Irvin S. Cobb

“ We used to call them coaches when they figured in funerals, carriages when used for lodge turnouts, and plain hacks when they met the trains and boats. In the coach rode four women. The world at large had a way of calling them painted women; but this day their faces were not painted nor were they garishly clad. For the time they were merely women—neither painted women nor fallen women—but just women.
And that was nearly all, but not quite. At one side of the hearse, opposite the slowly turning front wheels, trudged Judge Priest, carrying in the crook of one bent arm a book. ”

“ The shade was as plentiful upon one side of Clay Street as upon the other; each sagged wooden sidewalk was in as bad repair as its brother over the way. The small, shabby frame house, buried in honeysuckles and balsam vines, which stood close up to the pavement line on the opposite side of Clay Street, facing Judge Priest's roomy, rambling old home, had no flag of pestilence at its door or its window. And surely to this lone pedestrian every added step must have been an added labour. A stranger would never have understood it ”

“ Judge Priest got up from a front pew where he had been sitting and went and stood alongside the flower-piled coffin, with his back to the little yellow-pine pulpit and his prayer book in his hands, a homely, ungraceful figure, facing an assemblage that packed the darky meeting house until it could hold no more. In sight there were just five women: the good woman at the melodeon and four other women, dwellers beneath a sinful roof, who sat together upon what the pastor of the True Believers would have called the mourners' bench. And all the rest were men. Men sat, row on row, in the pews ”

“ But a sudden draft of air whisked certain loose sheets off his desk, carrying them toward the fireplace, and he swung about to find a woman in his doorway. She was a big, upstanding woman, overfleshed and overdressed, and upon her face she bore the sign of her profession as plainly and indubitably as though it had been branded there in scarlet letters.
The old man's eyes narrowed as he recognised her. But up he got on the instant and bowed before her. No being created in the image of a woman ever had reason to complain that in her presence Judge Priest forgot his manners. ”

“ Well, then?” He stood up. “Well, I reckon that's all. I won't be detaining you any longer. I'm much obliged to you, Judge, and I wish you good-day, sir.”
For once Judge Priest forgot his manners. He uttered not a syllable, but only stared through his spectacles in stunned and stricken silence while Mr. Curd passed out into the hallway, gently closing the door behind him. Then Judge Priest vented his emotions in a series of snorts.
In modern drama what is technically known as the stage aside has gone out of vogue; it is called old-fashioned. ”

“ In the sheltering crotch of little Tony's two plump bestraddling legs, which encircled his neck, the old judge chuckled to himself. A wave of laughter ran through the ranks of the halted mob—Tony's voice had carried so far as that, and Tony's mode of speech apparently had met with favour. Mob psychology, according to some students, is hard to fathom; according to others, easy.
From the midst of the knot of Sicilians a man stepped forth—not the tall man with the gun, but a little stumpy man who moved with a limp. ”

“ Even Kentuckians have been known to be advocates of temperance. To learn how true a statement this is you must read, not the comic weeklies, but the official returns of local-option elections. Above the medley of commingling voices, some cracked and jangled with age, some still full and sonorous, and one at least as thin and piercing as the bleat of a reed flute—that would be Judge Priest's voice, of course—sounded the rattling of dishes and glasses and plated silverware. Uncle Zach and his two aides may have been good waiters, but they were tolerably noisy ones. ”

“ As M. Jansen steered his dappled span close up alongside the pavement and brought them to a standstill, Judge Priest looked back and with what he saw was well content. He knew that morbid curiosity might account for the presence of some among this multitude who had come following after him, but not for all, and perhaps not for very many. He nodded to himself with the air of one who is amply satisfied by the results of an accomplished experiment.
For the bearers of the dead he selected offhand the eight men who had marched nearest to him. ”

“ As between resting on his laurels and dying in the harness he infinitely preferred the chafe of the leather to the questionable softness of the laurel-bed. So the campaign shaped itself to be a regular campaign. Except for these two—Maydew and Guest—there were no openly avowed candidates, though Dabney Prentiss, who dearly loved a flirtation with reluctant Destiny, was known to have his ear to the ground, ready to qualify as the dark horse in the event a deadlock should develop and a cry go forth for a compromise nominee. ”

“ The shadows on the grass lay lank and attenuated when the folks came back from the Pastime Rink. Sergeant Bagby sat alone upon Doctor Grundy's porch. There were puddles of spilt water on porch and step and the walk below, and a green foot-tub, now empty, stood on its side against the railings. The sergeant was drawing his white yam socks on over his water-bleached shanks.
“Well, suh, Jimmy,” said Judge Priest as he came up under the vines, “you certainly missed it this evenin'. That was the best speech Gen'l Tige Gracey ever made in his whole life. It certainly was a wonder and a jo-darter!” ”

“ Doctor Lake was there, and Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, the faithful and inevitable. It was the biggest turnout the Camp had had in a year.
Far over on one side, cramped down in a chair, was Captain Abner Tilghman, feeble and worn-looking. His buggy horse stood hitched by the curb downstairs. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby had gone to his house for him and on the plea of business of vital moment had made him come with him. Almost directly across the middle aisle on the other side sat Mr. Edward Tilghman. Nobody had to go for him. ”

“ Down in the cellar the darky janitor might feed the fire box until his spine cracked and the boilers seethed and simmered, but the steam somehow seemed to get lost in transit, manifesting itself on the floors above only in a metallic clanking and clacking, which had been known seriously to annoy lawyers in the act of offering argument to judge and jurors. When warmth was needed to dispel the chill in his own quarters Judge Priest always had a fire kindled in the fireplace. ”

“ Nobody could beat Judge Priest for his own job; at least nobody ever had. But controlling his own job and his own county was one thing. Engineering a district-wide canvass in behalf of an aging and uninspiring incumbent was another. And if over the bent shoulders of Major Guest they might strike a blow at Judge Priest, why, so much the better for Maydew now, and so much the worse for Priest hereafter. ”

“ Judge Priest stood in the middle aisle, making no move to go back to his own place. He watched the two silent readers. All the others watched them too. They read on, making slow progress, for the light was poor and their eyes were poor. And the watchers could hardly contain themselves; they could hardly wait. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby kept bobbing up and down like a pudgy jack-in-the-box that is slightly stiff in its joints. ”

“ And how about letting these murderous, dirk-toting pauper labourers come pouring down from the slums of the great cities to take the bread right out of the mouths of poor, hard-working darkies? With the sudden hostility to the white stranger rose an equally sudden sympathy for the lot of the black neighbour whose place he had usurped. Besides, who ever saw one of the blamed Dagos spending a cent at a grocery, or a notions store, or a saloon—or anywhere? Money earned in the community ought to be spent in the community. ”

“ For thirty-odd years old Major Burnley lived on one side of his house and his wife lived on the other, neither of them ever crossing an imaginary dividing line that ran down the middle of the hall, having for their medium of intercourse all that time a lean, spinster daughter, in whose grey and barren life churchwork and these strange home duties took the place that Nature had intended to be filled by a husband and by babies and grand-babies. ”

“ Lie-abed blackbirds were still talking over family matters in the maples that clustered round the house, and in the back yard Judge Priest's big red rooster hoarsely circulated gossip in regard to a certain little brown hen, first crowing out the news loudly and then listening, with his head on one side, while the rooster in the next yard took it up and repeated it to a rooster living farther along, as is the custom among male scandalisers the world over. ”

“ Judge Priest, I've never been a believer in divorce as a general thing. It seemed to me there was too much of that sort of thing going on round this country. That's always been my own private doctrine, more or less. But in my own case I've changed my mind. We've been talking it over back and forth and we've decided—Luella and me have—that under the circumstances a divorce is the best thing for both of us; in fact we've decided that it's the only thing. ”

“ The delegates flowed out of the Marshallville opera house into the public square of Marshallville, and half of them, or a little more than half, were openly, jubilant; and half of them, or a little less than half, were downcast, wearing the look upon their faces of men who were licked and who knew it, good and well. Moving along through the crowded aisle, a despondent delegate from Mims, a distant kinsman of Major Guest, found himself touching shoulders with Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, who was a delegate from our own county. ”

“ Governed partly by an instinct operating automatically, partly to hide his own emotions, which had been roused to a considerable degree, Doctor Lake bent and spelled out the first few words. His head came up with a jerk of profound surprise and gratification.
“Why, this is signed by John B. Gordon him-self!” he snorted. He twisted about, reaching out for Judge Priest. “Billy! Billy Priest! Why, look here! Why, this man's no Yankee! Not by a dam' sight he's not! Why, he served with a Georgia regiment! Why——”
But Judge Priest never heard a word of what Doctor Lake was saying. ”

“ To him in this dire emergency the Guest forces, now neck-deep in the last ditch, looked hopefully for a counterfire that might yet save them from the defeat looming so imminent. There and then, for once in his life the judge failed to justify the hopes and the faith of his followers. He seemed strangely unable to find language in which effectively to combat the proposition before the house. ”

“ Thus, over his shoulder, did Sergeant Bagby give the bride away; and then he faced front, with chest expanded and the light of battle in his eyes.
Vociferating, blasphemous, furious, Sally Fannie's tyrant charged the steps and then recoiled at their foot. A lean, sinewy old man in a hickory shirt barred his way, and just beyond this barrier a stout old man with his feet in a foot-tub loomed both large and formidable. ”

“ The Black Eagle of Emmett darted out from the wings, bounded over the footlights and split a path for himself to the seat of Judge Priest. For once he forgot to be oratorical. “We'll quit, Judge,” he panted, “we're ready to quit. Maydew will withdraw—I've just come from him. He can't stand for this to go on; he'll withdraw if you'll take Curd's name down too. Any compromise candidate will do. Only, for heaven's sake, withdraw Curd before this goes any farther!” ”

“ Weeks was daily guilty of acts that scandalised all proper people. But the improper ones worshipped the ground her feet touched as she walked. She was much like that disciple of Joppa named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas, of whom it is written that she was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did. Yes, you might safely call Mrs. Weeks a character.
With her, back and forth across the telephone wire, Judge Priest had extended speech. Then he hung up the receiver and went home alone to a late and badly burnt supper. ”

“ Into the ken of these three old men, seated in a row upon the parsonage porch, there came up the street a pair whose gait and general air of flurriment and haste instantly caught and held their attention. Side by side sped a young woman and a young man—a girl and a boy rather, for she looked to be not more than eighteen or, say, nineteen, and he at the most not more than twenty-one or so. ”

“ Stress of emotion made Emanuel's voice husky.
“If you don't believe I would do just that very thing, why, a dime'll win you a trip to the Holy Land!” answered back the engaging Caruthers beamingly and enthusiastically.
Then his tone grew earnest: “Listen here, Moon: no man that I take a liking to is a stranger to me—not any more. And I've got to own up to it—I like you. You're my kind of a man—frank, open, on the level; and yet not anybody's easy mark either. I'll bet you're a pretty good hand at sizing up people offhand yourself. ”

“ Then Judge Priest's eyes looked about him and three pews away he saw Ashby Corwin. It may have been he remembered that as a young man Ashby Corwin had been destined for holy orders until another thing—some said it was a woman and some said it was whisky, and some said it was first the woman and then the whisky—came into his life and wrecked it so that until the end of his days Ashby Corwin trod the rocky downhill road of the profligate and the waster. ”