Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other StoriesFox, John, Jr.
General
Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories
Fox, John, Jr.
Cumberland Mountains -- Fiction; Kentucky -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Mountain life -- Fiction
Everybody was a policeman at the Gap, I added; and,
naturally, he still looked puzzled; but he began at once to question the
boys about their studies, and, in an hour, he had his daily schedule
mapped out and submitted to me. I had to cover my mouth with my hand
when I came to one item--"Exercise: a walk of half an hour every
Wednesday afternoon between five and six"--for the younger, known since
at Harvard as the colonel, and known then at the Gap as the Infant of
the Guard, winked most irreverently. As he had just come back from a
ten-mile chase down the valley on horseback after a bad butcher, and as
either was apt to have a like experience any and every day, I was not
afraid they would fail to get exercise enough; so I let that item of the
tutor pass.
The tutor slept in my room that night, and my four brothers, the eldest
of whom was a lieutenant on the police guard, in a room across the
hallway. I explained to the tutor that there was much lawlessness in
the region; that we "foreigners" were trying to build a town, and that,
to ensure law and order, we had all become volunteer policemen. He
seemed to think it was most interesting.
About three o'clock in the morning a shrill whistle blew, and, from
habit, I sprang out of bed. I had hardly struck the floor when four
pairs of heavy boots thundered down the stairs just outside the door,
and I heard a gasp from the startled tutor. He was bolt upright in bed,
and his face in the moonlight was white with fear.
"Wha--wha--what's that?"
I told him it was a police whistle and that the boys were answering it.
Everybody jumped when he heard a whistle, I explained; for nobody in
town was permitted to blow one except a policeman. I guessed there would
be enough men answering that whistle without me, however, and I slipped
back into bed.
"Well," he said; and when the boys lumbered upstairs again and one
shouted through the door, "All right!" the tutor said again with
emphasis: "Well!"
Next day there was to be a political gathering at the Gap. A Senator was
trying to lift himself by his own boot-straps into the Governor's
chair. He was going to make a speech, there would be a big and unruly
crowd, and it would be a crucial day for the Guard. So, next morning, I
suggested to the tutor that it would be unwise for him to begin work
with his pupils that day, for the reason that he was likely to be
greatly interrupted and often. He thought, however, he would like to
begin. He did begin, and within half an hour Gordon, the town sergeant,
thrust his head inside the door and called the colonel by name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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