Harvey, and you jest happened to have the three 
 aces. Poker is a game just happened. And I know 
 exactly how you feel. Every nerve within you is tinglin* 
 to get back into that game. And the strike of a black 
 bass is nothin* to the thrill of fillin a hand. When you 
 have kings up, draw one card and ketch a king, it is like 
 the dawn of genius. It is the comin of spring all of a 
 sudden, and the burstin into bloom of all nature. The 
 candles have been lighted in the temple and you are ready 
 to worship, you are so grateful; but you don t think of the 
 feller across the table. Mebby he s got three aces. He is 
 listenin to their sweet tunes, and soon he is to hear the 
 mournin of the north wind. But you want the ten 
 dollars, don t you?" 
 
 "Yes, and you can count on it to-morrow." 
 
 "But why do you feel so confident that you ll win? 
 Just because you have lost ? The fact that you have lost 
 
174 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 is no proof that you ll win, my son. Bad luck is a sort of 
 stammerer; it repeats itself. The unlucky man is nearly 
 always the most hopeful, and he s at the disadvantage of 
 playin against his own temperament. If I were goin to 
 say that the devil had invented a phrase, I would say it s 
 this: Luck is bound to change/ And it is a wise old gag 
 of the man who said it did change got worse. But I ll 
 let you have the ten dollars." 
 
 "I thank you, Uncle Lim." 
 
 "I ll let you have it, but not until after I ve told you 
 somethin . I m not goin to give you a lecture, you under 
 stand. I don t believe in them very much. They seem 
 to come too late." 
 
 "But what is it you were goin to tell me?" 
 
 He moved uneasily and twice he held out his hand for 
 the money. The old man pretended not to notice his 
 growing impatience. "Yes, I ll tell you. You don t re 
 member your father very well, do you, Harvey?" 
 
 "No, sir, I wasn t more than five years old when he 
 died." 
 
 "Just about five, I should think. Well, your father 
 and I used to run together a long time ago. I was with 
 him when he married your mother. You were the youngest 
 of six." 
 
 "Yes, sir," 
 
 "Jim was a good feller," said the old man, turning a 
 kindly eye back upon the glowing past. "A good feller, 
 brave and generous and with the rest of the brave and the 
 generous he had his faults. One night Jim and a passle 
 
ON THE POKER PLAYER 175 
 
 of us got together in the back room of old Hinkley s store. 
 Jim said he couldn t stay long, but would play a few hands. 
 He had threes beaten the first hand and then he took off his 
 overcoat. It was a rainin and now and then there was a 
 rumble of thunder. I can recollect it better than if it 
 were last night. A raftsman named Patterson opened a 
 pot on trays and sevens. Jim your daddy had three 
 aces and raised him. Everyone else dropped out. Pat 
 terson began to study. Have you got that sort of a 
 hand? he asked, and Jim just simply pointed to his 
 money in the pot. Well, I don t know/ said Patterson. 
 Every time I poke my nose in somebody raises me, and I 
 don t believe they can have em all the time. Hanged if I 
 know where they get em. Well, I reckon I m beaten, but 
 I ll stand the raise just this once." 
 
 "He put in ten dollars and drew one card. Jim said 
 that he d draw down to em and took two cards. Patter 
 son bet a chip without lookin and Jim raised him twenty 
 dollars. Is it that bad ? said Patterson, slowly skinnin his 
 cards. Then his fingers slid down over his stack of chips. 
 I ll tap you, he said. Jim had about fifteen dollars more. 
 Well/ he said, you ve got it or you haven t. Either 
 one or the other/ replied Patterson. I ll call you/ said 
 Jim, and he put in what money he had. Patterson 
 showed down a seven full. That breaks me/ said Jim. 
 He was just about to get up from the table when someone 
 remarked, You ve got some money in the bank, haven t 
 you? Mighty little/ replied Jim. I ve got about fifty 
 dollars all told. Will you cash a check for me? The 
 
176 OLD LTM JUCKLIN 
 
 feller cashed it and the game went on. Putty soon a 
 hoss stopped in front of the store. Someone hollered 
 and Hinkley went to the door. When he came back he 
 said : * Jim, here s a nigger boy come after you. He says 
 your wife is sick/ It s not unexpected/ said Jim. Tell 
 the boy to leave the hoss and go on home through the 
 woods, and say I ll be there right away. Mebby I ll be 
 there before him. So the game went on. Every few 
 minutes Jim would say, Well, I ve got to quit after the 
 next hand, but he kept on playin*. In poker, you know, 
 it s hard to get up to the next hand. You are always on the 
 edge of the future, but the future itself doesn t come till 
 the game breaks up and then all is in the past. After a 
 while Jim won a pot or two. He said that his wife was in 
 good hands. We knew this was a fact and we didn t urge 
 him to go. At about one o clock he was within four 
 dollars of even. He looked at his stack and said it was 
 a godsend. Gamblers talk about the infinite, you know. 
 They are profane, weak and superstitious and they are 
 so lackin in reverence as to attribute good luck to the 
 highest of all sources. Well, after a while, when the win 
 ners were tired and ready to quit and the losers resentful, 
 Jim opened a pot on queens and sixes. Hinkley stayed 
 and drew three cards. Jim drew one of course and 
 caught a queen. This was his chance to cash in winner. 
 He bet five dollars and Hinkley raised him ten. He raised 
 Hinkley twenty-five and Hinkley tapped him for all he 
 had. Jim knew he was beaten, but after shifting about 
 said he had to call out of respect for his hand. He put in 
 
ON THE POKER PLAYER 177 
 
 all the money he had and old Hinkley spread an ace full. 
 I recollect that night, Harvey, and Jim never forgot it. 
 He started on home and news met him about half way. 
 You were alive, but your mother was dead. It was the 
 night you were born, Harvey. Yes, but I said I would let 
 you have ten dollars. Here it is." 
 
 "No, Uncle Lim," the young fellow replied. "I don t 
 want it. I won t play again you have saved me." 
 
 "I hope so, Harvey. And whenever you feel disposed 
 to play just picture that little country store and that hoss 
 a comin through the darkness. Don t let anything make 
 you forget it." 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 THE HORSE DOCTOR 
 
 THE sunshine had brought out the butterflies. They 
 seemed as bits of the golden day, fluttering low above the 
 earth. The weather had been cold and stormy. On the 
 hillsides the calves had moaned for spring and out in the 
 woods the hogs had rooted up the cold earth, looking for a 
 warm bed; but now the sun had come back again, and the 
 violet, timid lest the frost might bite at it, peeped blue 
 eyed from behind a brown leaf lodged against a bush. 
 They were sitting in front of the wagon-maker s shop, the 
 wise men of the neighbourhood. They had told their old 
 jokes. They had laughed at the things that happened in 
 their boyhood. And now they must depend upon imme 
 diate observation. 
 
 " Yander goes somebody a ridin over the county road," 
 said old man Carter, wagon maker, coffin maker, and 
 buryer of the dead. "I believe it s Dock Miller." 
 
 Every man got up, looked and sat down again. They 
 all of them agreed that it was Dock Miller. Moreover, 
 they knew that there was distress on someone s farm, for 
 Miller was a hoss doctor. A hoss doctor expects to be 
 called "dock." But the "folks" doctor resents it as a dis 
 respectful familiarity. He has more of education, per- 
 
 178 
 
THE HORSE DOCTOR 179 
 
 haps, than the hoss doctor, but he is not expected to 
 possess so much of native shrewdness. Therefore, what 
 he may chance to remark upon the ordinary affairs of life 
 does not carry the hoss-doctor weight. 
 
 " Jucklin," said Brizintine, "Dock Miller makes a good 
 deal of money, don t he ?" 
 
 "Don t know as to that," Limuel replied. "But I 
 believe that a man is quicker to pay a hoss-doctor bill 
 than a folks-doctor bill. I don t know why, it is true, but 
 true it is. Now there was old Dabney Stillman. The 
 family doctor used to sue him about every two years and 
 then had to compromise on corn and fodder. But he 
 always paid his hoss-doctor bills. Had no children jest 
 a wife and as women were rather plentiful and bosses 
 scarce out his way, why I reckon he thought he could get 
 a wife cheaper than a hoss. Shakespeare said put not 
 your faith in a boss s health; and I reckon this principle 
 must be sorter inherent in human nature, for no man can 
 count on how long his hoss is goin to be with him. Can t 
 tell as to a human bein s health, either; but somehow the 
 average farmer ain t so much concerned in him. We pray 
 for the recovery of our friends, but a man looks foolish if 
 he s caught prayin for a hoss to get well. That brings up 
 Buck Goodall. I was a passin along through his woods 
 one day and I heard him a talkin in a mumblin sort of 
 way, and I didn t quite gather what he was about until it 
 broke upon me that he was a-talkin to the Lord. I sat 
 down on a stump and waited for him to get through, as I 
 had a little business with him. And putty soon I dis- 
 
180 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 covered that he was a prayin for his old gray mare to get 
 well. I snickered like, and Buck he jumped up and 
 turned on me. Look here/ says I, ain t a man got a 
 right to sneeze ? But I couldn t put it off that way. He 
 swore that I had sneaked up there to listen and to make 
 fun of him; and I wish I may die dead if I didn t have to 
 knock him down to make him understand that I didn t 
 mean any harm. Hoss doctors are queer characters," he 
 added, dismissing Buck from his mind. 
 
 "They don t always tell the truth," remarked the wagon 
 maker. 
 
 "Well," Lim replied, "they don t always know the 
 truth. They are not real hoss lovers, you know. They 
 don t look for perfections but for ills. When we see a 
 hoss a comin we look for his graces, the way he carries his 
 head, his manner of puttin down his feet; but the hoss 
 doctor is searchin for disease. His art lies in distemper. 
 If he cares for his profession he must think more of disease 
 than of health. One argues his uselessness and the other 
 makes him necessary. And after a while he looks at the 
 whole world as if it were a sick hoss. The day is never 
 perfect. It s got a blind tooth. All nature has the glan 
 ders. The folks doctor is more or less compelled to be 
 good humoured and inclined to joke, for a part of his skill 
 is thus exerted and expressed. But a hoss doctor may 
 joke all he pleases with the master and it won t help the 
 hoss. He s got to get right down to cold facts, and cold 
 facts rarely warm up with good humour. With all of his 
 usefulness the hoss doesn t express very much. He takes 
 
THE HORSE DOCTOR 181 
 
 the world putty much as he finds it. He never laughs as 
 a dog does. That s the reason he doesn t live long for his 
 size. You can t exactly tell whether he s glad to see you 
 or wants to kick you. And sometimes when you have 
 been kind to him ten years he reaches around and bites a 
 piece out of your arm. I don t know of a thing that I 
 wouldn t rather be bitten by than a hoss, unless it s a hog. 
 A hoss has a vicious twist to his bite. He bites as if he 
 never expects another opportunity. He doesn t give out 
 any sign that he s goin to bite, either. He stands, slowly 
 winkin his eyes shuts them, opens them, and bites. A 
 mule bites putty bad, but he s quicker than a horse and it s 
 sooner over with. And again, you don t mind killin a 
 mule as much as you do a hoss. It is not unusual for the 
 bite of a hoss to change a man s disposition for life. 
 Mebby that s the reason the average hoss doctor is so 
 melancholy. It is no easy matter to give a hoss medicine, 
 either. And when he s sick nothin is sicker. From him 
 comes the expression, as sick as a hoss. Nothin can 
 look more woebegone, unless it s a sheep. We carry about 
 with us the reflection of our occupation." 
 
 "I don t know as to that," spoke up the coffin maker 
 and the buryer of the dead. "Nobody can say that I m 
 not good humoured." 
 
 "Yes," replied Lim, "you are good humoured, for it is 
 a reaction. Your sadness has been forced upon you for 
 the sake of appearances. Your job is melancholy, but it 
 is a job and you get paid for it, and it is not in human 
 nature that a man should feel very sad over his success in 
 
182 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 business. When you get through your good humour 
 rises, of course. No such reaction comes to the hoss 
 doctor. He can t very well laugh at the hoss. The 
 owner would resent it. He must show no pleasure what 
 ever. But he must hold out hope as long as he can. He 
 says that he will call again the next day, and when he 
 comes it is not a surprise to find the hoss dead. A hoss 
 doesn t mince matters when he makes up his mind to die. 
 In this regard he does not respect the skill of the best 
 hoss doctor in the world. And when the hoss has 
 died you can t look upon the dock s comin with any 
 pronounced degree of welcome. Oh, yes, the hoss doctor 
 is a useful member of society, but I don t envy him. 
 Whenever he starts out to swop bosses the regular hoss 
 trader cheats him. He could beat the trader swappin 
 diseases, but the trader knows more of hoss nature. He 
 looks for the spirit of the animal. The hoss doctor is a 
 materialist. Nearly all folks doctors are more or less 
 that way. There ain t many of them that set great store 
 on the immortality of the soul. The study of anatomy 
 has taught them to say, show me. But whenever you 
 find one that does believe in the soul he is the best. He 
 knows that many of the diseases lie almost wholly in the 
 mind, and I take it that the soul and the mind are closer 
 kin than brothers-in-law. I had a sick hoss once and 
 sent for a dock that lived over the other side of the ridge. 
 Well, he bled him and loosened the hide on both of his 
 shoulders, and poured a gallon or so of salt water into his 
 nostrils and told me that if he wa n t any better the next 
 
THE HORSE DOCTOR 183 
 
 mornin to let him know. About two months afterward 
 I met him in town one day, and he says, Hello, is that 
 the hoss I doctored? No, I replied, this is his half 
 brother. The other one is all right, I suppose ? Well, 
 he was the last time I saw him/ said I. He was lyin 
 over on the hillside. Why, I told you to let me know in 
 case he didn t get any better. Yes, but he was better 
 until about the time he was dead, and then I didn t think it 
 necessary to tell you. Then he presented his bill, and I 
 believe he made it bigger out of resentment against the 
 fact that the hoss died. Yes, takin it all in all, I don t 
 know of a sadder man than the average hoss doctor. The 
 expression of hoss laugh doesn t come from him." 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 "TANNHAUSER" 
 
 A SPRING freshet and the washing away of a railroad 
 bridge poured out an opera company upon the country 
 town. Soon was spread about the news that the manager 
 was going to give a performance of "Tannhauser." There 
 was great excitement. No town of this size had ever been 
 so distinguished. Surely the rain had come as a favour of 
 the gods to the village of Purdy. And how fondly the 
 community loved music! It could boast of many of the 
 most active and tireless fiddlers in the state. Its singing 
 societies were numerous, and it was not unusual to find 
 a lad of fifteen that had mastered the entire system of 
 "buckwheat" notes. At church it was given out that 
 the opera was to be enacted and sung on the following 
 Tuesday night. Torn Balch, president of the North 
 Run Harmony Club, rode about the neighbourhood 
 selling tickets. So great was the interest of the housewife 
 that in several instances eggs were exchanged for paste 
 board. Ah, at last the people were to be enlivened and 
 elevated by that great harmony so often spoken of in the 
 newspapers. Old Brizintine bought a ticket. He swore 
 that there was not a man in the neighbourhood that could 
 catch a tune quicker than he. He never went to a revival 
 
 184 
 
"TANNHAUSER" 185 
 
 that he didn t come away whistling a hymn. Once a 
 flatboat concert company had tied up at a landing on his 
 farm. He had not charged the company for the use of 
 his land. He was more than paid in music. One of the 
 company could sing high or low, just as the case might 
 be; and his imitation of a foxhound beat anything ever 
 heard in that part of the country. Dan Mahoney had 
 heard it five miles away, and old Steve Hortner, two 
 miles distant, had run to his door in the hope that he 
 might see the fox. "And I reckon this company s got 
 one to beat him all hollow," said Brizintine. 
 
 "I don t know," replied the postmaster. "Here comes 
 old Limuel. Maybe he can tell us somethin about it." 
 
 Jucklin came up, took a seat on the horse block, democ 
 racy s common throne, told a boy to look out or he might 
 hurt himself running along and shoving a stick in front 
 of him, and then inquired of Brizintine if he were going 
 to the opera. 
 
 "Me? Well, I ve got my credentials right here," Briz 
 answered. " Couldn t keep me away with a ten-foot pole. 
 And as soon as I hearn that they were goin to give us a 
 chance to taste their fruit I says to my wife, says I, 
 Emerline, that means me. I haven t paid much atten 
 tion to these circuses, and I stayed home one night and 
 shelled a turn of corn rather than go to the minstrels; but 
 when they come with the grand opery that means me. 
 That s what I said to her." 
 
 "Is your wife a goin with you ?" Lim inquired. 
 
 "Well, no, she lowed she d take her money and buy 
 
186 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 a new pair of quiltin frames. She s a smart woman, 
 Lim, but she don t care particular for music. I used to 
 blow a flute before I lost so many of my teeth, and she 
 always told me I d better be a plowin . It fretted me at 
 first, but we can t all be artistic. You like music, don t 
 you, Lim?" 
 
 "I lick it up the same as molasses. Music is the syrup 
 of the mind. It is energy gone to sleep, a dreamin . If 
 the soul is like a rose music is the perfume." 
 
 "I m glad to hear you say that, Lim," Briz replied. 
 "Me and you don t always agree, but when it comes to 
 the great principles we stand putty much on the same plat 
 form. Now some folks ain t educated up to high music. 
 But it don t make no difference to me how high they sing; 
 I can stand on tiptoe and reach the notes. I ll drap by 
 for you, and we ll go together." 
 
 Never in an expectant neighbourhood did time move 
 slower. But Tuesday dawned and night finally spread 
 over the earth. Old Lim and Briz were in front of the 
 hall door an hour and a half before it was opened. Mrs. 
 Jucklin had refused to come. "I have hearn about them 
 ballets and that high kickin , and such carryin s on don t 
 mix well with the church," she had said. "If Limuel 
 wants to forget that life s serious, let him. I ll have none 
 of it." 
 
 When the door was opened the narrow stairway was 
 instantly jammed. Every seat in the house was taken. 
 In the aisle a rocking chair was placed for the county 
 judge. When everyone had been seated he, this ever- 
 
"TANNHAUSER" 187 
 
 playing fountain of wisdom, arose and declared that lie 
 desired to say something. "We are assembled for a 
 purpose," said he. This sage remark evoked not a mur 
 mur. "We are here," said he, "not to honour, but to be 
 honoured. The opera we are to see and hear to-night 
 will, I have no doubt, soon establish itself as a favourite in 
 our midst. It comes to us as a reward for our love of 
 music, and soon our young ladies will be playing it on their 
 melodians. I move three cheers for these singers." 
 
 Three cheers were given, and then the curtain arose. 
 There was no orchestra. Sam Buck, fiddler, had offered 
 his services. But as he couldn t play by note, and as he 
 had never heard the tunes, his offer was passed up. 
 
 "Now I begin to feel that life s worth the livin ," 
 Brizintine whispered to Jucklin. 
 
 "I need a little more evidence yet," Limuel replied. 
 The county judge sat for a time with one hand behind 
 his ear, to harvest and garner the sound, but soon dis 
 covered that this was unnecessary. Then came a noise, 
 as if someone had struck a circular saw with a sledge. 
 
 "They seem to be rebuildin that railroad bridge," 
 said Jucklin. 
 
 Brizintine winced. "I d like to tell em we ain t deef," 
 he replied. 
 
 Uproarous time went on. The people looked at one 
 another. "And I gave up a settin of eggs for this," an 
 old woman whispered. 
 
 "Briz," remarked Lim, "if you find the tune pass it over 
 to me." 
 
188 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Oh, they ll git to it after a while," Briz replied. "That 
 feller there in that auctioneer suit come in one of hittin* 
 it then." 
 
 Old Limuel scratched his head. "There ain t 
 a child that can sleep in this town to-night while 
 this is a goin on," said he. "Why, confound it, 
 they are makin fun of us. I can t understand a word 
 they say." 
 
 "Of course not," interposed the barber, sitting behind 
 him. "They are singing in German." 
 
 "Well, what right have they got to do that?" Briz 
 demanded. "I move we make em sing it out plain or 
 hush up. We don t know but they are talkin about us. 
 Jest listen at that feller whoop and bawl. I ve got a steer 
 that I could match against him." 
 
 An hour passed. Another act began. Briz arose. 
 "Where are you goin ?" Limuel asked of him. 
 
 "Thought I d go around to the livery stable to curry 
 my horse." 
 
 "Don t need curryin , does he?" 
 
 "No, but I d ruther do it than to stay here." 
 
 "Believe I ll go with you. I don t want to curry a 
 horse, but as I want music I may find a cow somewhere 
 that has lost her calf. I want her lowin to take this taste 
 out of my ears." 
 
 They went out. On the sidewalk there were a number 
 of boys, eager for a peep at the show. "Is it a good 
 show, Uncle Lim ?" one of them inquired. 
 
 "I won t say as to that, boys. But I will say that not- 
 
"TANNHAUSER" 189 
 
 withstandin the fact that the railroad killed my colt I m 
 sorry their bridge washed away." 
 
 The two old men went over into the courthouse yard 
 and sat down. "First night s work I ve done in a long 
 time," said Briz. " Lim, is that what they call music ? " 
 
 "Yes, but don t come when they have called it. It 
 jest confirms a belief that I ve always had, Briz that 
 the public is a liar. Whenever music tries to tell a story, 
 except the sweet or sorrowful story of the heart, it has 
 missed its office. And if what we heard to-night is edu 
 cation let me take ignorance in my arms and kiss its warm 
 lips. I like to hear a thunderstorm, for that tells the story 
 of the angry clouds. I don t dislike to hear cats a fightin 
 out in the dark I can stand a yard full of guinea hens 
 but I don t want any more music that they call educated- 
 They might as well call rheumatism an enlightened 
 emotion. Tuther day a feller out in the river a swimmin 
 was taken with the cramp, and he hollered. They 
 ought to get him to sing in this opery. Well, Briz, I 
 reckon we d better sneak on home." 
 
 "What are you goin to tell your wife, Lim?" 
 
 "Why, when she asks me what it was like, I ll go out 
 into the kitchen and knock down the dishpans." 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 THE RAINY DAY 
 
 SINCE dawn the clouds had been gathering, and it was 
 still early when there set in an all-day s rain. Man and 
 beast turned toward shelter, and the muffled bird sat on 
 the limb, close against the protecting body of the tree. 
 Along the road the traveller had no need to urge his willing 
 horse, for onward the animal splashed, eager to reach a 
 dry place, protected from the surly clouds, where with 
 eyes shut he might stand, to dream. It was on a Saturday. 
 Toward this day of promise, of happiness in the free woods 
 along the creek, the children had fondly looked; but now 
 bright hope had been drenched with water and bedraggled. 
 The door of the old log schoolhouse had never known 
 a lock. The leather latchstring hung without, jewel- 
 tipped with a drop of water. Within the hated books lay 
 scattered about, things of loathing now, but in years to 
 come, in the drizzling days of murky age, to be looked 
 back upon as angel wings that sweetly fanned the perfumed 
 hours away. With finger dipped in ink a grammar-hating 
 boy had written on the wall his name destined perhaps 
 in future years to give authority to many a document of 
 State. 
 
 Several men, coming from different directions, ap- 
 
 190 
 
THE RAINY DAY 191 
 
 preached the house, hastening to get under cover; and 
 soon within there were gathered old Limuel and some of 
 his friends. "About as moist a day as I ve seen in some 
 time," said he, spreading his dripping shawl on the back 
 of a bench. 
 
 "And it s goin to interfere with spring plowin ," Briz- 
 intine replied, sitting down with a sigh. 
 
 "That sigh, Briz, comes from the fact that you ain t 
 a doin of the plowin yourself," said Lim. 
 
 "Why, what difference does that make, Lim?" 
 
 " A good deal, I tell you. The man that does the plowin 
 isn t likely to sigh over the fact that rain drives him to the 
 house for a few hours rest." 
 
 "I m not that lazy," Briz replied. 
 
 "Oh, no, you ain t lazy at all; but lots of men that are 
 not lazy are willin enough to see it rain, when we don t 
 particularly need the moisture, if it gives them an oppor 
 tunity to sit down. Now the only real enjoyment that a 
 person has in this life is in thinkin . Pleasure is in the 
 mind, you know; and with the rain there comes a certain 
 atmospheric condition that somehow fetches a man closer 
 up to his mind. Thought is more creative on a rainy 
 day. Great poetry don t come out of the sunshine, but 
 out of the mist and the rain." 
 
 "Well, I don t know about that," spoke up a fellow 
 named Talbert. "There was Jim Horn Pike that lived 
 down in my neighbourhood. He set right out on the 
 railin of the bridge, in the sunshine, and writ poetry about 
 the fight they had over at the dance at Tarver s, and he 
 
192 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 found a word to rhyme with every name, too. Squire 
 Goodall said it was about as good poetry as he had read 
 that spring, and the Squire is a scholar saw him add 
 up two columns of figgers at once." 
 
 Old Limuel smiled. " Poetry is mystery and there 
 isn t any mystery in sunshine," said he. "The cradle 
 song is the sweetest and most appealin because it is sung 
 in the night when there is mystery away out on the hill 
 side and along the creek. A rainy day is the time of man s 
 greatest creation. It is theft that the doors of his mind 
 are open when he is most willin to receive as guests the 
 ideas that are wanderin about in the air. And did you 
 ever notice that nearly all folks are of the same age when 
 they sit a listenin to the rain?" 
 
 "I haven t made any such such noticement as that," 
 said Briz. 
 
 "I reckon not," Lim replied. "But some of the most 
 beautiful truths of the soul have escaped the notice of a 
 good many men. When the strings on the fiddle are in 
 tune they are all of an age, until one of them breaks. A 
 rainy day seems to tune the strings of this life; and the 
 boy and the old man listenin to the patter and the drip, 
 breathin the softened breath that comes from the woods, 
 from the undiscovered caves, from the nooks where the 
 birds live the boy and the man in their meditative silence 
 are of the same age. The mind turns backward, and the 
 mind that can go back no farther than a few years seems 
 just as old as the mind that flies back over half a century. 
 That s the way it seems, you understand, and although we 
 
THE RAINY DAY 193 
 
 are told that things are not what they seem, yet the thing 
 that seems is an illustration of the truth, the spiritualism 
 of a fact nobler sometimes than the bare truth, for it 
 gives scope and speculation to the fancy. Look at each 
 one of you now, in a dream, caused by the clouds, the 
 soothin patter of the water. Life they say is a dream; 
 and the rainy day is the dream of the dream. It is Nature 
 playin* music for herself." 
 
 " Brings on aches and pains," said Briz. 
 
 "The aches and pains come just before the rain," Lim 
 replied. "And the rain comes to cure them. Briz, I 
 don t see how it is that you can work up enough imagina 
 tion to worship the Lord. You are about as matter-of- 
 fact a cuss as I ever saw. Do you ever dream when you re 
 asleep?" 
 
 "Yes, dreamed tuther night and I woke up a hollerin 
 and wife she yelled at me. I dreamed that I was snake 
 bit; and there s somethin in dreams, too, I tell you, for 
 the very next day a snake struck at me. Don t you 
 believe there s somethin in dreams, Lim ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. Now there was Tab Moseley. One evenin 
 about sundown his well caved in, and it worried him 
 mightily, for lie hated to clean out a well worse than any 
 man you ever saw. He went to bed early to get it off his 
 mind, and some time after he dropped off to sleep his wife 
 heard him a groanin . But she didn t pay any attention 
 to him. She was mad at him in advance, for she knew he 
 was goin to neglect the well. In the mornin she had to 
 call Tab three or four times before he d get up to breakfast, 
 
194 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 and when he came he stretched and groaned and com 
 plained of bein tired. But she didn t pity him any, for she 
 knew it was an excuse to git out of the work that stared him 
 in the face that day. She asked him if he was a goin to 
 clean out the well, and he hemmed and hawed and said 
 that he didn t feel able. She lit into him and told him he 
 wa n t any account. And he said, All right, I ll acknowl 
 edge it if you want me to, but I ll be blowed if I m goin 
 to fool with that infernal well to-day. They quarrelled 
 and snapped at each other for some time and finally went 
 out toward the well, still a quarrellin ; and then they 
 looked at each other in silent astonishment, for there was 
 the well cleaned out and the stones all put up in the right 
 place. Well, I ll be hanged if I didn t dream that I 
 worked at this thing all night/ said Tab; and his wife she 
 tittered and lowed, You got up in your sleep and went to 
 work at it, and knowin that you never would do it except 
 in your dreams I just let you dream on. And ever after 
 that, when she wanted anything done about the house, 
 she d call out to Tab, Come, now, get a dream on you. 
 Yes, Briz, there s a good deal in dreams in rainy-day 
 dreams. Who knows but that the greatest progress of the 
 world can be traced to the rainy days? One hour of 
 thought can lay out enough to keep a thousand hours busy 
 with action. The rainy day is the architect of the buildin s 
 that go up in the sunshine. And I want to say this to 
 you young fellers: If the girl you go to see loves the 
 rainy day she has soul and is to be tied to. If she hates 
 the rain it is because her mind is set on gaddin about, and 
 
THE RAINY DAY 195 
 
 therefore beware of her. Companions in rain com 
 panions everywhere. Make it a point to do your courtin 
 durin rainy weather. After all it is the soul that makes 
 things bright, and there is nothin so beautiful as a light 
 heart shinin through the gloom. What are you dreamin 
 about, Briz?" 
 
 "Why, I was a thinkin about that feller that worked 
 in his sleep. I would like to have him learn me how it 
 comes, for I d do all my work that way. Well, I guess I d 
 better be goin , rain or no rain. The chances are my 
 wife ll be as mad as a wet hen when I git home." 
 
 "I reckon you must have done your courtin durin a 
 drought," said old Lim. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 ON FUNERALS 
 
 "!T is a putty risky matter to tell the exact truth all 
 the time," said old Limuel to the young preacher, the Rev. 
 J. Abner Smithson. They were sitting in front of the 
 blacksmith s shop, beneath a dogwood tree in bloom. 
 Within the shop the smith was nailing iron on the hoofs 
 of the preacher s horse. The company was not large, 
 but of course included old Brizintine. Abner J. Smithson 
 was cultivating, in this the first six months of his circuit 
 riding, the propriety of solemn expression. He had attuned 
 his voice to melancholy, had mastered the necessary sad 
 ness of eye, and was now shaping his general attitude 
 toward woebegoneness. He had not yet reached the 
 happiness of the Gospel, that cheerful acceptance of 
 Galilee, that most uplifting of all philosophy, the Sermon 
 on the Mount. "I think that all the truth is due at all 
 seasons and at all hours of the day and the night," he 
 replied, casting a sorrowful look upon old Lim. 
 
 "Well, with a certain amount of leeway," said Lim. 
 "When they asked the Saviour if he would pay tribute 
 to Rome he could have said yes or no, but he looked at 
 the image on the coin and said, * Render unto Csesar the 
 
 196 
 
ON FUNERALS 197 
 
 things that are Caesar s/ That was a sort of leeway. 
 The most effective truth can be told by an illustration, 
 and yet it would seem like a dodgin of the truth. The 
 apparent shift brings out the brightest colours of the 
 truth. Now, Abner, suppose you were called on to 
 preach the funeral of our old friend, Brizintine. Would 
 you tell the truth?" 
 
 "What do you want to drag me into it for?" Briz spoke 
 up. "Do you always need me to fetch out your p ints?" 
 
 "No, not always," said Lim. "You ain t particularly 
 useful in the illustratin of a truth, but you are generally 
 close about and help us to fetch things home. Yes, and 
 now, Abner, suppose Briz was dead and " 
 
 "I object," Brizintine interposed. 
 
 "Of course you object," said Limuel. "You ve been 
 objectin a good many years, tryin to homestead as many 
 days as possible, stakin out the weeks and foreclosin 
 on every month you can; but the time is a comin when 
 you- -" 
 
 " Can t you talk about somethin a leetle more cheerful, 
 Limuel?" Briz insisted. 
 
 "Oh, this is cheerful enough. Yes, Abner, suppose 
 Briz was dead and you were called on to preach his funeral. 
 Would you tell the exact truth about him?" 
 
 "I could find many good things to say in his behalf," 
 the youth replied. 
 
 "Yes, that s to be supposed. But would you tell the 
 folks that the worst beatin I ever got in a hoss swap I got 
 from him ? And on a Sunday at that ? Would you tell 
 
198 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 em that him and me had fit roosters in a barn by the light 
 of a tallow candle ?" 
 
 The young preacher sighed. His sigh was not as yet 
 fully developed, but he was improving. He sighed and 
 said: "I should not mention such foibles." 
 
 "This here subject is like a hot potato and I wish you d 
 drap it," said Briz. 
 
 "What," Limuel spoke up, "don t you want to serve 
 in the interest of truth ? Jest keep quiet a while. Foibles, 
 eh, Abner? Well, now, life s putty much made up of 
 foibles. That part of a human which is most human is 
 a foible. Of course Briz don t know what a foible is 
 he lows mebby it s somethin to eat, but we ll let that go. 
 No, sir, Abner, you d git up there and rare and snort 
 over what a good church member Briz was, jest as if 
 goin to church and acknowledgin that the preacher had 
 put forth a powerful effort was the sum total of life. You d 
 say he loved his feller-man, when the fact is he loves a 
 hog better hog s jowl and mustard greens. And durin 
 the time we would set there and agree with you, knowin 
 that we were all liars. Now Briz he is all right putty 
 much my sort of a man, cusses when he feels like it 
 and a man that don t has got a good deal of the hypercrit 
 in him; don t work on Sunday, it s true, for he don t 
 hanker after work at any time. Just a natural sort 
 of a man and yit if he was to die you d make him 
 a saint. There has been more lies told in preachin 
 funerals than in makin love and they wa n t half as 
 necessary." 
 
ON FUNERALS 199 
 
 The youth sighed. "All funeral orations are not lies/ 
 he said. 
 
 "No, mebby not. And now I remember one that was 
 the truth. Bill Henly used to live down the river and 
 owned nearly all that country. He was a great traveller 
 and a smart man. Well, one day he went to a preacher 
 and says to hire, says he: Parson, do you think you 
 could preach a truthful funeral sermon? Without a 
 moment s thought the preacher said he could. I think 
 so, too/ replied Henly that is, after I give you the points. 
 And if you bring em out just as I give em to you, why, 
 I ll pay you what it is worth. Now listen and mark me. 
 Nobody in the neighbourhood knows the age of this man 
 nor his name. So far as we know he never told his age, 
 never uttered a lie, never cheated, never talked about his 
 neighbours, never voted the wrong ticket, never did a 
 thing objectionable, so far as we know. He is at my 
 house. I have invited a few friends. Come over and 
 preach his funeral/ Well, the preacher went. A few 
 people gathered under the trees in the yard. The coffin 
 was placed on two chairs. The parson stepped forward 
 and looked at a bit of paper on which he had taken down 
 all that Henly had said. Then he began, and he stuck 
 to his text for quite a while, but after a time he began to 
 wander off. He towered in his praise of the deceased. He 
 saw that Henly was pleased and he went further. He 
 took inspiration from Henly s countenance. He knew 
 that this was some poor old stranger that Henly was 
 buryin* out of charity. And when he got through with 
 
200 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 him Henly shook his hand and said: Good bully/ 
 The parson was sorter astonished. Do you want some- 
 thin* said at the grave ? he inquired. 
 
 " No/ said Henly, I m not goin to bury him just 
 yet. He s cost me so much I m goin to keep him a while. 
 Would you like to look at the man you have talked so 
 familiar about ? The parson lowed he would, and Henly 
 took the lid off the box. Inside there was the old feller 
 an Egyptian mummy. The folks they tittered and the 
 preacher didn t like it. He said Henly had fooled him. 
 No/ said Henly, I gave you the facts and you fooled 
 yourself/ And Briz," old Limuel added, "I should 
 think the best way to preach our funerals would be to 
 wait about five thousand years after we are dead. That 
 length of time seems long to the livin , Abner, but to the 
 dead it ain t a minute. And if Julius Caesar should awake 
 he d say, Oh, no, I haven t been asleep jest dozed off 
 a little. The church is improvin all the time, Abner; 
 sends fewer children to everlastin torment, but it hasn t 
 reached a point yit when it can afford to tell the truth 
 at a funeral. To tell the truth wouldn t be jest to 
 the liars that are left livin . There is one thing the 
 preacher always thinks he can say of a deceased 
 and tell the truth, and that is to call him a useful 
 citizen. And the fact is, after he s dead the neighbour 
 hood improves." 
 
 The youth sighed again. "Ah, Mr. Jucklin, since 
 we have supposed the case in the er fictitious death of 
 Mr. Brizintine, let us be truly absurd and suppose that you 
 
ON FUNERALS 201 
 
 were to preach your own funeral oration. What would 
 you say?" 
 
 "He has got you now," laughed Briz. 
 
 "Not necessarily," Lim replied. And after a moment 
 he continued: "Why, Abner, I d say somethin like this: 
 Old Limuel Jucklin lies here before you. He never 
 claimed even to have shaken hands with a saint. If he 
 didn t do the best he could he tried to make himself believe 
 he did. But the Lord is a better jedge of him than he 
 was of himself. Amen. " 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 ON STRIKES 
 
 IN the neighbourhood there lived a young fellow named 
 Sam Buckner, Recently he went to the city to uncover 
 the fortune that lay hidden, biding his time. While he 
 was waiting for the train, in the country town, some of his 
 neighbours, and particularly the old men who had never 
 been away from home, offered him advice. All agreed 
 that he must be honest. All rich men were honest for a 
 long time. He must be industrious, for of itself industry 
 was gold. If he could not find a job at good pay take one 
 at poor pay. It was better to work for nothing than to 
 be idle. Sam inquired of old Limuel if he had anything 
 to offer. 
 
 "Well, yes," said the old man, "but I ll give you my 
 advice after you get back home." 
 
 A few weeks later Sam returned. He had just come out 
 of a hospital. His head was bandaged and he walked 
 with a limp. Old Limuel was among the neighbours 
 that called on him. "The city didn t appear to agree 
 with you," said he. "How did all this happen ?" 
 
 The young man sat in a rocking chair. His mother 
 hovered about him, urging him to drink some sort of tea, 
 
 202 
 
ON STRIKES 203 
 
 
 made of herbs gathered in the garden. Limuel told her 
 
 to sit down and rest herself. She sat down reluctantly. 
 Whenever her intuitive eye saw a pain coming she would 
 start up to head it off. "Let him tell us/ said Limuel. 
 
 "Wish the blamed town was blowed up," groaned the 
 young fellow. 
 
 "Couldn t you git work?" Brizintine inquired. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I got work you bet I did. It was this way. 
 Not havin any particular trade, you know, I had to look 
 round a little after I got there. I found a boardin house 
 and went to bed early, as I was tired. Next mornin I 
 went out to find work. I met a well-dressed feller and he 
 sorter looked at me and then asked me if I wanted a job. 
 I told him he was my friend. He asked me if I could drive 
 a wagon, and I told him I looked on a horse as I did on 
 pie when I was hungry for sweet stuff. He said, follow 
 me/ and I followed him. We came to a big store and there 
 was a crowd about it and I thought this feller must be 
 doin a whalin business. He showed me the wagon he 
 wanted driv . Two horses were hitched to it, and I says 
 to em, Boys, your master has arivV One of the horses 
 looked at me and sorter grinned, I thought. The other 
 one didn t say nothin . Well, another feller got on the 
 w r agon to tell me where to go, he lowed. And then I took 
 up the lines and driv off. I had heard what a hard time 
 some folk had struck a gettin work, and I thought it was 
 comin easy for me. I hadn t asked the boss what he 
 was goin to pay. He said he d make it all right with me, 
 and that seemed fair enough. Well, I hadn t driv more 
 
204 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 than a hundred yards when some fellers run out from 
 some place I didn t know where and yelled, scab. I 
 says, * that s all right, fellers, but I ain t sore. One of 
 em said I would be the first thing I knowed. By this 
 time the feller that started out with me was gone and the 
 next minute there came bricks and pieces of iron. I said, 
 Quit that, you might hurt somebody. I was used to 
 playin , but that looked sorter rough to me. But they 
 kept on. Quit, I says, you might hit me, and about 
 that time off of the wagon I went, with a brickbat bouncin 
 from my head. Then here come the fellers. They 
 wallowed me, they beat me and when I come to I was 
 in what they call a hospital. That s all there was to it. 
 There was a strike." 
 
 "And it was a shame to beat my son," said the mother. 
 "What right had they to act that way? I should like to 
 know what sort of mothers they had." She saw another 
 pain coming and got up to head it off with her tea. 
 
 "Set down, ma am," said Limuel. 
 
 "The good-for-nothin things," she said, sitting down. 
 "And I jest like to know if a man hasn t got a right to 
 work." 
 
 "Well, at times," said Lim. "Of course nobody had a 
 right to hit Sam with a brick 
 
 "He had his best clothes on, too," the old woman broke 
 in. "I told him to change em as soon as he got there." 
 
 " Best clothes don t make much difference with men on 
 a strike," said Lim. "The trouble is with what we call 
 our democracy. We have invited men to come from all 
 
ON STRIKES 205 
 
 parts of the world; we have called this land the home 
 of the oppressed. And when the ignorant furriner gets 
 here we tell him he s free for the first time in his life and 
 ask him how it feels. He says it s all right. Our politi 
 cians begin at once to make speeches at him. They tell 
 him that he and liberty are twin brothers. They talk to 
 him along this line until he begins to believe that law is 
 his enemy. Of course all the brick throwin ain t by men 
 of furrin birth, but the furriners appear to be the most 
 violent after they get started. You can reason with an 
 American." 
 
 "Didn t reason with me," said Sam. "Didn t ask for 
 no argument and I am an American." 
 
 The old woman rushed at him with a dish of tea as black 
 as the juice of a devil fish. He dodged and Limuel 
 again prevailed upon her to sit down. 
 
 "Secession was a hard thing to settle," said Limuel, 
 "but it was child s play compared with the labour ques 
 tion." 
 
 "I don t see why it ought to be so hard," Briz spoke 
 up. "If you don t want a man to work for you why all 
 you ve got to do is to tell him so." 
 
 "Yes, it might appear that way, but it ain t," Lim 
 replied. u This thing of individual right enters in; and 
 behind individual right there stands a giant, and his name 
 is Selfishness. Every man claims the right to look out 
 for his own interest. That sort of foliage grows on the 
 constitution. And, in this shade, we all take refuge. But 
 how far can a man go, lookin out after his own interest, 
 
206 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 without running into the interest of some other feller? 
 The men that threw the bricks at you, Sam, might ordi 
 narily have been peaceful citizens. They violated the 
 law in what they thought the defense of a principle. 
 They set up the principle that no man should drive one of 
 those teams until their differences had been settled. You 
 came along and " 
 
 "But I needed work," Sam protested. 
 
 "Yes, but that didn t make any difference with them. 
 They would have hit you just the same if they had known 
 you were on that wagon to keep from starvin . And this 
 is just where the trouble is goin to come in their belief 
 that they ve got the moral right to kill a feller to keep him 
 from breakin the strike. All the laws in the world won t 
 convince them that they haven t this moral right. The 
 employer knows that justice tells him that he may conduct 
 his business to suit himself. He built it up. While other 
 men workin men, too were enjoyin themselves, at a 
 show or a dance, he was a walkin the floor and a worryin* 
 over the best way to extend his trade, to shove it in advance 
 of his competitor. The law says to him, Go ahead and 
 employ anyone you please and I ll protect you. But 
 when the trouble comes the law finds itself unable to pro 
 tect him. The striker is also a part of the moral force 
 of the law. He has a vote and he outvotes the em 
 ployer, too. That s why the men who administer the law 
 are slow. They ain t afraid of the striker s brick but of 
 his vote." 
 
 "But what s to come of it all ?" Briz inquired. 
 
ON STRIKES 207 
 
 "That s where you ve got me," Limuel answered. 
 "And that s also where you ve got the wisest men in the 
 country. It began with human nature and nobody can 
 foresee the end. Both sides believe that they are right. 
 But honesty itself ain t always right. It may be selfish. 
 And now, Sam, I ll give you that advice I said I would 
 after you got back. The next time you go to town and a 
 feller asks you if you want to work, find out if there s a 
 strike on; and, if there is, walk. Don t even ride on a 
 wagon. It s better to be out of work than in a hospital." 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 ON THE COUNTRY FIDDLER 
 
 ONE evening while old Limuel was entertaining a party 
 of friends at the Jucklin homestead, the darky woman 
 who for more than a generation has baked the family corn 
 bread came in and whispered to Mrs. Jucklin. 
 
 "The good-for-nothing," said the mistress of the house. 
 "Why on earth doesn t he go to work? Limuel, that 
 triflin Bill Somers wants a side of bacon." 
 
 "Well, let him have it," said the old man. 
 
 "But he s no account on the face of the earth," she per 
 sisted ; and the old man agreed that with this statement she 
 had swept the field clear of argument. Then he added, 
 speaking to the Negress : " Give him a middlin of meat 
 one big enough to founder him and mebbe he ll let me alone 
 for a while." The woman went out and Limuel explained 
 that Bill Somers was a fiddler from over the creek. "And," 
 said he, "I don t know of anybody that is much less 
 account from the industrial point of view than the country 
 fiddler. He spends the most of his time in neglectin the 
 things he ought to do. Everybody sneers at him, and yet 
 the neighbourhood couldn t get along without him. With 
 out him there couldn t be any dancin ." 
 
 The young preacher was present. He sighed an art 
 
 208 
 
ON THE COUNTRY FIDDLER 209 
 
 which he gave promise of carrying to a high state of devel 
 opment. The girls said that his sigh was so sweetly 
 melancholy. The old men allowed that it showed depth. 
 To the old women it called up the memories of trouble 
 and was therefore a virtue. So the young man sighed 
 and said that while it was far from him to condemn any 
 man, yet he thought that the fiddle was a jack-o -lantern 
 that had led many a soul to perdition. "Dancing, Brother 
 Jucklin, has never benefited a community." 
 
 "That may be true," Limuel admitted, "but music 
 benefits man, and man dances because it is a sort of body 
 music. The most of the folks that dance are light weight, 
 I must acknowledge, but they act out the music and it is 
 from this source that they get their enjoyment. In one of 
 the old books I bought at a sale not long ago I read this : 
 Every human feelin is greater and larger than the excitin 
 cause a proof that man is designed for a higher state of 
 existence; and this is deeply implied in music, in which 
 there is always somethin more and beyond the immediate 
 expression. All nature struggles to express music the 
 thunder of the heavens is a music the singin of a bird 
 and the chirrup of a cricket. Man sings, and he made 
 such a bad job of it as a general thing that he had to call 
 in other means to get his emotion out of him, so he in 
 vented instruments, the fiddle bein the chief among them. 
 It is a singular thing that while nearly everybody likes to 
 hear a fiddle well played, but few people are wilhV to 
 admit that the fiddler is any account. It would make no 
 difference how much money a feller might earn with his 
 
210 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 fiddle, the American, especially in the country, would look 
 on it with a sort of smile. It wouldn t look like the money 
 was as honestly earned as if the feller had dug up stumps 
 for it. But I don t think, parson, that music leads souls 
 to perdition. I don t see why it should. Now David 
 stood pretty well with the Lord, didn t he?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," the minister answered. "He was an- 
 nointed." 
 
 "Well, David liked music and it was noised about, from 
 what I can infer, that he danced." 
 
 "Ah, but it was a different sort of dance," the preacher 
 objected. 
 
 "Yes," said old Lim, "mebbe it was, for fashions in 
 dancin* change as time goes on. But speakin of the 
 fiddler: I think that in his way he serves the Lord as well 
 as anybody. The movement of music within him shows 
 that his soul ain t stagnant. Over in the Bald Knob 
 neighbourhood there used to be a fiddler named Josh 
 Norris. An acquaintance caught him lyin in bed one 
 mornin after the sun was up, and of course that branded 
 him as bein no account whatever. But he was good 
 lookin , had curly hair, and one of the comliest girls in 
 the community became his wife. It appeared to be a 
 love match. She said that all the happiness she desired 
 was to sit down and have Josh play for her. And this 
 was exactly what Josh did. The weddin* presents had 
 been mostly things that could be eaten, and when they 
 were all devoured the young wife hinted that Josh ought 
 to look around for somethin to do. About that time he 
 
ON THE COUNTRY FIDDLER 211 
 
 broke a fiddle string, and he walked five miles to get 
 another; but the next day it was too hot for him to do any 
 work, so he sat down and fiddled. It did begin to look 
 like he wa n t no account. His wife reproached him and 
 he looked up from tunin his fiddle and said, What, I 
 thought you married for love/ Well, I did/ she acknowl 
 edged. All right, you ve got it, hain t you? She was 
 a spirited woman and she drove him to work. Then, 
 havin established her superiority over him, she set in to 
 scoldin him whenever she wa n t feelin well. When she 
 turns, the most affectionate woman makes the most active 
 scold. Havin a warm nature, she can think of more hot 
 things to say, and when you fancy she is about to leave 
 off she has just begun. One night Josh slipped away 
 and fiddled at a dance; and when he came home he didn t 
 know he d got there. But he was there, sure enough, 
 and when he awoke thoroughly he was tied to the bed 
 post and she was a larrupin him with a peach-tree sprout. 
 After this he was so afraid of her that he d dodge every 
 time she d move her hand suddenly. She took it into her 
 head that he didn t love her and reproached him with 
 it. Love you/ said he; why, I m almost tickled to 
 death with you/ Then she sat by the fire and cried, and 
 Josh he went to bed and drapped off to sleep. When he 
 awoke she was a givin it to him with the peach-tree sprout. 
 She called him a brute to be sleepin there while she was 
 a sufferin all alone. Josh might have been lackin in 
 industry, but she wa n t. Things got to be so bad that he 
 decided to scare her into treatin him better. He almost 
 
212 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 decided to go to work, but not quite. He was an ingenious 
 feller, and one night he rigged himself up to resemble old 
 Satan. He got him a pair of horns and rubbed em with 
 the foxfire scraped from a dead log and smeared it on 
 em till they looked like two flames. He blacked himself 
 up, and havin skinned a boss that somebody shot be 
 cause it had broke its leg, he put on the skin, with the fore 
 hoofs a danglin in front. He was a sight to see. His 
 wife had gone over to a neighbour s to tell the women 
 folks how miserable she was. Josh walked along the road 
 to meet her. And after a while here she came. He met 
 her at the turn of the road. The moon was full. Stand 
 right where you are, said the devil. If you run I ll 
 ketch you ; and the woman stood, for she was unable to 
 run, she was so frightened. I want you, he said. I 
 have found that you are unhappy in your marriage and 
 I want you to marry me. I ll take you down below with 
 me. Think about it and I will come for you later. The 
 devil disappeared, and when the woman reached home 
 Josh was sittin by the fire, dozin . Did you have a nice 
 time? he inquired, and she says, says she, Oh, you 
 know I never enjoy myself without you. This was a fact 
 and Josh grunted. Then she began to cry and to kiss 
 him. She said he was the best man that ever lived. She 
 asked him if he would want her to marry anyone else, 
 and he replied, No one on this earth, and her eyes stuck 
 out, I tell you. How she did hug him and kiss him; and 
 she asked him if he wouldn t play her a tune. Months 
 had passed since she had let him scratch his fiddle in the 
 
ON THE COUNTRY FIDDLER 213 
 
 house, but he lowed that he might saw out a note or two. 
 Well, she fell in love with him all over again, and they 
 might have been happy for a long time if he hadn t slipped 
 off a footlog one night while he was a comin from a dance 
 and drowned himself." 
 
 "I fail to deduct any particular moral from your story/ 
 said the minister. "The fiddle was the cause of the fel 
 low s death." 
 
 "But isn t that moral enough?" The old fellow 
 laughed and his wife shook her head at him, slowly and 
 sadly. "No," said he, "a neighbourhood couldn t get 
 along very well without its fiddler. While he s fiddlin he 
 doesn t talk, and this prevents a great deal of lyin . Every 
 other man in the community thinks himself better than the 
 fiddler, and it is a virtue to make folks satisfied with them 
 selves." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 * 
 
 ON SYMPATHY 
 
 THE young minister was the president of the Eclectic 
 Society. He had brought the word with him into the 
 neighbourhood. It had a good sound, was well suited 
 to an intellectual movement, and was adopted by a vote 
 of twenty-six to three. Old Briz had held out against its 
 adoption. He said that, though not exactly opposed to it, 
 he thought that in a matter of such importance they ought 
 to go slow. But when convinced that it did not favour 
 one religious denomination more than another he agreed 
 to adopt the name. One of the first questions discussed 
 by the society was sympathy. The young minister read 
 a paper and then called for "views." No one offered to 
 say anything. "Ah, Brother Jucklin, haven t you, out 
 of your rich fund of experience, a few words for us?" the 
 young preacher inquired. 
 
 "Well," said old Lim, "I don t know that I can add 
 anything. I don t think we have gone at the discussion 
 part exactly right. I ll illustrate. I recollect once that 
 after the death of a member of our lodge a passle of us met 
 to say pleasant things about him. And, sittin about in an 
 informal way, everyone was free and interestin in his 
 talk. A hundred little incidents were called up, showin 
 
 214 
 
ON SYMPATHY 215 
 
 that Brother Jackson had been a good and tender-hearted 
 man. But as soon as the gavel fell and called the meetin* 
 to order embarrassment sealed the lips of everyone that 
 got up and attempted to talk. And so it is now. We 
 can sit around and talk about the subject of sympathy, 
 and some of us might find a good thing lyin hidden away. 
 But if we get up and address the meeting why, we are 
 embarrassed. But I reckon it s true, as you say, that it s 
 sympathy that really rules the world. Man gives away 
 in sympathy what he gathers together in selfishness. War 
 is a horrible thing and its conception may be the selfishness 
 of the few, but after all the force and the sweepin power 
 of it is the sympathy of the many. It was sympathy that 
 brought on the Spanish War." 
 
 "What do you understand as sympathy?" the minister 
 asked, not that he desired to know, but because the ques 
 tion was fitting. 
 
 "Sympathy," said the old man, "is the vapour of love. 
 I hope you won t ask me to explain what I mean by this. 
 It is a feelin expressed in words, but which can t be 
 reasoned out to a common-sense conclusion. Music is 
 a sympathy that one nerve has for another, and hence we 
 have what is called harmony." 
 
 Old Briz scratched his head. 
 
 Old Lim continued. "Sympathy is of a more spiritual 
 quality than generosity. The ignorant are even more 
 generous than the learned, but they ain t as sympathetic, 
 for sympathy draws upon knowledge; we must understand 
 conditions in order to sympathise. Now, Briz, when you 
 
216 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 meet a man that wants a chaw of tobacco, you know exactly 
 how he feels. But do you, brother?" he inquired of the 
 preacher. 
 
 "I of course could not, I might say, explore the de 
 mands of his pernicious habit," the minister replied, 
 "but I should know how to reason with him toward the 
 end that he ought not to have the tobacco." 
 
 "No doubt of that," old Lim agreed. "But right at 
 that place true sympathy would not halt to reason. It is 
 not reason that the man wants. Sympathy demands 
 knowledge, but not reason. Reason wants to argue, and 
 without his tobacco a man that s in the habit of usin 
 it hasn t got command of his faculties. So, sympathy 
 would give him a chaw of tobacco and then reason with 
 him wouldn t desire to take advantage of him, you 
 know." 
 
 "I don t think your argument is good for the young 
 people," said the minister. 
 
 " Well, I don t know that the best arguments are in 
 tended for young people. If they were so intended, and if 
 the young folks could understand them, they would know 
 by the plight of the man that had permitted tobacco to 
 master him that he had done himself a great harm. But 
 gettin back closer to sympathy reminds me of somethin* 
 that came into my own life. Years ago I was travellin 1 
 away out in a lonesome part of the country when I came 
 upon an old Negro diggin a grave. He was cryin fit to 
 break his heart. On a log not far off sat a white man 
 with a gun lyin across his knees. I stopped and asked the 
 
ON SYMPATHY 217 
 
 old darky why he cried so. Is the grave for some near 
 relative? I asked. And he turned his woebegone face 
 toward me and said: 
 
 " No, sah, it s fur me/ 
 
 " For you? Is it possible? How do you know you 
 aregoin to die? 
 
 "He pointed toward the white man. Ask him. 
 
 "What s the trouble here? I inquired. The white 
 man got up and approached me. No trouble at all/ 
 he answered. There was trouble, but it is now over 
 with. This nigger, Sam Pruett, owed me ten dollars. 
 Every week he promised to pay, but didn t. He knowed 
 I was what they call a bad man. He knowed that I had 
 killed half a dozen white men and that I hadn t kept track 
 of the niggers that I d caused to shuffle off; still he wouldn t 
 pay me. So this mornin I went over to his cabin and 
 told him to git his spade and follow me. He done so and 
 when we had got down here I told him to dig his grave. 
 He knows me he knows that just as soon as he gets that 
 grave done I m goin to shoot him. 
 
 My dear sir, is it possible that you 
 
 "Don t want no lecture from you, he broke in. I 
 know my business. 
 
 "The old Negro turned to me: Marster, fur de Lawd s 
 sake, doan let him kill me. I ain t ready to die yit. Dar s 
 my ol wife wid nobody ter take kere o her an I ain t 
 ready yit ter stan befo de great Marster o all. I can t 
 pay de ten dollars I ain t got de money. De folks 
 roun yeah is all afeerd o dis man da knows he d ruther 
 
218 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 shoot er human bein den er dog, an so da s erfeerd ter 
 go atter de law. An sides dat da s po an can t pay off 
 de debt. Laws er massy, whut s ter become o mel 
 
 " You ve talked long enough/ said the man, and I 
 could see that his gun was cocked. You are an old thief 
 and you ought not to pester the face of the earth. Hurry 
 up. I ve got other matters to attend to after I get through 
 with you/ 
 
 "Look here/ said I, if there s any law in the country 
 I ll have you dealt with for this. 
 
 "He laughed. Oh, there s law enough. And I ll 
 show you where to find it. My brother is the circuit 
 judge, my son-in-law is the sheriff and the juries are 
 mostly drawed from folks that are kin to me. About how 
 much law do you want to find ? 
 
 "The Negro dropped down in his grave and began to 
 pray. The white man moved up a little closer and 
 raised his gun. Hold on/ I commanded. He lowered his 
 gun. Well, what do you want now ? he inquired. 
 
 " How much does this poor old man owe you? 
 
 " Ten dollars. Get out of the way. 
 
 " Hold up, I tell you. Now listen to me a moment. 
 Will ten dollars satisfy you? 
 
 " Yes. I m an honest man, Mister, and I only want 
 what s due me. This nigger owes me that amount and 
 I ve figgered that his death would be worth about that 
 much to me/ 
 
 " But you ll accept the money, won t you? 
 
 " Yes, I d just as leave have the money/ 
 
ON SYMPATHY 219 
 
 " Well, here it is. I couldn t afford it, but I gave him 
 ten dollars, and the poor old darky leaped out of the grave, 
 dropped on the ground and hugged my legs. All that day 
 I felt good over havin paid that ten dollars. I looked on 
 it as the best investment I had ever made. And that night, 
 in the little mountain hotel, I sat thinkin about it, when 
 the talk of two travellers fell on my ears. Yes/ said one 
 of them, I paid the ten dollars and saved his life. So 
 did I about an hour later, the other one laughed. Then 
 the landlord tittered. It s such a good joke that we 
 never warn a feller/ he said. All of us have been caught 
 and that white man has bought a plantation and the nigger 
 owns a dozen mules on the strength of it. I was mad 
 enough to have put both of the scoundrels in one grave, 
 but I said nothin . Yes, sir, sympathy is a great power." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 ON INQUISITIVENESS 
 
 IN the country when neighbours get together they 
 inquire of one another: "What ever became of old So 
 and So?" They know what became of him; they have 
 discussed him more than a hundred times, but they know 
 that the question as to what became of him prompts some 
 one to tell stories about him, stories that they have heard 
 so often as to be able to foretell what is coming, word for 
 word. 
 
 It was a lazy afternoon. Beneath the trees, the grass, 
 headed out, was nodding sleepily. Off in the sky a buz 
 zard floated, like a sombre memory in a mind otherwise 
 clear. Along the road an ox cart creaked its dry-axle 
 way. Old Limuel sat on the ground with his back against 
 an oak. A bandana handkerchief showed red in his hat 
 that lay beside him. On the sward several young fellows 
 were sprawled, one of them holding a tuft of grass in his 
 mouth, as if he were too lazy to spit it out. Old Brizintine 
 was talking about a pair of shoes that had lasted him for 
 more than a year, when another ancient resident, with 
 hairy chest exposed, a glimpse of winter stubble, inquired 
 as to what ever became of old Rodney Salem. Every 
 one looked to Lim. The old man spoke: 
 
 220 
 
ON INQUISITIVENESS 221 
 
 "That feller could ask more questions than a boy out 
 with his grandfather. This would naturally argy that 
 after a while he d be compelled to know something but 
 he never did. With him inquiry didn t result in wisdom. 
 It didn t result in anything but more inquiry. I recollect 
 once that an Englishman came to the town of Purdy, the 
 first one that was ever seen there, I reckon. He wasn t 
 dressed so different from other men, but the minute he 
 talked everybody stopped to listen. He had travelled a 
 good deal, necessarily, but with it all he was an innocent 
 sort of a man. He was sitting in front of the hotel when 
 old Rodney Salem came along. He sat down on a bench 
 and asked the Englishman if he didn t think it was going 
 to rain. The Englishman answered that he didn t know, 
 he was sure. Old Rodney looked at him a while and then 
 asked him where he was from. 
 
 " From London, sir/ 
 Ah, hah ! Well, what s the news in your settlement ? 
 
 "The Englishman started as if a brier had raked him: 
 I don t know, I m sure. 
 
 "Rodney studied for a moment. Old town, ain t it? 
 he inquired. 
 
 Heavens, yes, man! 
 
 I lowed so from all I d been able to gather. On a 
 river, ain t it? 
 
 " Yes, on the Thems. 
 
 " Suffer much from high water? 
 
 " Not at all. 
 
 " Have no trouble with June rises? 
 
222 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 " None whatever, sir. 
 
 " Cypress trees growin along the banks, I reckon. 
 
 "The Englishman looked at him and said nothing. 
 Old Rodney went on : I lowed they must be June rises, 
 for I hearn somethin about a tower there, and I thought 
 mebby it was built so as to give the folks a chance to git 
 up out of the way of the freshet. 
 
 "The Englishman looked at him pityingly and said: 
 No one knows when the tower was built/ 
 
 " Mighty nigh as old as the river, I reckon. Ain t 
 there a man livin there named Gladrock? 
 
 " Do you mean Gladstone? Well, yes, you might say 
 he lives there/ 
 
 " About the smartest man in town, ain t he? 
 
 " A very able man, sir/ 
 
 " Got mortgages on the whole neighbourhood, I reckon/ 
 
 " Really, my dear sir, you are very, very peculiar, I 
 must say/ 
 
 " Needn t say it unless you want to. May I ask what 
 your business is here? The Englishman started again, 
 but answered: I m here to look at timber/ 
 
 " Political timber? Wall, yander goes Bill Mason, 
 candidate for sheriff, about as good timber as we ve got/ 
 
 " Trees, sir/ 
 
 " Oh, trees. Don t want to buy a possum dog, I 
 reckon? 
 
 " I do not/ 
 
 " I ve got one that never told a lie in his life. Is the 
 Queen a right sociable sort of an old lady, sir? 
 
ON INQUISITIVENESS 223 
 
 " Sir, exclaimed the Englishman, you are unendura 
 ble. I am a guest of this hotel. Evidently you are not. 
 Therefore, will you please leave me ? 
 
 Excuse me/ said Rodney. I didn t want to tech 
 on anything unpleasant. If she ain t sociable mebby it 
 ain t her fault. See the Prince of Wales right frequently, 
 I take it. 
 
 " I have seen him, sir/ 
 
 " Along about six feet ten high, ain t he? 
 
 " Will you go away and leave me? 
 Excuse me if I have pried into family affairs, but 
 I m sociable. Did you happen to know Shakespeare? 
 They tell me he is a great writer. But I ll bet you our 
 county court clerk can come up to him. His name is 
 Withers, and he can write all day without makin a blot. 
 Do you know 
 
 "The Englishman jumped up, seized Rodney by the 
 collar, wheeled him around and kicked him into the 
 street. Rodney got up, takin his own time about it, 
 too, and said: If you ain t busy next week, mister, I d 
 like to hire you to thrash my wheat. 
 
 "But you were asking what became of this feller. He 
 kept on asking questions, year in and year out, and 
 apparently never knowin more than when he started. 
 Finally he got all the information he could get about here 
 and then took his load of ignorance off down somewhere 
 in Alabama. And when he was down with his last sickness 
 he wore out the doctor with his questions. One night 
 he said: Dock, do you think I ll live till mornin ? 
 
224 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 The doctor told him that it wasn t likely. Then about 
 how long? Till twelve o clock? Say, then, ten minutes 
 to twelve. I ought to live till then, oughtn t I? What 
 particular part of my machinery seems to be givin way 
 most at this minute? Why, I feel putty strong but I 
 can t hear very well. Between my ears and everything 
 there seems to be a silence so thick that it can t be pierced 
 through. Lean down, Dock, I want to ask you a ques 
 tion. The doctor leaned over, but Rodney didn t say 
 anything; and the doctor looked at his watch and said: 
 And it ain t twelve o clock quite. 
 
 One of the young fellows remarked: "But, Uncle 
 Lim, how is a man ever to know anything unless he in 
 quires?" 
 
 "My son, there s a difference between inquiry and 
 questions. Inquiry is silent; questions are generally asked 
 not for the purpose of gamin knowledge, but because 
 some feller wants to hear himself talk. The inquisitive 
 man is usually the idlest man. Questions are a form of 
 laziness breakin out. The laziest man is usually the 
 greatest talker. Wisdom is sometimes so busy with itself 
 that it keeps silent. You can always hear ignorance. It 
 asks questions when it can t invent anything else to say. 
 The worst thing for a young man just startin out is to 
 want to hear his own voice. Because his employer is 
 polite enough to listen he imagines that his talk is winnin 
 a place for him, but nine chances to one he ll be the first 
 feller discharged. The habit of not askin too many 
 questions is a sort of wisdom itself. The readiest talker 
 
ON INQUISITIVENESS 225 
 
 ain t the best companion. The man that causes you to 
 think is the best companion, for there is nothin more 
 pleasant, more thrillin than the birth of a thought. When 
 ever an old man conceives a new thought he is for the 
 moment young again." 
 
 "But, Uncle Lim, how is it with woman? Is her best 
 companion the one that causes her to think?" 
 
 "Look here, young feller, waVt old Rodney Salem 
 kin to you?" 
 
 "He was my grandfather." 
 
 The old man arose. "Much obliged to you for the 
 information," he said. "Good day." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 ON THE PAST 
 
 AT the home of the oldest inhabitant there had been 
 a golden wedding. A fiddler from over the creek had 
 played "Billy in the Low Ground." Young women, 
 handing pies about the room, had smiled upon young 
 men. Mule colts over in the lot bit at the horses tied to 
 the fence. The moon was full, a pie ready to cut. The 
 young people withdrew themselves to play "Weavely 
 Wheat" and "Old Sister Phceby." The old folk began 
 to talk about the past. Old Dan Mott said that the 
 world had long ago seen its best day. 
 
 "That s a fact," Brizintine spoke up. "Why, do you 
 know that steers can t pull as much as they used to could ? 
 It s a fact." 
 
 It was in order for a neighbourhood wit to remark 
 tha,t he didn t believe that eggs were as fresh as they were 
 in the olden day. No matter who it was to make this 
 observation it was sufficient to establish him for the occa 
 sion as the wit of the community. Now it was made by a 
 sandy-haired fellow who had narrowly escaped the pen 
 itentiary, years before, having been brought to trial on a 
 charge of stealing a calf. Men who had heard the saying 
 a thousands times clapped their hands and one of them, 
 
 226 
 
ON THE PAST 227 
 
 as was expected, cried out: "Why, Jake, when did you 
 rise up? We didn t expect that much wit from you." 
 
 "You may fetch out all the wit you please," said Briz, 
 "and it won t alter the fact that what I said is true. Life 
 ain t what it was." 
 
 "And it never has been," spoke up old Limuel. "In 
 this world there never was but one glory, and that was 
 the past. The apples found in the dewy grass of the 
 orchard long ago were sweeter than the apples out in the 
 grass now." 
 
 "Oh, I expected you to turn it off," replied Briz. "But 
 you can t deny it." 
 
 "I m not denyin it; I m sayin that it s a fact," said 
 Limuel. "All the argument possible to bring forth can t 
 convince the average old man that the world hasn t been 
 goin down hill for the past forty years. And the oldest 
 book you can find will tell you that such was the case as 
 far back as it could record. Man started fallin . About 
 one of the first things that Adam discovered was that his 
 foot had slipped. And the next thing he knew he was 
 down and out." 
 
 "But you must acknowledge," remarked the golden 
 bridegroom, "that the Lord repented that He had made 
 man." 
 
 "Now let me tell you about that," Limuel replied, 
 scratching his head for time. "It sorter reads that way, 
 but the Lord knew what He was doin in the first place, 
 for if He hadn t He wouldn t have made man. His pur 
 poses reached further than the creation of merely one 
 
228 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 man. If He couldn t see further than that, He was an 
 experimenter and not an All-Mighty and an All- Wise. 
 He kept on creatin man and man kept on a slippin and 
 a slidin till " 
 
 "Limuel," spoke Mrs. Jucklin, "you ll go too far the 
 first thing you know." 
 
 " Susan," said he, "if a man reasons himself too far 
 he still has enough sense left to ask forgiveness. But as 
 I was say in , the Lord kept on creatin man until He 
 made Solomon, one wiser than any that had gone before; 
 and I lay you that the men that stood about the throne of 
 Solomon looked back to the time when life was worth 
 livin when man was wiser and honester. The high 
 point of this world has always been passed. But the fact 
 is that history hasn t yet got out of the sunrise. It will 
 be thousands of years yet before we reach the noontide. 
 Creation is still rockin in the cradle of its infancy. It 
 may be a thousand years hence before man understands 
 the full meaning of the Saviour. You may speak of this 
 as a money-gettin age, but it ain t more so than when 
 the Saviour was sold for silver. All ages that we have 
 any record of have been money-grabbin ages." 
 
 "That may all be," remarked old Mrs. Nancy Bales, 
 "but it don t seem to me that the cows give as much and 
 as rich milk as they did a long time ago. I was talkin* 
 to my husband about it the other night and he was forced 
 to agree with me." 
 
 "He wa n t forced to agree but was glad to," Limuel 
 answered. "And," he added, after a moment s reflec- 
 
ON THE PAST 229 
 
 tion, "your granddaughter s cows won t give as much 
 milk as yours does, and I reckon her granddaughter s 
 cows will dry up entirely/ 
 
 "It wouldn t surprise me in the least," the old lady 
 spoke up. "And what the people will do for butter the 
 Lord only knows." 
 
 Mrs. Jucklin looked at her husband, nodded and said: 
 "There, what can you say to that?" 
 
 "Oh, nothin at all, and I didn t expect to before she 
 said it. But, Briz, don t you think there are more things 
 to make life easy in general now than there were when 
 you was a boy?" 
 
 "No, I don t," Briz answered without hesitation. 
 
 "Well, nothin has been taken away and a good many 
 things have been added." He scratched his chin. "It 
 seems to me that too much advice is given to the young 
 and not enough to the old. Youth is full of hope; age 
 is the time of regret, and it is the regretful that need help. 
 This takes me back to what I have often thought and 
 sometimes remarked, that the book is the only real help 
 and hope for the aged. Everything wears out but wis 
 dom. The barn becomes empty, but the book is a store 
 house that is always full. It is man s past and his future." 
 
 "Well, now as to that," said Briz, "half the things you 
 read ain t true." 
 
 "That may be, but when you read a thing that ain t true 
 your mind is called on to estimate whether it is or not, 
 and this gives you somethin to think about it keeps the 
 mind young. Somebody said that the ignorant mind 
 
230 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 ought to congratulate itself, for it has room for a great 
 thought to enter in and stay there. And there ain t 
 nothin more beautiful to me than ignorance tryin to 
 learn. Learnin is progress, and as long as a man can 
 learn he ain t old. Keep the mind young and the body 
 will show its gratitude. Wise men worry, it is true, but 
 that part of them that worries is not the wisest part. 
 Every man is a miracle. The greatest doctor can t explain 
 the mystery of himself. And as long as a man learns he 
 adds to the mystery and therefore keeps up his youth. 
 The right idea is never to feel that you are quite ripe, for 
 then decay sets in. Turn toward ripeness but don t 
 reach that stage. The perfume of the apple is sweetest 
 the minute it begins to turn ripe." 
 
 "Oh, it s all well enough to talk," said old Mrs. Nancy 
 Bales, "but I know jest as well as anything that a sweet- 
 potato pie ain t as good as it used to be. They have lost 
 the knack of makin em, somehow." 
 
 "But ma am, your granddaughter may say different." 
 "Gracious alive, Lim Jucklin, she won t eat em at all." 
 "For the reason, ma am, that she s got somethin bet 
 ter." 
 
 Here an old fellow pointed to the golden bride and 
 bridegroom. "Do you think the world is as good to 
 them as it was fifty years ago to-day ? " 
 
 "Well, the old man may not be able to eat as much 
 baked shote and the old lady may not like pickles as well, 
 but they are nearin the fulfilment of their destiny and 
 ought not to be unhappy. For them the end can t be far 
 
ON THE PAST 231 
 
 off, it is true, but it is the end that all animate nature looks 
 to, and a thing that s so natural can t be much of an evil. 
 Man has always been finding wisdom enough to dispute 
 the existence of a future life; but the really great ones have 
 believed in it, not so much because they wanted to live 
 again as for the reason that they didn t see how that some- 
 thin within them could be destroyed. Believe I ll take 
 another piece of that peach pie, if you please." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 ON EATING 
 
 THE Hon. Bill Dick Bugg, candidate for the legislature, 
 gave a dinner to the leaders of the men who were undoubt 
 edly going to elect him they said. Having had no experi 
 ence in politics Mr. Bugg was thought to be an honest 
 man. They gave to him the title of "Honourable" for 
 the sufficient reason that once when the president of the 
 State Fair Association gave a talk in the village church, 
 Mr. Bugg introduced the speaker with a few most happily 
 chosen remarks. This was the beginning of his can 
 didacy for the legislature. The idea for a dinner came, 
 he said, in the nature of an inspiration. He was walking 
 about in his woods pasture, not thinking about anything 
 in particular, when as suddenly as the well-worn lightning 
 out of that old familiar and clear sky, the idea flashed 
 upon him that it would be well to give a dinner. He did 
 not halt to debate with this inspirational suggestion. 
 Such flashes, proving a higher state of existence either 
 heretofore or hereafter, are not to be plied with prosaic 
 questions. So, Bugg struck a trot for the house. Into 
 the kitchen where his wife was patching *a milk 
 strainer with a piece of thin cloth he burst, even as 
 suddenly as the inspired idea had broken in upon 
 
 232 
 
ON EATING 233 
 
 his own mind. "Kate," he said, "we are going to give 
 a dinner." 
 
 She was a woman of strength. She had met many an 
 unexpected shock, but now she dropped the strainer and 
 exclaimed: "For the land sake!" 
 
 Well, the dinner was given, and there were present more 
 than one notable of the neighbourhood. Shang W. 
 Mowlett, editor of the county paper, drove out from the 
 village of Purdy. The Rev. Mr. Haney, recalled to the 
 circuit after an absence of one year, was early upon the 
 scene. "The good wife" of the candidate hoped that the 
 brother had brought his appetite with him, and when 
 opportunity offered, the brother proved to her that he 
 had. The table was set beneath a mulberry tree. Upon 
 the white cloth the shadows of the wavering leaves wove 
 fantastic shadows, or at least such was the observation of 
 Miss Paulina S. Beck, teacher of the neighbourhood school. 
 She murmured this conceit to the Rev. Mr. Haney, and 
 with fitting seriousness he cleared his throat and said that 
 in his opinion she had undoubtedly struck upon a poetic 
 if not a profound truth. Present among them was a 
 baked shote, known as a peach-orchard barrow, lean, 
 active and possessed of much juice. He had been browned 
 to a mouth-watering crisp. Along toward the fag end of 
 the feast the candidate talked eloquently of his prospects; 
 and having been assured of his election, intimated that 
 conversation on other topics might not be out of order. 
 "Mr. Jucklin," said he, "what do you think of eating in 
 general?" 
 
234 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 "Overdone more than almost any other necessary thing," 
 the old man answered. "Nature has given man a good 
 deal of judgment and has endowed the brute creation with 
 instinct, but neither judgment nor instinct always serve 
 to keep man and beast from gorgin themselves with food." 
 
 "Ah, you would seem to make gluttony as much of an 
 evil as drink," spoke up Mr. Haney. 
 
 "Yes, a more universal evil physically. Eatin is a 
 more individual evil, it is true; but it is a great evil just 
 the same. A man that eats too much dulls his brain, and 
 renders his body inactive." 
 
 "But does not abuse his family," said Mr. Haney. 
 The schoolma am smiled. 
 
 " Well, it might not seem so, but is it a fact ? Too much 
 food makes a man ill-natured. Digestion is the seat of 
 good-humour. An overloaded stomach doesn t inspire 
 cheerful words. The meanest man I ever knew never 
 took a drink of liquor, but it would have strained a hog 
 to keep pace with him in the eatin line. Delicate men 
 often live longer than men of powerful constitution for 
 the reason that they are forced to be careful with their 
 eatin . Nearly every man develops his appetite beyond 
 his ability. I knew a feller once that was always com- 
 plainin because he hadn t much of an appetite. He was 
 as well as anybody, but he was deprived of the keen and 
 prolonged enjoyment of the table. Finally he got hold 
 of some spring water that whetted his appetite. Then he 
 rejoiced. He could eat as much as the next man. He 
 said he had just begun to live. But pretty soon rheuma- 
 
ON EATING 235 
 
 tism came along and gave him a twist. Then kidney 
 trouble hopped on him. He began to diet, and died 
 hungry, I reckon. I see a good deal of talk about folks 
 hurtin themselves by athletics. The fact is that violent 
 exercise causes them to eat too much, and this is one of 
 the causes of the evil. Not far from Purdy some fellers 
 from a city off somewhere cleared a set of golf links. Old 
 men came to play. They had spent their lives humped 
 over their desks. After a while the old chaps began to 
 drop dead just after dinner. They had declared that 
 their appetites were better than for years past. I heard 
 one remark that he could eat as he had when a boy. As 
 a man begins to grow old he ought to lessen the amount of 
 his food. He should eat oftener and not so much at a 
 time, like a child." 
 
 Old Briz sat looking at him. "But oughtn t a man to 
 eat when nature tells him to ? " 
 
 "Yes," Lim answered, "but not as much as artificial 
 nature demands." 
 
 " But how is a man to know ?" 
 
 " By quittin before he feels that he has got enough. If 
 you stop just a little hungry you ll find about ten minutes 
 afterward that you left off at the right time. Some of the 
 best things ever written were penned by men in prison 
 where they couldn t get much to eat. When they got out 
 and were feasted, they put aside the inspired pen and wrote 
 afterward with a blunt stick. For the same reason poverty- 
 stricken authors have done such bright work. More brilliant 
 thoughts have come out of the garret than the palace." 
 
236 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 Mr. Haney took issue. "Some of the brightest remarks 
 have been after-dinner speeches," said he. 
 
 The old man shook his head. "They sound well at 
 the time, when ears are keyed with wine; but the after- 
 dinner brightness is generally a story remembered some- 
 thin originated perhaps by a hungry feller." 
 
 "What about the eating of meat ?" Mr. Haney inquired. 
 "Would you advise vegetarianism?" 
 
 "Well, some folks think it s wrong to deprive any 
 creature of life, in order to satisfy our appetites. And 
 for a long time Benjamin Franklin thought so, too. But 
 once when he saw some men dressin fish he observed 
 that the big fish had swallowed the little ones. Then he 
 thought, Well, if you eat your kin why shouldn t I eat 
 you? And he did. I reckon it s necessary to eat some 
 meat. If you don t you are in a fair way to make a creed 
 for yourself, and this can t help reducin man to narrow 
 ness. Briz, I reckon you recollect old Andy Gorin ? This 
 shote reminds me of him. One time it was given out that 
 there was to be a great political barbecue over in the 
 woods, across the creek. Oxen and sheep were to be 
 cooked whole. I met old Andy and he lowed he was 
 goin to save himself for the occasion. Well, the day 
 drawed around, and early in the mornin I saw old Andy 
 walkin toward the big woods. I asked him if he had 
 saved himself, and he said he was never as hungry in his 
 life. As I looked at him I knew he would do that meat 
 justice. There was a great crowd. At the signal there 
 was a rush. I saw old Andy snatch a hunk of meat that 
 
ON EATING 237 
 
 looked like it had been chopped out with an axe. Then 
 he disappeared. Along toward night as I was goin on 
 home I heard someone groanin . I turned aside and 
 looked about, and there was old Andy lyin under a tree. 
 I asked him what was the matter. 
 
 "Go on away/ he commanded. I was a fool. 
 
 "But I oughtn t to leave you this way/ 
 
 "Go on, I tell you. I ate like a wolf and I deserve to 
 die. 
 
 "I went on away and left him, and he died right there." 
 "Limuel," said Mrs. Jucklin, "the Lord knows I m 
 
 lookin forward to the time when you may be able to tell 
 
 the truth." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 A DINNER AT TALBERT S 
 
 YOUNG TALBERT had returned from college. Old Tal- 
 bert invited the neighbours to break bread with the 
 scholar. The day was warm and the table was spread 
 beneath a tree in the yard. Old Lim was requested to 
 preside as toastmaster. A red-headed boy, catching the 
 word, looked about for the toast and asked his mother 
 why they had not brought it. She pinched him and com 
 manded him to hush. He howled just as the Rev. Mr. 
 Haney bowed his head to ask a blessing. Old Mrs. Tal- 
 bert cleared her throat and whispered to a neighbour: 
 "How I d like to blister that little wretch, and if he was 
 mine I would." As soon as Mr. Haney had said "Amen," 
 the boy shouted for toast with molasses on it. " There 
 isn t any toast, you little imp," his mother whispered so 
 loud that everyone could hear. 
 
 "Well, what made em say there was?" he whined. 
 "Want toast with molasses on it." 
 
 His mother snatched him up and carried him behind 
 the house. They heard the sounds of a slipper ardently 
 applied, heard the boy howl, and old Mrs. Talbert leaned 
 back with a satisfied expression of countenance. The 
 woman returned and jammed the youngster down into 
 
 238 
 
A DINNER AT TALBERT S 239 
 
 a chair. Then she wiped his face and kissed him. He 
 muttered something that sounded like toast and she gave 
 him a hard look. Then he wanted pie. She told him 
 that pie came after a while. He wanted pie. 
 
 "Do let the little fellow have pie," old Mrs. Talbert 
 pleaded, and after giving it to him whispered to her neigh 
 bour: "How I wish he was mine." 
 
 Now the meal proceeded without interruption and with 
 out incident save when old Briz swallowed something the 
 wrong way. 
 
 The young women were all of them keen to note the 
 student s college manners. They looked at one another 
 when he brought out the new pronunciation of a word, 
 and when he said, "I kawn t understand," they nudged 
 one another and settled it among themselves that he would 
 surely make a fine doctor, the profession that the old man 
 had chosen for him. Old Mrs. Hankins wanted to know 
 what church he favoured now that he had learned so much, 
 and he answered: 
 
 "Aunt Liz, I ve decided that I can t attend any of them, 
 you know. I fail to bring myself down to the belief in the 
 divinity of Christ, you know." 
 
 There was a falling of knives and forks. The girls 
 looked at Mr. Haney. The preacher shook his head 
 slowly and was silent. The student s mother shut her 
 lips tight. The woman whose boy had howled for toast 
 now whispered in her turn, "I m thankful he ain t mine." 
 
 Old Limuel called for the welcoming address. Mr. 
 Haney having been honoured with this office, arose and 
 
240 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 in a restrained and embarrassed manner strove to say 
 something, floundered about and sat down. Then young 
 Talbert sprang up blithely and recited his written oration. 
 Other men and several women followed, touching upon 
 numerous subjects of interest to the neighbourhood, but 
 it was evident that young Talbert s answer to old Aunt 
 Liz Hankins had hardened the spirit of the feast. After 
 a time old Lim said, speaking to the medical student: 
 "Joe, you haven t yet arrived at the age when you can 
 appreciate Jesus as a man, to say nothin of His bein 
 divine. Some of these so-called learned fellers will tell 
 you that there have been a hundred crucified Christs, 
 but it s not true. Now just strip the subject of all religion 
 and look at Jesus as you would a strictly human philos 
 opher. Was there ever such kindliness in wisdom ? Wis 
 dom of itself ain t always kind. It deals with hard things 
 and don t make em softer. Wisdom is more often the 
 critic of error than the stimulation of virtue. I mean the 
 wisdom of the world. But there is a wisdom truer and 
 deeper than the knowledge got out of books, and it may 
 be found in the old log house more often than in the col 
 lege. It is the wisdom of sorrow. The man that you 
 don t believe divine came as the the exponent of this 
 wisdom." 
 
 "Very good," said the preacher. 
 
 "Oh, it s a putty big word, but I landed it all right," 
 the old man made answer. 
 
 "I am continuing to listen," young Talbert spoke up. 
 "I do not deny that He was a man worthy of all con- 
 
A DINNER AT TALBERT S 241 
 
 sideration. But if one man was divine, all men are 
 divine." 
 
 "Yes," drawled old Lim, "that s the way they talk 
 these days. And understand with all due respect to 
 Brother Haney I am not walkin down the lane of any 
 creed." 
 
 "But you are asserting your belief," said the young 
 man. "And what is a belief but a creed?" 
 
 "Well, there s a difference. A creed is a belief hard 
 ened beyond the possibility of additional growth. A man 
 hemmed in by a creed may refuse to look in a certain 
 direction, fearin that he might find a truth opposed to 
 that creed. I m not hampered in that way. Show me 
 a truth and I strike at it like a black bass. Now I reckon 
 in your readin you must have come across a good deal 
 of what they call philosophy. And each one of the philos 
 ophers tries to put forth a sort of religion. He says he s 
 a-searchin after truth. But what is the object of truth 
 if it don t enable folks to live better? If a philosophical 
 religion don t help you to bear burdens, of what use is it ? 
 I ve read a good many of these philosophy books in the 
 past ten or fifteen years. I didn t have much education, 
 as you must know. I didn t appear to need it as long as 
 I found my keenest pleasure in game chickens and race 
 hosses. But as I began to get sorter old I found that I 
 didn t have enough things to think about. So I turned 
 to readin ; and the more of the great books I read, gath- 
 erin them up from far and near, the more I found out 
 that Christ was not only the friend of the poor man but 
 
242 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 the only friend the king ever had. And He said more in 
 a few words than all of the philosophers from the buildin 
 of the pyramids down to the potato hill that old Briz 
 made with his hoe yesterday. I m a talkin , young feller. 
 We ll just let the divine part go, if you want to, and still 
 He ought to be worshipped by every man, woman and 
 child." 
 
 "You should make no such concession," said the 
 preacher. "You destroy all by doing so, for if Christ 
 were not divine, Son of immaculate conception, He was 
 nothing. He came that souls might be kept out of the 
 roaring fires of torment." 
 
 The old man shook his head. "Can t turn loose that 
 torment idea, can you ? You put me in mind of old Jake 
 Sanders don t mean you are like him, but just cause me 
 to think of him. There was a revival meetin goin on 
 over at Ebenezer campground, and old Jake s wife got 
 after him to go up to the mourners bench. But he held 
 back. Finally she got one of the preachers to take him 
 down into the woods to talk to him. They sat down on a 
 log. Did you ever see a house burn up? the preacher 
 asked. Yes, answered Jake, and the preacher said: 
 Well, that ain t nothin . Did you ever see the woods on 
 fire in August? Yes, I have, answered Jake. Well, 
 that wa n t nothin , said the preacher. There is a fire 
 that will make a house burnin and the big woods a blazin* 
 in August look no bigger than a pin feather a scorchin*. 
 I mean the fire of perdition. 1 Jake s eyes began to stick 
 out. You don t say so/ said he. You hear me/ 
 
A DINNER AT TALBERT S 243 
 
 answered the preacher, and among the gamblers over at 
 Purdy s the bets are a hundred to one that you ll go there/ 
 Jake took off his straw hat and began to fan himself 
 with it. Yes/ the preacher continued, and you ll burn 
 down there for more than a million years. Jake dropped 
 on his knees beside the log and began to pray. Well, 
 it was announced that havin come through he had religion, 
 and his wife went singin about her work. Jake hummed 
 a little too, but after a while he began to think of what the 
 preacher had said. About ten miles off there lived a 
 preacher that was considered the biggest one in the county; 
 so Jake catches his mule and rides over to see him. He 
 told the preacher that he had professed religion all right, 
 but that he was still in great distress over that fire. He 
 was so wrought up that the preacher, taking pity on him, 
 assured him that there wasn t any fire. Jake rode home 
 in great glee, and a few days later was convicted of stealin 
 sheep and sent to the penitentiary. And so, Brother 
 Haney, you are afraid to assure us that there is no fire. 
 Will somebody be kind enough to give that boy another 
 piece of pie?" 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 ON FOOTBALL 
 
 OLD Lim was walking up and down the velvet sward 
 beneath the trees in his yard. A man rode up to the gate, 
 dismounted, tied his horse and came forward slowly, 
 cutting at his leg with a switch. Lim recognised 
 him as a man from town, but did not know his 
 name. "I am Cavendish T. Biscom, the undertaker, 
 Mr. Jucklin." 
 
 "Why, to be sure. I was confident I knew you and 
 was surprised that I didn t. Won t you come into the 
 house?" 
 
 "No, thank you, I m in somewhat of a hurry. I have 
 a paper here that I d like for you to sign." 
 
 "Read it," said the old man. "I haven t got my 
 glasses with me. Just give me the juice of it and I ll 
 tell you whether or not I ll sign." 
 
 "I have here a petition to the authorities," declared 
 Mr. Cavendish T. Biscom, drawing forth a paper and 
 striking his hand with it. The word "authorities," 
 uttered by one who has great respect for the law, and 
 moreover by one possessed of exhibitive dignity, calls for 
 an attitude. Mr. Biscom assumed one, a pose with proper 
 elevation of chin. 
 
 244 
 
ON FOOTBALL 245 
 
 "What are you asking the authorities to do?" Lim 
 inquired. 
 
 "To prevent, sir, the playing of football in this county." 
 
 " Why so ? Wear out the land ? " 
 
 "Gracious alive, Mr. Jucklin, don t you know why?" 
 
 "I ve asked you. That would seem to argue that I 
 didn t exactly know why." 
 
 "To keep our boys from killing one another, sir. It 
 is a most brutal game, and ought not to be permitted." 
 
 "Let s sit down for a few moments and look into it." 
 The undertaker yielded reluctantly. They seated them 
 selves on a "sofa" made of interwoven grapevines, pre 
 sented to old Lim by the boys of a neighbouring school. 
 
 "I fail to see how it should be looked into as if it were 
 an ethical question, I might say. But if you see how it 
 can be viewed other than by the broad sweep of a con 
 demning eye, proceed." Mr. Biscom leaned back, 
 a-hah-ed and hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his 
 vest. 
 
 "You say it is a most brutal game," said old Lim. "So 
 is the game of life. All you fellers that are tryin to get 
 rich are killin yourselves, and in the long run that s just 
 the same as killin one another. You centre your whole 
 mind on gettin money, and when you reach that stage, 
 the soul has putty much reached its last gasp. When a 
 man wears himself out with hard work, you say, as you 
 bury him, a good citizen gone to his reward. Reward 
 for what? Because in scufflin for the dollar he kicked 
 his soul out of the way? Are the angels standin about 
 
246 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 ready to compliment him for that? Let us draw up a 
 petition to the authorities askin them to reform human 
 nature." 
 
 "Mr. Jucklin, you don t seem to grasp my idea. We 
 cannot reform human nature. That is in the hands of 
 the Lord." 
 
 "Well, then, ain t everything else in His hands? If 
 you allow Him to manage only the affairs that it suits 
 your fancy that He should manage, He is not All- wise." 
 
 "Let us be practical, Mr. Jucklin." 
 
 "All right. We won t say anything about the unseemly 
 strain that the concern over health and the continued life 
 of the children of men puts on your occupation. We ll 
 get right down to whether or not young fellers ought to be 
 allowed to play football. Sometimes a colt, gallopin 
 about in the woods pasture, runs against a tree and hurts 
 himself. Then should the colt be stabled up to prevent 
 his runnin ? That would reduce his value and his use 
 fulness as a hoss. Well then, ought we to cut down all 
 the trees in the pasture? That would deprive the cattle 
 of shade. And as to football, I agree that everythimg 
 possible ought to be done to keep the boys from hurtin 
 themselves, but " 
 
 "But, my dear sir, there are other games," declared 
 the undertaker. 
 
 "Oh, yes, but did you ever notice how tame it is to catch 
 perch after you ve had a strike or two from black bass? 
 Are there more fatalities at football games than at Sunday- 
 school picnics? I read of a boat sinkin in a Northern 
 
ON FOOTBALL 247 
 
 Jake some time ago and drownin hundreds of children. It 
 will take football a good while to catch up with that, and 
 yet you wouldn t sign a petition to prevent all Sunday- 
 school picnics." 
 
 "Still you are wide of the mark, Mr. Jucklin. Over 
 indulgence in football leaves a young man unfitted for the 
 duties of life." 
 
 "And so does over-indulgence in pie. Do you want 
 to get up a petition to have pie abolished?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon for being personal, Mr. Jucklin, 
 but it is singular that at your time of life you should view 
 things so lightly." 
 
 "Ah, hah! And it s viewin things so lightly that has 
 enabled me to reach my time of life. The man that is 
 all the time tryin to make a thing more serious than it is 
 will always find sad work in plenty." 
 
 "You forget," said the undertaker, "that the Saviour 
 was a man of grief." 
 
 "No, I don t. He took our grief that we might not 
 grieve so much. He called for children, not to make them 
 weep, but to take them into His arms and make them 
 happy. And can t you picture that the little folks went 
 smilin home, happy in their hearts, to tell their mothers 
 of the new joy that had come to them ? But I beg your 
 pardon, you want to talk about football. About how 
 many football players have you buried as a rough guess, 
 you understand?" 
 
 "Well, really, I haven t buried any." 
 
 "What! were they left unburied? That was a shame, 
 
248 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 sir. Let us draw up a petition askin the authorities to 
 see that all youths killed at football shall be buried just 
 the same as if they had met death at a picnic just the 
 same as the man that smothers his kidneys with humpin* 
 over his desk. Draw it up and I ll be the first one to 
 sign it." 
 
 "You are a grim joker, Mr. Jucklin." 
 
 "Not half so grim as you are. In order to live, to pay 
 your debts, to go to places of amusement, you must wait 
 for death. And when it comes you must appear sorry. 
 But that s all right. It doesn t do any harm, and it makes 
 your belated joke all the brighter when it comes not 
 necessarily so bright as unexpected, occasion makin it 
 funny like a sneeze in church. But I beg your pardon. 
 We were talkin about football. In the affairs of this life 
 it seems that the best results are reached by trainin the 
 muscles and the judgment. All muscle makes a man given 
 too much to animal strength. The trainin of the mind 
 alone is too apt to make him a physical weaklin . Football 
 brings out both bodily strength and judgment. I am told 
 that the American football player is an ideal soldier, both 
 as a private and as an officer. So, instead of seekin to do 
 away with the game, let us try to inject more judgment 
 into it. Above all, let us strive to be reasonable. As a 
 man grows older it would seem that his reason ought to 
 be developed more and more, but instead, his prejudices 
 harden." 
 
 "I didn t know," said Biscom, "that I was to encounter 
 
 so wise a man." 
 
ON FOOTBALL 249 
 
 "Wise! why, bless your soul! I have to do a good deal 
 of dodgin to keep nearly everybody from insistin on the 
 fact that I m a fool. The truth is, I have accepted the 
 fact, and that s why I appear so contented. This mornin* 
 when I put my shirt on over my vest, my wife she said, 
 Why, Limuel, a monkey wouldn t do that/ Yes/ I 
 lowed, and he s still a monkey because he hasn t built 
 himself an opportunity to do it. If he had made for him 
 self a vest and a shirt, he d be a man instead of a monkey. 
 And then she said : Well, I don t see any particular advan 
 tage in that. This tickled me mightily because there was 
 a lot of truth in it. But I answered : My dear, a man has 
 the advantage over the monkey from the fact that man is 
 the husband of woman. And I thought I had her here, 
 but she looked back as she was goin out at the door, and 
 says, says she: I acknowledge the advantage for the man, 
 but where does the woman come in ? Again let me beg 
 your pardon. We were talkin about football." 
 
 "And are you going to sign the petition?" 
 
 "No, I don t believe I can to-day." 
 
 "It is your desire, then, that the boys continue to maim 
 and to kill themselves." 
 
 " Can t say as to that, but it is my desire that boys con 
 tinue to be boys so that when the time comes they may 
 be real men." 
 
 "But perhaps, Mr. Jucklin, I haven t stated the gist of 
 this paper. I will read it over," and then in deep serious 
 ness he read the following: "Dear Uncle Lim Jucklin, 
 will you please let us play football in your south pasture?" 
 
250 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 Signed, "Purdy High School." The undertaker broke 
 forth in a mighty roar. 
 
 "Biscom," said the old man, "you have put it on me. 
 I ought to have been a little suspicious, for hanged if I 
 can see how an undertaker can object to football. Come 
 down into the cellar and we ll knock a kag of cider in 
 the head." 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 ON GETTING RICH QUICK 
 
 IT was noticed that Brizintine was driving about the 
 neighbourhood with a stranger. The county clerk said 
 that as he had examined many of the deeds and titles in 
 the office it must be the newcomer s intention to buy land. 
 Another noticeable phase of the stranger s stay was the 
 fact that Briz shaved and put on a clean shirt every morn 
 ing. Soon it was made known that the visitor, Colonel 
 Bloodgood Hickerson, was going to give five hundred 
 dollars toward the building of a new church. Then 
 everybody was inclined to bow down before Briz. The 
 postmaster said to him: "You have always been one of 
 our most progressive citizens." 
 
 "I know all that," Briz answered, "but I haven t 
 always been appreciated. After this I guess I will be. 
 I am going to build me a new house and live like a white 
 man." 
 
 "Ah, I congratulate you," said the postmaster. "But 
 tell me how you managed to get that rich man interested 
 in this neighbourhood?" 
 
 "Why, he had heard of me wrote to me, and I made 
 an appointment to meet him here and he came. Oh, you 
 fellers have always thought that nobody outside the county 
 
 251 
 
252 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 ever heard of me, and I have had to bear with it, but 
 times have changed." 
 
 Three days later Colonel Bloodgood Hickerson took 
 his leave, having settled upon the exact spot for the new 
 church. Two more days passed and then, one afternoon, 
 Briz called on old Limuel. Jucklin was dozing beneath 
 a tree in the yard. He got up from his bench and invited 
 Briz to sit down. 
 
 "I oughtn t to sit but to lie down and never git up," 
 said Briz. 
 
 "Why, what s the trouble?" 
 
 "Lim, I m ruined." 
 
 "You don t tell me!" 
 
 "Ruined, Lim." 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 "I mortgaged everything I had for three thousand 
 dollars and gave the money to to that infernal scoundrel 
 Hickerson." He sat down with a groan. 
 
 "Why did you do it?" Lim inquired. 
 
 "Because he showed me how I could be the richest 
 man not only in the county but in the state. I am ashamed 
 to tell you how it happened. I can t understand how it 
 was that I could have been such a fool. He told me he 
 had at one time a brother in the money printing depart 
 ment in Washington. One night robbers broke in and 
 stole the plates they print the big money on. That is, 
 such was the report. But the fact is that Hickerson s 
 brother got the plates. He did it because the Government 
 owed his father for depredations committed by soldiers 
 
ON GETTING RICH QUICK 253 
 
 durin the war, and he was determined that the debt 
 should be paid. I don t know all the persuasion this 
 feller Hickerson used on me. He said that my home and 
 all my prospects had been injured by the war and that 
 it was no more than right that I should be rewarded. He 
 Heeded three thousand dollars to buy a press had money 
 enough of his own but it was invested. I I don t know 
 how it was, but he got my money." 
 
 "Briz, I know how it was. He got your money because 
 you wa n t honest. You are just as much of a thief as 
 he is." 
 
 "You shaVt talk to me that way!" 
 
 "Sit down," said Lim. "If the worst comes to the 
 worst I can thrash you. You know that well enough, so 
 you ought to find yourself in a position to discuss the 
 truth quietly. He touched you up with a desire to get 
 rich. You didn t take into account that you were gettin 
 old and can t in nature live but a few years longer. In 
 your resentment against the fact that you had to work 
 you shut your eyes to one of the worst forms of dishonesty, 
 the same bein counterfeitin . If there s a man that 
 can t afford to be dishonest it is the old man. It s bad 
 enough with the youngster but much worse with the aged. 
 Of course I am sorry you lost your money, but somehow 
 I can t wet my eyes with sympathy." 
 
 "Everythin gone," Briz moaned, sitting down again. 
 
 "Yes, gone because you wa n t honest." 
 
 "But the man that got it is a thief!" Briz declared. 
 
 "Yes, undoubtedly, and a better thief than you are. I 
 
254 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 reckon he must have taken it up earlier in life. Whatever 
 a man undertakes he ought to perfect himself in at the 
 earliest possible moment. A man ought not to change 
 his profession after he gets as old as you are. In honesty 
 there are mighty few chances to get rich quick, but there s 
 a dev lish sight of satisfaction in knowin that what 
 you ve got really belongs to you. Suppose you had a 
 million dollars, Briz, what would you do with it ? You d 
 go away to some town and be laughed at, I guess. You d 
 go in and order a meal and kill yourself. If you escaped 
 dyin right then all of the diseases that have a contempt 
 for the average poor man would crowd around to asso 
 ciate with you. It would seem that everybody was tryin 
 to rob you, and when you had discovered that all the 
 brightness that you supposed was in the world wa n t 
 nothin but the ordinary yaller that covers a dog you d 
 hobble home to die in disgust, where you might have 
 died with the name of the Lord on your lips." 
 "Wish I was dead this minute," Briz groaned. 
 "Well, I won t say it wouldn t be better for you, for I 
 am inclined to think it would. Does your wife know 
 about it?" 
 
 "No, and I don t know how to tell her." 
 "I reckon not. It s hard for a man to acknowledge 
 even to his wife that he s not only dishonest but a blamed 
 fool. Don t tell her till you have to." 
 
 "What, would you have me deceive her?" 
 "Oh, you old hippercrit, Briz. Let me see. Three 
 thousand dollars just about all your farm s worth. 
 
ON GETTING RICH QUICK 255 
 
 Nobody but you and your wife had plenty to live on; 
 but you wanted to be rich. Why, because you are tired 
 of work ? Idleness is a hundred per cent, more tiresome 
 than work. I d just like to get on the inside of your mind 
 for a minit and look around. About two months ago I 
 met old Dabney Branch. We rode along horseback 
 together. He was complainin because the rate of interest 
 was lower than it had been. I told him it wasn t a bad 
 sign for the neighbourhood; that it wouldn t argue the 
 cryin need of money. I asked him about how much 
 money he could lend, and he said he could spare twenty- 
 five thousand, on good security. I asked him how old 
 he was and he answered that he was eighty-two. That 
 old and with twenty-five thousand dollars he didn t need! 
 Then I said to him, I says, Mr. Branch, I ll bet you ten 
 dollars you won t live two months. What the deuce do 
 you mean? he cried out. Oh, I don t want to offend 
 you just want the ten dollars. Take the bet ? Jucklin, 
 he said, I am ashamed of you thus to make game of 
 Providence. Oh, said I, you are the one that is makin* 
 game of Providence. Providence has tried to teach you 
 a lesson and you have deafened your ears. But, Mr. 
 Branch, there s one thing I d like to know. How can 
 you be interested in gettin more money when you have 
 more than you need ? Good-bye; I don t expect ever to 
 see you again. And as you know, Briz, he died last 
 week. Good thing. Oh, I tell you old Nature is a great 
 democrat." 
 
 "I wish I had another chance to be honest," said 
 
256 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 Briz. "If I could only keep my home I d thank the 
 Lord the rest of my days." 
 
 "Yes, I guess so. What have they done toward catchin 
 the thief?" 
 
 "Well, two deputy sheriffs have started out from Purdy 
 and here comes one of them now." 
 
 An officer of the law dismounted at the fence. Briz 
 hastened to meet him. "We caught the fellow and he 
 had your money on him," said the officer. Briz took 
 hold of a tree to keep from falling. "Lim," he said, 
 "give me your hand." 
 
 "Well," the old man drawled, "don t let us be in too 
 big a hurry about it. I want to see you make your first 
 real stagger toward servin* the Lord." 
 
CHAPTER XLIII 
 ON PATIENCE 
 
 THERE had been rain, there was a young moon, the 
 dogwood was in bloom; and Lit Prior "norated" it in 
 the neighbourhood of the post-office that bullheads were 
 biting down at Frazier s dam. A party was soon organ 
 ised. 
 
 All fishermen are young. Few men live beyond that 
 period when they feel the thrill of a bite at the hook. The 
 butterfly of metaphysics may be pursued until it disappears 
 amid the ruins of human institutions; mathematics may 
 be studied until the mind loses its estimation of figures 
 and fades away among the meaningless stars; age totter 
 ing on toward the physical end-all, halting in the shade, 
 is deaf to music and blind to science there is only the 
 past left to contemplate. But when the fish nibbles, the 
 past and the future become a vivified present, and the 
 child and the great-grandsire are companions. 
 
 On the bank of the creek sat the old man and the boys. 
 Upon the soft air the mill dam poured forth its opera. In 
 the water the young moon looked like a silver fish, flounc 
 ing. 
 
 "It s my record to catch the first fish," said old Briz. 
 "Don t talk, you boys." 
 
 257 
 
258 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 Lit Prior pulled out a bullhead. "You must have 
 slipped a cog, Briz," remarked old Limuel. "Come in, 
 come in," and the philosopher hauled forth a channel 
 cat. Then one of the youngsters was visited by luck. 
 "When I catch mine he ll be a good one," said Briz. "It 
 takes patience to catch a big fish, and that s me. Lim, 
 did you ever see a feller more patienter than I am?" 
 
 "I reckon that s one of your virtues. Helloa, I ve got 
 another one." 
 
 Lit hauled out another; and then up and down the 
 bank there was almost a continuous flopping. 
 
 "Well, I ll be blamed if I understand it," said Briz. 
 
 "Mebbe you ain t patient enough," Limuel answered 
 
 "Patient enough! Why, confound it, I haven t moved. 
 I ve got a piece of beef on my hook, the very thing a cat 
 fish would climb a tree to get, but not one has paid any 
 attention to me. The bait s still on, for it couldn t get 
 off itself, and if anythin had touched the hook I would 
 V knowed it." 
 
 The flopping up and down the bank continued. "Do 
 you find your patience payin a putty good rate of inter 
 est?" Lim inquired. 
 
 "Now, look here, Jucklin, none of your bull-raggin*. 
 I m just as good a fisherman as you ever dared to be, 
 and I want you to understand that fact." 
 
 "Better," Lim agreed. "You ve got more patience." 
 
 "That s all right, now, but you ll see me go home with 
 the most fish." 
 
 "Yes, I may let you tote mine for me, Briz. Helloa, 
 
ON PATIENCE 259 
 
 Fve got another. Hike, there, swing corners. Can t 
 see him from there, can you? He s as yaller, Briz, as 
 the gold standard. Now I ll just drop back in there and 
 get his mate. Lit, this is a beautiful night, ain t it? 
 Looks like the rain last night freshened all the stars. 
 Moon seems to be drippin silver dew. Ah, a whopper 
 fanned my hook with his tail." 
 
 "I wish you fellers would keep quiet," said Briz. 
 "How do you expect fish to bite when you keep up such 
 a gabble ? I ll be hanged if I understand it." 
 
 "Mebbe you read your almanac wrong," Lim remarked. 
 
 "Now, Lim, that s all right, but I can stand jest so 
 much of it, you know. Those things you re ketchin 
 there ain t fitten to eat." 
 
 "I m sorry to hear you say that, Briz." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 "Because I was goin to send you over a mess of em." 
 
 "Oh, you be blowed. I can get all the fish I want." 
 
 "Yes, they ought to be cheap this time of the year 
 when they bite so free. I ll tell you, Briz; mebbe you 
 forgot to spit on your hook." "Hi," cried Lit, farther 
 up the bank, "I ve caught a jack salmon with teeth as 
 big as hominy corn." 
 
 "What do I care!" Briz exclaimed. "What do I want 
 with as scaley a thing as a jack salmon ? But, Limuel, 
 I ll swear this beats anythin I ever saw. Not a fish has 
 even bowed to my hook. Say, one of you boys bring the 
 lantern over here. I just want to see what sort of water 
 this is." 
 
260 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 The lantern was brought. Old Limuel came mis 
 chievously with the bearer of the light. Suddenly the 
 chicken fighter burst forth in a roar. On the branch of a 
 tree Briz s hook was hanging. It had not touched the 
 water. "Now you ve scared all the fish away and they 
 won t bite any more till next spring," Briz declared. " Oh, 
 laugh till you kill your fool self, it don t make any differ 
 ence to me. But I do like to be with a man that s got 
 some little sense. Oh, snort if you want to. Jucklin, 
 you put me in mind of a hog jumped up out of the corner 
 of the fence." 
 
 He got his line off the twig and dropped the hook into 
 the water. But the fish had ceased to bite. "Yes," said 
 Lim, "patience is a good thing up to a certain point. But 
 patience can become a sort of stagnation. A man ought 
 to investigate and find out why he should be patient. 
 Patience is sometimes a finer quality of laziness. Out of 
 impatience has come the progress of the world. Patience 
 is a sort of contentment, slowly movin from one minute 
 to another. At best it is a sort of oozin virtue. There 
 is a difference between consideration for others and 
 patience with yourself." 
 
 "I don t agree with you," Briz answered. "I take 
 issue with your your premises, or whatever else you 
 may call it." 
 
 "Ah, hah! and that is to say that no matter what I 
 might have said you would have said it wa n t so. Did 
 you get a bite then ?" 
 
 " I told you they wouldn t bite any more till next spring. 
 
ON PATIENCE 261 
 
 Here I set for an hour while you fellers pulled em out, 
 and as soon as you had caught as many as you wanted 
 you skeered the rest away. Fine thing to invite a man to 
 go fishin and treat him that way." 
 
 "Don t be impatient," said Lim. "Next spring will 
 be here after a while and they ll bite then." 
 
 "Well, that may be, but I ll take care not to come with 
 you, Limuel." 
 
 " Oh, I reckon you will, for by that time I ll teach you 
 not to have so much patience. But I believe you said 
 you took issue with me. Briz, as far as I have been able 
 to read and to discover, it s the nervous man that does 
 things, and nerves don t always know how to be patient. 
 Sound judgment may sometimes come out of sloth, but 
 it s nerves that flash out genius. They are the telegraph 
 wires of the mind." 
 
 "Lim, I thought you was more a preacher of content 
 ment than that." 
 
 "Oh, contentment is all right up to the point where 
 it s attacked by softenin of the brain. But it is about 
 the lowest order of virtue a man can boast of. Perhaps 
 the highest form is the dischargin of the obligations we 
 owe to others. Contentment serves only itself. It is like 
 the religion of the man that is constantly cryin : Oh, 
 Lord, bless me. You boys spread down the blankets over 
 there and we ll sleep here to-night; and Briz, in the mornin* 
 there may be a sunfish waitin for your hook." 
 
 " I don t want none of your forecasting," Briz answered. 
 
 The blankets were spread beneath a tree. Briz lay 
 
262 OLD LIM JUCKLIN 
 
 down, muttering. He said to Jucklin: "I don t believe 
 I ll speak to you again to-night. I am about to throw 
 off your your society." 
 
 For a long time they lay in silence. A night bird was 
 calling. 
 
 "Lim?" 
 
 "Ah, hah!" 
 
 "Good night, Lim." 
 
 "Goodnight, Briz" 
 
Read, P 
 
 Old Lim tucklin 
 
 M104382 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY