"It wasn't long before he got into business by starting a 'blind tiger',
and he worked up several war dances in the community, but one night thar
was started a mild argument as to whether the Methodists or the Baptists
was the chosen of the Lord. The argument was in Pelican's place, and he
had to close up the joint, for nearly all of his best customers passed
out with the close of the argument. Pelican told me afterward that over
three hundred shots was fired, and said to me, 'I reckon the only reason
I was saved was that I didn't belong to either denomination, as I am a
Campbellite.'
"Pelican moved down on the Ohio after this, and it was there I met him.
There is always considerable interest, Shawn, in a stranger when he
moves into a community, especially if there is some mystery about him.
Pelican didn't have much to say--he had no desire to mention his past.
He was wise. It was rumored that he had left a good farm at Ball's
Landing and had moved down on the Ohio for asthma trouble that bothered
him. About the only disease he ever had was the whiskey habit, but he
did not dispute any of the statements made by an interested community.
His stock went up with the talk about the farm. He was invited to take
supper with Bill Bristow. Bill owned twenty acres of hill land, with a
small house and a mortgage on it. Old Bill's daughter, Lettie, set next
to Pelican at the table, and old Bill looked on with satisfaction at the
headway they was making. Old Bristow was thinking of the farm up at
Ball's Landing; Pelican was thinking of the one he was on. After a
time, Pelican and Lettie was married. Bristow give a dance and ice cream
supper and charged fifty cents admission. There was dancing, singing and
a cuttin' scrape and the couple felt that the occasion had been one of
success. Pelican certainly married into old Bristow's family for he
never made any move toward looking for another home, and it wasn't long
before Bristow begin to screw up his face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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