"But I onbuckles this afternoon to tell you-all about Old Man
Enright's early love, an' if I aims to make the trip before the moon
comes up, I better hit the trail of them reminiscences an' no
further delays.
"It's in the back room of the New York Store where the casks be, an'
Enright, on whose nerves an' sperits Peets' preescriptions of 'no
licker' has been feedin' for two full days, sits thar sort o'
fidgin' with his fingers an' movin' his feet in a way which shows
he's a heap on aige. Thar's a melancholy settles on us all, as we
camps 'round on crates an' shoe boxes an' silently sympathizes with
Enright to see him so redooced. At last the grand old chief starts
in to talk without questions or requests.
"'If you-all don't mind,' says Enright, 'I'll let go a handful of
mem'ries touchin' my yooth. Thar's nothin' like maladies to make a
gent sentimental, onless it be gettin' shot up or cut up with
bullets or bowies; an' these yere visitations, which Peets thinks is
alkali an' I holds is the burdens of them years of mine, shore
leaves me plumb romantic.
'Which I've been thinkin' all day, between times when I'm thinkin'
of licker, of Polly Hawks; an' I'll say right yere she's my first
an' only love. She's a fine young female, is Polly--tall as a
saplin', with a arm on her like a cant-hook. Polly can lift an' hang
up a side of beef, an' is as good as two hands at a log-rollin'.
"'This yere's back in old Tennessee on the banks of the Cumberland.
It's about six years followin' on the Mexican war, an' I'm shot
up'ards into the semblances of a man. My affections for Polly has
their beginnin's in a coon-hunt into which b'ars an' dogs gets
commingled in painful profoosion.
"'I ain't the wonder of a week with a rifle now, since I'm old an'
dim, but them times on the Cumberland I has fame as sech. More'n
once, ag'inst the best there is in either the Cumberland or the
Tennessee bottoms, or on the ridge between, I've won as good as, say
first, second and fifth quarters in a shoot for the beef.'
"'Whatever do you-all call a fifth quarter of beef?' asks Dan Boggs.
'Four quarters is all I'm ever able to count to the anamile.'
"'It's yooth an' inexperience,' says Enright, 'that prompts them
queries. The fifth quarter is the hide an' tallow; an' also thar's a
sixth quarter, the same bein' the bullets in the stump which makes
the target, an' which is dug out a whole lot, lead bein' plenty
infrequent in them days I'm dreamin' of.
"'As I'm sayin', when Dan lams loose them thick head questions, I'm
a renowned shot, an' my weakness is huntin' b'ars. I finds 'em an'
kills 'em that easy, I thinks thar's nothin' in the world but b'ars.
An' when I ain't huntin' b'ars, I'm layin' for deer; an' when I
ain't layin' for deer, I'm squawkin' turkeys; an' when I ain't
squawkin' turkeys, I'm out nights with a passel of misfit dogs I
harbors, a shakin' up the scenery for raccoons. Altogether, I'm some
busy as you-all may well infer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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