The Swamp Doctor's Adventures in The South-West: Containing the Whole of The Louisiana Swamp Doctor; Streaks of Squatter Life; and Far-Western Scenes; In a Series of Forty-Two Humorous Southern and Western Sketches, Descriptive of Incidents and CharacterRobb, John S.
General
The Swamp Doctor's Adventures in The South-West: Containing the Whole of The Louisiana Swamp Doctor; Streaks of Squatter Life; and Far-Western Scenes; In a Series of Forty-Two Humorous Southern and Western Sketches, Descriptive of Incidents and Character
Robb, John S.
Southwest, Old -- Social life and customs
my eyes and the hot blood would cum biling up from my heart, when I'd
hobble out of a sundown and hear the boys tell, as they went by, of the
sport they'd had that day, and how the bar fit 'fore he was killed, and
how fat he war arter he was slayed. Long arter they was gone, and the
whip-poor-will had eat up their voices, I would sit out there on the old
stump, and think of the things that used to hold the biggest place in my
mind when I was a boy, and p'raps sense I've bin a man.
“I'd heard tell of distinction and fame, and people's names never dying,
and how Washington and Franklin, and Clay and Jackson, and a heap
of political dicshunary-folks, would live when their big hearts had
crumbled down to a rifle-charge of dust; and I begun, too, to think,
Doc, what a pleasant thing it would be to know folks a million years
off would talk of me like them, and it made me 'tarmine to 'stinguish
myself, and have my name put in a book with a yaller kiver. I warn't
a genus, Doc, I nude that, nor I warn't dicshunary; so I detarmined to
strike out in a new track for glory, and 'title myself to be called
the 'bear-hunter of Ameriky.' Doc, my heart jumpt up, and I belted my
hunting-shirt tighter for fear it would lepe out when I fust spoke them
words out loud.
“'The bar-hunter of Ameriky!' Doc, you know whether I war ernin' the
name when I war ruined. There is not a child, white, black, Injun, or
nigger, from the Arkansas line to Trinity, but what has heard of me, and
I were happy when”--here a tremor of his voice and a tear glistening in
the glare of the fire told the old fellow's emotion--“when--I take
a drink--Doc, I found I was dying--I war gettin' weaker and weaker--I
nude your truck warn't what I needed, or I'd sent for you. A bar-hunt
war the medsin that my systum required, a fust class bar-hunt, the
music of the dogs, the fellers a screaming, the cane poppin', the rifles
crackin', the bar growlin', the fight hand to hand, slap goes his paw,
and a dog's hide hangs on one cane and his body on another, the knife
glistenin' and then goin' plump up to the handle in his heart!--Oh!
Doc, this was what I needed, and I swore, since death were huggin' me,
anyhow, I mite as well feel his last grip in a bar-hunt.
“I seed the boys goin' long one day, and haled them to wait awhile, as I
believed I would go along too. I war frade if I kept out of a hunt much
longer I wood get outen practis. They laughed at me, thinkin' I war
jokin'; for wat cood a sick, old, one-legged man do in a bar-hunt? how
cood he get threw the swamp, and vines, and canes, and backwater? and
s'pose he mist the bar, how war he to get outen the way?
“But I war 'tarmined on goin'; my dander was up, and I swore I wood
go, tellin' them if I coodent travel 'bout much, I could take a stand.
Seein' it war no use tryin' to 'swade me, they saddled my poney, and off
we started.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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