The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-02-22


you could have gone to it, and If you'd dons il
they'd learnt you there that people that acts as
I'd been acting about that niger goes to ever
lasting fire."
1T made me shiser And I about made up
my mind to pray. and see If | couldn't try tn
quit being the kind of boy was and be better.
So kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come.
Why wouldn't theyl 1t warn't no use to try
and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither
knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It
was because my heart warnt right; it was
because warn't square, it was because / was
playing double. | was letting to give up
sin. but away inside of me was holding on to
the biggest one of all. l was trying to make
my mouth say | woald do the right thing and tho
clean thing, and go and write to that niggers
owner and tell where he was; but deep down In
me knowed it was leland He knowed it,
You can't pray he-I found that OUT
Although this like an audacious bur
lesque of religious sentiment, reaching quite to
the limits of the permissible, the reflections at
tributed to Huckleberry on the enornity of his
trangression are probably as true as anything
else in the book to the Missouri creed of forty
years ago.
The raft fioated past Cairo one foggy night,
and the runaways were carried against their
will, down the lower river In Kentucky Huck
was mixed up with certain painful developments
of the great Grangerford- Stephenson feud and
the account of this adventure makes the most
interesting episode in the story. 1t is too long
to print here and too good to be broken. We
can find place only for young Buck Granger
ford's definition of genuine Kentucky family
feud:
"Well,' says Buck, "a feud is this way. A
man has quarrel with another man, and kills
him; then that other mans brother kills him:
then the other brothers. on both Sides goes for
another. then in in hV
and by everybody's killed off, and there amt NO
more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes 9
long time
Has this one been going on long, BuckP
"'Well, should reckonl 1t started thirty
year ago. or somers along there There was
trouble bout something, and then law suit To
settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men,
and so he up and shot the man that won the suit
body would
Has there been many killed, Buckp
Yes, right smart chance of funerals But
they don't always kill PAS got few buckshot
in him; but he don't mind it, 'cuz he don't weigh
much, anyway. Bobs been carved up some with
bowie and Toms been hurt once or twice
:, Has anybody heen killed this year. Buckg
Yes, we got and they got one"
Here is char site account Of an incident
at an Arkansas raj, where the undertaken
was the 'ssofte--, gldingist, stealthiest mann
Huck ever saw, with mo more smile to him than
there is to ham,"
'.They had borrowed melodeum-a sick one:
and when everything was ready young woman
set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky
and colicky and everybody joined in and sung
Then the Rev. Hobson opened up. slow and sol
emn, and begun to talk; and straight off the
most outrageous row busted out in the cellar
body ever heard; it was only one dog but he
made most powerful racket and he kept it up
right along; the parson he had to stand there
over the coffin an wait-you couldn't hear your
self think.
cit was right down awkward, and nobody
didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty
seon they see that long-legged undertaken make
a sign to the preacher, as much as to say, Don't
you worry-just depend on me- Then he stopped
down and began to glide along the wall Just his
shoulders showing above the peoples heads. So
he glided along, and the pow-wow and racket
getting more and more outrageous all the time;
and, at last, when he had gone around two sides
OF the room, he disappears down cellar. Then
in about two seconds we heard whack, and the
dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or
two, and then everything was dead STILL and the
parson begun his solemn talk where he left off.
In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's
back and shoulders gliding along the wall again;
and so he glided, and gided, around three sides
of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his,
mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck
out toward the preacher, over the peoples heads,
and says in a kind of coarse whisper, He had
ratp Then he dropped down and glded along
the wall again to his place.
"You could see it was a great satisfaction to
the people, because naturally they wanted to
know. little thing like that don'tcost nothing,
and it's just the little things that makes man
to be looked up to and liked. There warnt no
more popular man in town than what that UNI
dertaker was" g