The Wit and Humor of America Volume IV Part 10

"Not exactly," replied he, surveying my horse with a quizzical smile; "I haven't been a driving _by myself_ for a year or two; and my nose has got so bad lately, I can't carry a cold trail _without hounds to help me_."

Alone, and without hounds as he was, the question was rather a silly one; but it answered the purpose for which it was put, which was only to draw him into conversation, and I proceeded to make as decent a retreat as I could.

"I didn't know," said I, "but that you were going to meet the huntsmen, or going to your stand."

"Ah, sure enough," rejoined he, "that _mout_ be a bee, as the old woman said when she killed a wasp. It seems to me I ought to know you."

"Well, if you _ought_, why _don't_ you?"

"What _mout_ your name be?"

"It _might_ be anything," said I, with a borrowed wit, for I knew my man and knew what kind of conversation would please him most.

"Well, what _is_ it, then?"

"It _is_ Hall," said I; "but you know it might as well have been anything else."

"Pretty digging!" said he. "I find you're not the fool I took you to be; so here's to a better acquaintance with you."

"With all my heart," returned I; "but you must be as clever as I've been, and give me your name."

"To be sure I will, my old c.o.o.n; take it, take it, and welcome. Anything else about me you'd like to have?"

"No," said I, "there's nothing else about you worth having."

"Oh, yes there is, stranger! Do you see this?" holding up his ponderous rifle with an ease that astonished me. "If you will go with me to the shooting-match, and see me knock out the _bull's-eye_ with her a few times, you'll agree the old _Soap-stick's_ worth something when Billy Curlew puts his shoulder to her."

This short sentence was replete with information to me. It taught me that my companion was _Billy Curlew_; that he was going to a _shooting-match_; that he called his rifle the _Soap-stick_, and that he was very confident of winning beef with her; or, which is nearly, but not quite the same thing, _driving the cross with her_.

"Well," said I, "if the shooting-match is not too far out of my way, I'll go to it with pleasure."

"Unless your way lies through the woods from here," said Billy, "it'll not be much out of your way; for it's only a mile ahead of us, and there is no other road for you to take till you get there; and as that thing you're riding in ain't well suited to fast traveling among brushy k.n.o.bs, I reckon you won't lose much by going by. I reckon you hardly ever was at a shooting-match, stranger, from the cut of your coat?"

"Oh, yes," returned I, "many a time. I won beef at one when I was hardly old enough to hold a shot-gun off-hand."

"_Children_ don't go to shooting-matches about here," said he, with a smile of incredulity. "I never heard of but one that did, and he was a little _swinge_ cat. He was born a shooting, and killed squirrels before he was weaned."

"Nor did _I_ ever hear of but one," replied I, "and that one was myself."

"And where did you win beef so young, stranger?"

"At Berry Adams's."

"Why, stop, stranger, let me look at you good! Is your name _Lyman_ Hall?"

"The very same," said I.

"Well, dang my b.u.t.tons, if you ain't the very boy my daddy used to tell me about. I was too young to recollect you myself; but I've heard daddy talk about you many a time. I believe mammy's got a neck-handkerchief now that daddy won on your shooting at Collen Reid's store, when you were hardly knee high. Come along, Lyman, and I'll go my death upon you at the shooting-match, with the old Soap-stick at your shoulder."

"Ah, Billy," said I, "the old Soap-stick will do much better at your own shoulder. It was my mother's notion that sent me to the shooting-match at Berry Adams's; and, to tell the honest truth, it was altogether a chance shot that made me win beef; but that wasn't generally known; and most everybody believed that I was carried there on account of my skill in shooting; and my fame was spread far and wide, I well remember. I remember, too, perfectly well, your father's bet on me at the store.

_He_ was at the shooting-match, and nothing could make him believe but that I was a great shot with a rifle as well as a shot-gun. Bet he would on me, in spite of all I could say, though I a.s.sured him that I had never shot a rifle in my life. It so happened, too, that there were but two bullets, or, rather, a bullet and a half; and so confident was your father in my skill, that he made me shoot the half bullet; and, strange to tell, by another chance shot, I like to have drove the cross and won his bet."

"Now I know you're the very chap, for I heard daddy tell that very thing about the half bullet. Don't say anything about it, Lyman, and darn my old shoes, if I don't tare the lint off the boys with you at the shooting-match. They'll never 'spect such a looking man as you are of knowing anything about a rifle. I'll risk your _chance_ shots."

I soon discovered that the father had eaten sour grapes, and the son's teeth were on edge; for Billy was just as incorrigibly obstinate in his belief of my dexterity with a rifle as his father had been before him.

We soon reached the place appointed for the shooting-match. It went by the name of Sims's Cross Roads, because here two roads intersected each other; and because, from the time that the first had been laid out, Archibald Sims had resided there. Archibald had been a justice of the peace in his day (and where is the man of his age in Georgia who has not?); consequently, he was called 'Squire Sims. It is the custom in this state, when a man has once acquired a t.i.tle, civil or military, to force it upon him as long as he lives; hence the countless number of t.i.tled personages who are introduced in these sketches.

We stopped at the 'squire's door. Billy hastily dismounted, gave me the shake of the hand which he had been reluctantly reserving for a mile back, and, leading me up to the 'squire, thus introduced me: "Uncle Archy, this is Lyman Hall; and for all you see him in these fine clothes, he's a _swinge_ cat; a darn sight cleverer fellow than he looks to be. Wait till you see him lift the old Soap-stick, and draw a bead upon the bull's-eye. You _gwine_ to see fun here to-day. Don't say nothing about it."

"Well, Mr. Swinge-cat," said the 'squire, "here's to a better acquaintance with you," offering me his hand.

"How goes it, Uncle Archy?" said I, taking his hand warmly (for I am always free and easy with those who are so with me; and in this course I rarely fail to please). "How's the old woman?"

"Egad," said the 'squire, chuckling, "there you're too hard for me; for she died two-and-twenty years ago, and I haven't heard a word from her since."

"What! and you never married again?"

"Never, as G.o.d's my judge!" (a solemn a.s.severation, truly, upon so light a subject.)

"Well, that's not my fault."

"No, nor it's not mine, _ni_ther," said the 'squire.

Here we were interrupted by the cry of another Rancey Sniffle. "h.e.l.lo, here! All you as wish to put in for the shoot'n'-match, come on here!

for the putt'n' in's _riddy_ to begin."

About sixty persons, including mere spectators, had collected; the most of whom were more or less obedient to the call of Mealy Whitecotton, for that was the name of the self-const.i.tuted commander-in-chief. Some hastened and some loitered, as they desired to be first or last on the list; for they shoot in the order in which their names are entered.

The beef was not present, nor is it ever upon such occasions; but several of the company had seen it, who all concurred in the opinion that it was a good beef, and well worth the price that was set upon it--eleven dollars. A general inquiry ran around, in order to form some opinion as to the number of shots that would be taken; for, of course, the price of a shot is cheapened in proportion to the increase of that number. It was soon ascertained that not more than twenty persons would take chances; but these twenty agreed to take the number of shots, at twenty-five cents each.

The compet.i.tors now began to give in their names; some for one, some for two, three, and a few for as many as four shots.

Billy Curlew hung back to the last; and when the list was offered him, five shots remained undisposed of.

"How many shots left?" inquired Billy.

"Five," was the reply.

"Well, I take 'em all. Put down four shots to me, and one to Lyman Hall, paid for by William Curlew."

I was thunder-struck, not at his proposition to pay for my shot, because I knew that Billy meant it as a token of friends.h.i.+p, and he would have been hurt if I had refused to let him do me this favor; but at the unexpected announcement of my name as a compet.i.tor for beef, at least one hundred miles from the place of my residence. I was prepared for a challenge from Billy to some of his neighbors for a _private_ match upon me; but not for this.

I therefore protested against his putting in for me, and urged every reason to dissuade him from it that I could, without wounding his feelings.

"Put it down!" said Billy, with the authority of an emperor, and with a look that spoke volumes intelligible to every by-stander. "Reckon I don't know what I'm about?" Then wheeling off, and muttering in an under, self-confident tone, "Dang old Roper," continued he, "if he don't knock that cross to the north corner of creation and back again before a cat can lick her foot."

Had I been king of the cat tribe, they could not have regarded me with more curious attention than did the whole company from this moment.

Every inch of me was examined with the nicest scrutiny; and some plainly expressed by their looks that they never would have taken me for such a bite. I saw no alternative but to throw myself upon a third chance shot; for though, by the rules of the sport, I would have been allowed to shoot by proxy, by all the rules of good breeding I was bound to shoot in person. It would have been unpardonable to disappoint the expectations which had been raised on me. Unfortunately, too, for me, the match differed in one respect from those which I had been in the habit of attending in my younger days. In olden times the contest was carried on chiefly with _shot-guns_, a generic term which, in those days, embraced three descriptions of firearms: _Indian-traders_ (a long, cheap, but sometimes excellent kind of gun, that mother Britain used to send hither for traffic with the Indians), _the large musket_, and the _shot-gun_, properly so-called. Rifles were, however, always permitted to compete with them, under equitable restrictions. These were, that they should be fired off-hand, while the shot-guns were allowed a rest, the distance being equal; or that the distance should be one hundred yards for a rifle, to sixty for the shot-gun, the mode of firing being equal.