Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1872-08-16
JIM BLAINE,
And His Grandfather'S Old R.,.n.
BY MARK TWAIN

The boys used to tell me l ought 20 get
one Jim Blaine to tell me the stirring story
of his grandtather's Old ram--buL they
always added that must moi mentioII the
| matter unless Jim was drunk at the time
| Just comfortably and sociably drunk
They kept this up until my curiosity was
| on the track to hear the story. | got to
| hunting Blaine, but it of use, tie
| boys always found fault with his condition;
he was often moderately but never salts
tactOrily drunk. l never watched man 5
| condition with such absorbing Interest ,
such anxious sOlicitude; [ never So pinned
to see a man uncOmpromisingy drunk be
| fore.
AT last, one evening L hurried to his
cabin, for L learned that this time his sitlia-
ton was such that even tile most fastidOus
could find no fault wit it-he was tran
quilly, serenely, syInmetrically drnnk-not
d hiccup to mar his voice, not cloud upon
| his brain thick enough to obscure his InrnI-
Ory. AS | entered, he was sitting upon al
empty powder keg, with a clay plpe III one
! hand and the other raised to command
silence. His face was round, red, and very
serious; his throat was Dareand his lar
tumbled; i'll general appearance alH c,o
tune, he was stalwart miner ct the pc
riod. On the pine table stood candle,
and its dim light revealed ''th- boys siLln4
| here and there in hunks. citudl.. n'.X"S,
powder kegs, etc. They said
"Sh Don't speak-he's going to com
mence."
THE SToEY OF THE OLD RAM.
| found seat at once, and Blaine be
gan:
81 don't reckon them times will ever
/ come again. There never was II more
bullier old ram than what he was. Grand
father fetched him from Illinois got him
from a man by the name of YatLs-Bill
Yates-may be you might have heard OF
him; his father was a deacOn-Baptist-
and he was a ruStler, too; a man had to
get up rather early to get the start Of old
! Thankful ates; it was him put the
! Greens up to jining teams with my grand
fathers when he moved West. Seth Green
was probably the pick of the flock ; he mar
ried a WilkersOn-,Sarah Wilkerson-gOOd
cretur she WaS-One of the likeliest heiters
that Wa5 ever raised in old StOddard, ev-
| erybOdy said that knOwed her. She could
heft Il bar'l of flour as easy as L can flap
jack. And spin! Don't mention it In
dependent? Humph! When Sile Hawk
ms came browning around her, she let
him know that for all his tin he couldnt t
trot i'll harness alongside of her.
"You see, Sile Hawkins was-no it
Warn't Sile Hawkins after all-it was a
galOOt by the name OF Filkins-l disIe-
member his first name; but he was a
stump-came into pfa'r meeting drunk,
one night, hOOraying for Nixon becuZ he
thougt it was primary and old deacon
Ferguson up and ScOOted him Though the
window, and he lit on old Miss JeierSOn's S
| head, poor old tilley. She was a good soul
had i glass eye and used to lend it to
OLD Miss Wagner, that hadn't any, to re-
ceive company in; it warnt big enough,
and when Miss Wagner wasn't noticing it
would get twisted around in the socket,
and look up, maybe, or out to one side,
and every which way, Willie tOther one
was looking rs straight ahead as spy
glass. Grown folks didn't mind it, but 1t
most always made the children cry, it was
so sort Of scary. She tried packing it in
raw cotton, but it wouldn't work, some
| hOw-the cotton would get loose and stick
| out and look so kind of awful that the
children couldn't stand it no way.
''She was always dropping it out, and
turning up her old headlight on the COM
pany empty, and making them uncom-
! Portable, becuz she never could tell when
it popped out, being blind OH that side,
you see. SO somebody would have to
| hunch her and say, ~ our game eye has
fetched loose, Miss Wagner dear'-and then
all of them would have to sit and wait till
she jamIned it in again-wrOng side be-
| fore, us general thing, and green as a
birds egg, being u bashtIIl crGtur and easy,
SOt back before company. But being
| wrong side before warn't much difference
any way, becuZ her own eye was sky-blue,
and the glass one was yAller Oh the front,
so whichever way she turned it, it didn't
match nohow. Old Miss Wagner was con-
siderable on the borrow, she was. When
she had quilting, or DOrcas Sncty at her
! bOnS.a CI borrowed Miss IIiU-
| gins wooden leg to stump around on; it
was considerable shorter than her other
! pin, but much she minded it.
'.She said she couldn't abide crutches
when she had company, beeuZ they were
So slow said when she had company and
things had to be done, she wanted to get
UP and hump herself. She was rs bald as
! a jug, and 50 she used to borrow Miss
Jacobs wig-AIiss Jacobs was the coffin
peddler's Wife-a ratty old buzzArd, he
was, that used to 90 rOosting around where
people was sick, waiting for them and
that old rip would sit all day, i'll the shade,
on coffin that he judged would fit the
| canidate; and if it was j slow customer
and kind Of uncertain, he'd fetch his
rations and a blanket and sleep i'll the
coffin nights. He was anchored out that
way, III frosty weather, for about three
weeks once, before old RCbbins's place,
waiting 1Of MIN, anu dfLeI Iudt, lOT DIS llICA
as two years, Jacobs was not on speaking
terms with the old man, on account of his
disappointing him. He got one of his feet
froze, and lost money, too, be :uz old 4 b.
bins took favorable turn and got we'll
"The next time Robbins got sick, ia
cobs tried to make up with him, and var
nished up tue same old coffin and fetched
it along with him but old Robbins was
too many for him; he had him in, and
'peared to be powerful weak lie bought
tAa coffin for ten dollars, and Jacobs was
to pay it back and twenty more besides If
Robbins didn't like the coffin afterh d tried
it. And then Robbins died and ut the flu
neral he bursted off the lid and riz up il,
his shroud, and :eld the parson To let up
on the performances, becuz he could not
stand such a coffin as that. You see he had
been in a trance once before when he was
young, and he took the chances on another
cal'lating that if he made the trip it was
money in his pocket, and if he missed fire
he couldn't lose 4 cent. And by George
be sued Jacobs for the rhino and got judg-
ment and he set up the coffin i'll his parloi