Part 7

Hennery McNabb, who disagreed with everyone on principle--he was the Village Atheist, and proud of it--addressed himself to Ben Grevis. “This feller ain't nigh as sad-lookin' as that tramp looked,” said Hennery. “I've knowed any number of fellers sadder-lookin' than this feller here.”

“I didn't say this feller here was the saddest-lookin' feller I ever seen,” said Ben Grevis. “All I meant was that he is sadder-lookin' than the common run of fellers.” While Hennery disagreed with all the world, Ben seldom disagreed with any one but Hennery. They would argue by the hour, on religious matters, always beginning with Hennery's challenge: “Ben Grevis, tell me just one thing if you can, _where_ did Cain get his wife?” and always ending with Ben's statement: “I believe the Book from kiver to kiver.”

The tall man with the educated skin--it was educated, very evidently, for with a contraction of the hide on the back of his hand he nonchalantly picked up a shaving that had blown his way--spoke to Ben and Hennery in the soft and mild accents that seemed habitual to him:

“Where did you two see sadder-lookin' fellers than I be?”

“Over in Indianny,” said Hennery, “there's a man so sad that you're one of these here laughin' jackasses 'longside o' him.”

And, being encouraged, Hennery proceeded.

This here feller (said Hennery McNabb) lived over in Brown County, Indianny, but he didn't come from there original. He come from down in Kentucky some-wheres and his name was Peevy, Bud Peevy. He was one of them long, lank fellers, like you, stranger, but he wasn't as long and his skin didn't sort o' wander around and wag itself like it was a tail.

It was from the mountain districts he come. I was visitin' a brother of mine in the county-seat town of Brown County then, and this Bud Peevy was all swelled up with pride when I first knowed him. He was proud of two things. One was that he was the champeen corn-licker drinker in Kentucky. It was so he give himself out. And the other thing he was prouder yet of. It was the fact, if fact it was, that he was the Decidin' Vote in a national election--that there election you all remember, the first time Bryan run for President and McKinley was elected.

This here Bud Peevy, you understand, wasn't really sad when I first knowed him: he only _looked_ sad. His sadness that matched his innard feelin's up to his outward looks come on to him later. He was all-fired proud when I first knowed him. He went expandin' and extendin' of himself around everywheres tellin' them Indianny people how it was him, personal, that elected McKinley and saved the country from that there free-silver ruination. And the fuller he was of licker, the longer he made this here story, and the fuller, as you might say, of increditable strange events.

Accordin' to him, on that election day in 1896 he hadn't planned to go and vote, for it was quite a ways to the polls from his place and his horse had fell lame and he didn't feel like walkin'. He figgered his district would go safe for McKinley, anyhow, and he wouldn't need to vote. He was a strong Republican, and when a Kentuckian is a Republican there ain't no stronger kind.

But along about four o'clock in the afternoon a man comes ridin' up to his house with his horse all a lather of foam and sweat, and the horse was one of these here Kentucky thoroughbred race horses that must 'a' travelled nigh a mile a minute, to hear Bud Peevy tell of it, and that horse gives one groan like a human bein' and falls dead at Bud Peevy's feet afore the rider can say a word, and the rider is stunned.

But Bud Peevy knowed him for a Republican county committeeman, and he poured some corn licker down his throat and he revived to life again. The feller yells to Bud as soon as he can get his breath to go to town and vote, quick, as the polls will close in an hour, and everybody else in that district has voted but Bud, and everyone has been kep' track of, and the vote is a tie.

It's twelve miles to the pollin' place from Bud's farm in the hills and it is a rough country, but Bud strikes out runnin' acrost hills and valleys with three pints of corn licker in his pockets for to refresh himself from time to time. Bud, he allowed he was the best runner in Kentucky, and he wouldn't 'a' had any trouble, even if he did have to run acrost mountains and hurdle rocks, to make the twelve miles in an hour, but there was a lot of cricks and rivers in that country and there had been a gosh-a-mighty big rain the night before and all them cricks had turned into rivers and all them rivers had turned into roarin' oceans and Niagara catarac's. But Bud, he allows he is the best swimmer in Kentucky, and when he comes to a stream he takes a swig of corn licker and jumps in and swims acrost, boots and all--for he was runnin' in his big cowhides, strikin' sparks of fire from the mountains with every leap he made.

Five times he was shot at by Democrats in the first six miles, and in the seventh mile the shootin' was almost continual, and three or four times he was hit, but he kep' on. It seems the Democrats had got wind he had been sent for to turn the tide and a passel of 'em was out among the hills with rifles to stop him if they could. But he is in too much of a hurry to bandy words with 'em, and he didn't have his gun along, which he regretted, he says, as he is the best gun fighter in Kentucky and he keeps on a-runnin' and a-swimmin' and a-jumpin' cricks and a-hurdlin' rocks with the bullets whizzin' around him and the lightnin' strikin' in his path, for another big storm had come up, and no power on this here earth could head him off, he says, for it come to him like a Voice from on High he was the preordained messenger and hero who was goin' to turn the tide and save the country from this here free-silver ruination. About two miles from the pollin' place, jist as he jumps into the last big river, two men plunges into the water after him with dirks, and one of them he gets quick, but the other one drags Bud under the water, stabbin' and jabbin' at him. There is a terrible stabbin' and stickin' battle way down under the water, which is runnin' so fast that big stones the size of a cow is being rolled down stream, but Bud he don't mind the stones, and he can swim under water as well as on top of it, he says, and he's the best knife fighter in Kentucky, he says, and he soon fixes that feller and swims to shore with his knife in his teeth, and now he's only got one more mountain to cross.

But a kind of hurricane has sprung up and turned into a cyclone in there among the hills, and as he goes over the top of that last mountain, lickety-split, in the dark and wind and rain, he blunders into a whole passel of rattlesnakes that has got excited by the elements. But he fit his way through 'em, thankin' God he had nearly a quart of licker left to take for the eight or ten bites he got, and next there rose up in front of him two of them big brown bears, and they was wild with rage because the storm had been slingin' boulders at 'em. One of them bears he sticked with his knife and made short work of, but the other one give him quite a tussel, Bud says, afore he conquered it and straddled it. And it was a lucky thing for him, he says, that he caught that bear in time, for he was gittin' a leetle weak with loss of blood and snake bites and battlin' with the elements. Bud, he is the best rider in Kentucky, and it wasn't thirty seconds afore that bear knowed a master was a-ridin' of it, and in five minutes more Bud, he gallops up to that pollin' place, right through the heart of the hurricane, whippin' that bear with rattlesnakes to make it go faster, and he jumps off and cracks his boot heels together and gives a yell and casts the decidin' vote into the ballot box. He had made it with nearly ten seconds to spare.

Well, accordin' to Bud Peevy that there one vote carries the day for McKinley in that county and not only in that county alone, but in that electorial district, and that electorial district gives McKinley the State of Kentucky, which no Republican had ever carried Kentucky for President for afore. And two or three other States was hangin' back keepin' their polls open late to see how Kentucky would go, and when it was flashed by telegraph all over the country that Bud Peevy was carryin' Kentucky for McKinley, them other States joined in with Kentucky and cast their electorial votes that-a-way, too, and McKinley was elected President.

So Bud figgers he has jist naturally elected that man President and saved the country--he is the one that was the Decidin' Vote for this whole derned republic. And, as I said, he loves to tell about it. It was in 1896 that Bud saved the country and it was in 1900 that he moved to Brown County, Indianny, and started in with his oratin' about what a great man he was, and givin' his political opinions about this, that and the other thing, like he might 'a' been President himself. Bein' the Decidin' Vote that-a-way made him think he jist about run this country with his ideas.

He's been hangin' around the streets in his new home, the county town of Brown County, for five or six weeks, in the summer of 1900, tellin' what a great feller he is, and bein' admired by everybody, when one day the news comes that the U. S. Census for 1900 has been pretty nigh finished, and that the Centre of Population for the whole country falls in Brown County. Well, you can understand that's calculated to make folks in that county pretty darned proud.

But the proudest of them all was a feller by the name of Ezekiel Humphreys. It seems these here government sharks had it figgered out that the centre of population fell right on to where this here Zeke Humphrey's farm was, four or five miles out of town.

And Zeke, he figgers that he, himself, personal, has become the Centre of Population.

Zeke hadn't never been an ambitious man. He hadn't never gone out and courted any glory like that, nor schemed for it nor thought of it. But he was a feller that thought well enough of himself, too. He had been a steady, hard-workin' kind of man all his life, mindin' his own business and payin' his debts, and when this here glory comes to him, bein' chose out of ninety millions of people, as you might say, to be the one and only Centre of Population, he took it as his just due and was proud of it.

“You see how the office seeks the man, if the man is worthy of it!” says Zeke. And everybody liked Zeke that knowed him, and was glad of his glory.

Well, one day this here Decidin' Vote, Bud Peevy, comes to town to fill himself up on licker and tell how he saved the country, and he is surprised because he don't get nobody to listen to him. And pretty soon he sees the reason for it. There's a crowd of people on Main Street all gathered around Zeke Humphreys and all congratulatin' him on being the Centre of Population. And they was askin' his opinion on politics and things. Zeke is takin' it modest and sensible, but like a man that knowed he deserved it, too. Bud Peevy, he listens for a while, and he sniffs and snorts, but nobody pays any 'tention to him. Finally, he can't keep his mouth shut any longer, and he says:

“Politics! Politics! To hear you talk, a fellow'd think you really got a claim to talk about politics!”

Zeke, he never was any trouble hunter, but he never run away from it, neither.

“Mebby,” says Zeke, not het up any, but right serious and determined-like, “mebby you got more claim to talk about politics than I have?”

“I shore have,” says Bud Peevy. “I reckon I got more claim to be hearkened to about politics than any other man in this here whole country. I'm the Decidin' Vote of this here country, I am!”

“Well, gosh-ding my melts!” says Zeke Humphreys. “You ain't proud of yourself, nor nothin', are you?”

“No prouder nor what I got a right to be,” says Bud Peevy, “considerin' what I done.”

“Oh, yes, you be!” says Zeke Humphreys. “You been proudin' yourself around here for weeks now all on account o' that decidin' vote business. And _anybody_ might 'a' been a Decidin' Vote. A Decidin' Vote don't amount to nothin' 'longside a Centre of Population.”

“Where would your derned population be if I hadn't went and saved this here country for 'em?” asks Bud Peevy.

“Be?” says Zeke. “They'd be right where they be now, if you'd never been born nor heard tell on, that's where they'd be. And I'd be the centre of 'em, jist like I be now!”

“And what _air_ you now?” says Bud Peevy, mighty mean and insultin'-like. “You ain't nothin' but a accident, you ain't! What I got, I fit for and I earnt. But you ain't nothin' but a happenin'!”

Them seemed like mighty harsh words to Zeke, for he figgered his glory was due to him on account of the uprighteous life he always led, and so he says:

“Mister, anybody that says I ain't nothin' but a happenin' is a liar.”

“1 kin lick my weight in rattlesnakes,” yells Bud Peevy, “and I've done it afore this! And I tells you once again, and flings it in your face, that you ain't nothin' but a accidental happenin'!”

“You're a liar, then!” says Zeke.

With that Bud Peevy jerks his coat off and spits on to his hands.

“Set yo'self, man,” says he; “the whirlwind's cornin'!” And he makes a rush at Zeke. Bud is a good deal taller'n Zeke, but Zeke is sort o' bricky-red and chunky like a Dutch Reformed Church, and when this here Peevy comes on to him with a jump Zeke busts him one right on to the eye. It makes an uncheerful noise like 1 heard one time when Dan Lively, the butcher acrost the street there, hit a steer in the head with a sledge hammer. Bud, he sets down sudden, and looks surprised out of the eye that hadn't went to war yet. But he must 'a' figgered it was a accident for he don't set there long. He jumps up and rushes again.

“I'm a wildcat! I'm a wildcat!” yells this here Bud. And Zeke, he collisions his fist with the other eye, and Bud sets down the second time. I won't say this here Zeke's hands was as big as a quarter of beef. The fact is, they wasn't that big. But I seen that fight myself, and there was somethin' about the size and shape of his fist when it was doubled up that kind o' _reminded_ me of a quarter of beef. Only his fists was harder than a quarter of beef. I guess Zeke's fists was about as hard as a hickory log that has been gettin' itself soaked and dried and seasoned for two or three years. I heard a story about Zeke and a mule that kicked him one time, but I didn't see it myself and I dunno' as it's all true. The word was that Zeke jist picked up that mule after it kicked him and frowned at it and told it if it ever done that again he would jist naturally pull off the leg that it kicked him with and turn it loose to hop away on three legs, and he cuffed that mule thorough and thoughtful and then he took it by one hind leg and fore leg and jounced it against a stone barn and told it to behave its fool self. It always seemed to me that story had been stretched a mite, but that was one of the stories they telled on Zeke.

But this here Bud Peevy is game. He jumps up again with his two eyes lookin' like a skillet full of tripe and onions and makes another rush at Zeke. And this time he gets his hands on to Zeke and they rastles back and forth. But Bud, while he is a strong fellow, he ain't no ways as strong as a mule even if he is jist as sudden and wicked, so Zeke throws him down two or three times. Bud, he kicks Zeke right vicious and spiteful into the stomach, and when he done that Zeke began to get a little cross. So he throwed Bud down again and this time he set on top of him.

“Now, then,” says Zeke, bangin' Bud's head on to the sidewalk, “am I a happenin', or am I on purpose?”

“Lemme up,” says Bud. “Leggo my whiskers and lemme up! You ain't licked me any, but them ol' wounds I got savin' this country is goin' to bust open ag'in. I kin feel 'em bustin'.”

“I didn't start this,” says Zeke, “but I'm a-goin' to finish it. Now, then, am I a accident, or was I meant?”

“It's a accident you ever got me down,” says Bud, “Whether you are a accident yourself or not.”

Zeke jounces his head on the sidewalk some more and he says: “You answer better nor that! You go further! You tell me whether I'm on purpose or not!”

“You was meant for somethin',” says Bud, “but you can't make me say what! You can bang my head off and I won't say what. Two or three of them bullets went into my neck right where you're bendin' it and I feel them ol' wounds bustin' open.”

“I don't believe you got no ol' wounds,” says Zeke, “and I don't believe you ever saved no country and I'm gonna keep you here till I've banged some sense and politeness into your head.”

Bud, he gives a yell and a twist, and bites Zeke's wrist; Zeke slapped him some, and Bud ketched one of Zeke's fingers into his mouth and nigh bit it off afore Zeke got it loose. Zeke, he was a patient man and right thoughtful and judicious, but he had got kind o' cross when Bud kicked him into the stomach, and now this biting made him a leetle mite crosser. I cal'ated if Bud wasn't careful he'd get Zeke really riled up pretty soon and get his fool self hurt. Zeke, he takes Bud by the ears and slams his head till I thought the boards in that sidewalk was goin' to be busted.

“Now, then,” says Zeke, lettin' up for a minute, “has the Centre of Population got a right to talk politics, or ain't he? You say he is got a right, or I mebby will fergit myself and get kind o' rough with you.”

“This here country I saved is a free country,” says Bud Peevy, kind o' sick an' feeble, “and any one that lives in this here country I saved has got a right to talk politics, I reckon.”

Zeke, he took that for an answer and got good-natured and let Bud up. Bud, he wipes the blood off'n his face and ketches his breath an' gits mean again right away.

“If my constitution hadn't been undermined savin' this here country,” says Bud, “you never could 'a' got me down like that! And you ain't heard the end of this argyment yet, neither! I'm a-goin' for my gun, and we'll shoot it out!”

But the townspeople interfered and give Bud to understand he couldn't bring no guns into a fight, like mebby he would 'a' done in them mountain regions he was always talkin' about; an' told him if he was to start gunnin' around they would get up a tar-and-feather party and he would be the reception committee. They was all on Zeke's side and they'd all got kind o' tired listenin' to Bud Peevy, anyhow. Zeke was their own hometown man, and so they backed him. All that glory had come to Brown County and they wasn't goin' to see it belittled by no feller from another place.

Bud Peevy, for two or three weeks, can't understand his glory has left him, and he goes braggin' around worse than ever. But people only grins and turns away; nobody will hark to him when he talks. When Bud tries to tell his story it gets to be quite the thing to look at him and say: “Lemme up! Leggo my whiskers! Lemme up!”--like he said when Zeke Humphreys had him down. And so it was he come to be a byword around town. Kids would yell at him on the street, to plague him, and he would get mad and chase them kids, and when folks would see him runnin' after the kids they would yell: “Hey! Hey, Bud Peevy! You could go faster if you was to ride a bear!” Or else they would yell: “Whip yourself with a rattlesnake, Bud, and get up some speed!”

His glory had been so big and so widespread for so long that when it finally went, there jist wasn't a darned thing left to him. His heart busted in his bosom. He wouldn't talk about nothin'. He jist slinked around. He was most pitiful because he wasn't used to misfortune like some people.

And he couldn't pack up his goods and move away from that place. For he had come there to live with a married daughter and his son-in-law, and if he left there he would have to get a steady job working at somethin' and support himself. And Bud didn't want to risk that. For that wild run he made the time he saved the country left him strained clean down to the innards of his constitution, he says, and he wa'n't fit to work. But the thing that put the finishing touches on to him was when a single daughter that he had fell into love with Zeke Humphreys, who was a widower, and married herself to him. His own flesh and blood has disowned him, Bud says. So he turns sad, and he was the saddest man 1 ever seen. He was sadder than you look to be, stranger.

The stranger with the educated skin breathed a gentle sigh at the conclusion of Hennery's tale of the Deciding Vote and the Centre of Population, and then he said:

“I don't doubt Bud Peevy was a sad man. But there's sadder things than what happened to Bud Peevy. There's things that touches the heart closer.”

“Stranger,” said Ben Grevis, “you've said it! But Hennery, here, don't know anything about the heart bein' touched.”

Hennery McNabb seemed to enjoy the implication, rather than to resent it. Ben Grevis continued:

“A sadder thing than what happened to Bud Peevy is goin' on a good deal nearer home than Indianny.

“I ain't the kind of a feller that goes running to Indianny and to Kentucky and all over the known earth for examples of sadness, nor nothin' else. We got as good a country right here in Illinois as there is on top of the earth and I'm one that always sticks up for home folks and home industries. Hennery, here, ain't got any patriotism. And he ain't got any judgment. He don't know what's in front of him. But right here in our home county, not five miles from where we are, sets a case of sadness that is one of the saddest I ever seen or knowed about.

“Hennery, here, he don't know how sad it is, for he's got no finer feelin's. A free thinker like Hennery can't be expected to have no finer feelin's. And this case is a case of a woman.”

“A woman!” sighed the stranger. “If a woman is mixed up with it, it could have finer feelin's and sadness in it!” And a ripple of melancholy ran over him from head to foot.

This here woman (said Ben Grevis) lives over to Hickory Grove, in the woods, and everybody for miles around calls her Widder Watson.

Widder Watson, she has buried four or five husbands, and you can see her any day that it ain't rainin' settin' in the door of her little house, smokin' of her corn-cob pipe, and lookin' at their graves and speculatin' and wonderin'. I talked with her a good deal from time to time durin' the last three or four years, and the things she is speculatin' on is life and death, and them husbands she has buried, and children. But that ain't what makes her so sad. It's wishin' for somethin' that, it seems like, never can be, that is makin' her so sad.

She has got eighteen or twenty children, Widder Watson has, runnin' around them woods. Them woods is jist plumb full of her children. You wouldn't dare for to try to shoot a rabbit anywhere near them woods for fear of hittin' one.

And all them children has got the most beautiful and peculiar names, that Widder Watson got out of these here drug-store almanacs. She's been a great reader all her life, Widder Watson has, but all her readin' has been done in these here almanacs. You know how many different kinds of almanacs there always are layin' around drug-stores, I guess. Well, every two or three months Widder Watson goes to town and gets a new bale of them almanacs and then she sets and reads 'em. She goes to drug-stores in towns as far as twelve or fifteen miles away to keep herself supplied.