Father Minor beamingly faced Squire Futrell, whose Southern Methodism was of the most rigid and unbendable type. Professor Reese, principal of the graded school, touched elbows with Jake Smedley, colour bearer of the Camp, who just could make out to write his own name. Peter J. Galloway, the lame blacksmith, who most emphatically was Irish, had a caressing arm over the stooped shoulder of Mr. Herman Felsburg, who most emphatically was not. Doctor Lake, his own pet crony in a town where everybody, big and little, was his crony in some degree, sat one seat removed from the judge, with the empty chair of the bedfast Chickasaw Reeves in between them and so it went.
Even in the matter of the waiters an ancient and a hallowed sentiment ruled. Behind Judge Priest, and swollen as with a dropsy by pomp of pride and vanity, stood Uncle Zach Mathews, a rosewood-coloured person, whose affection for the Cause that was lost had never been questioned even though Uncle Zach, after confusing military experiences, emerged from the latter end of the conflict as cook for a mess of Union officers and now drew his regular quarterly pension from a generous Federal Government.
Flanking Uncle Zach, both with napkins draped over their arms, both awaiting the word from him to bring on the first course, were posted on the right, Tobe Emery, General Griders one-time body servant; on the left, Uncle Ike Copeland, a fragile, venerable exhuman chattel, who might almost claim to have seen actual service for the Confederacy. No ordinary darkies might come to serve when Company B foregathered at the feast.
Uncle Zach, with large authority, had given the opening order, and at the side tables a pleasing clatter of china had arisen, when Squire Futrell put down his glass and rose, with a startled look on his face.
Looky here, boys! he exclaimed. This wont never do! Did you fellers know there wus thirteen at the table?
Sure enough, there were!
It has been claimed perhaps not without colour of plausibility that Southerners are more superstitious than Northerners. Assuredly the Southerners of a generation that is almost gone now uniformly nursed their private beliefs in charms, omens, spells, hoodoos and portents. As babies many of them were nursed, as boys all of them were played with, by members of the most superstitious race next to actors on the face of creation. An actor of Ethiopian descent should by rights be the most superstitious creature that breathes the air of this planet, and doubtlessly is.
No one laughed at Squire Futrells alarm over his discovery. Possibly excusing Father Minor, it is probable that all present shared it with him. As for Uncle Zach Mathews and his two assistants, they froze with horror where they had halted, their loaded trays poised on their arms. But they did not freeze absolutely solid they quivered slightly.
Law-zee! gasped Uncle Zach, with his eyeballs rolling. Dinner cant go no furder twell we gits somebody else in or meks somebody leave and go way dats sartain shore! Whee! We kin all thank Our Maker dat dey aint been nary bite et yit.
Amen to dat, Brer Zach! muttered Ike shakily; and dumbly Tobe Emery nodded, stricken beyond power of speech by the nearness of a barely averted catastrophe fraught with disaster, if not with death itself.
Involuntarily Judge Priest had shoved his chair back; most of the others had done the same thing. He got on his feet with alacrity.
Boys, he said, the squire is right theres thirteen of us. Now whut dye reckin were goin to do bout that?
The natural suggestion would be that they send at once for another person. Three or four offered it together, their voices rising in a babble. Names of individuals who would make congenial table mates were heard. Among others, Sergeant Jimmy Bagby was spoken of; likewise Colonel Cope and Captain Woodward. But Judge Priest shook his head.
I cant agree with you-all, he set forth. By the time we sent clean uptown and rousted one of them boys out, the vittles would all be cold.
Well, Billy, demanded Doctor Lake, what are you going to do, then? We cant go ahead this way, can we? Of course I dont believe in all this foolishness about signs myself; but he added but I must admit to a little personal prejudice against thirteen at the table.
Listen here, you boys! said Judge Priest. Ef were jest, obliged and compelled to break a long-standin rule of this command and it looks to me like thats whut weve got to do lets foller after a precedent that was laid down a mighty long time ago. You-all remember dont you how the Good Book tells about the Rich Man that give a feast oncet? And at the last minute the guests hed invited didnt show up at all none of em. So then he sent out into the highways and byways and scraped together some hongry strangers; and by all accounts they had a purty successful time of it there. When in doubt I hold its a fairly safe plan to jest take a leaf out of them old Gospels and go by it. Lets send out right here in the neighbourhood and find somebody no matter who tis, so long as hes free, white and twenty-one that looks like he could appreciate a meal of vittles, and present the compliments of Company B to him, and ast him will he come on in and jine with us.
Maybe it was the old judges way of putting it, but the idea took unanimously. The manager of the Richland House, having been sent for, appeared in person almost immediately. To him the situation was outlined and the remedy for it that had been favoured.
By gum, gentlemen, said their host, instantly inspired, I believe I know where I can put my hand on the very candidate youre looking for. Theres a kind of seedy-looking, lonely old fellow downstairs, from somewhere the other side of the Ohio River. Hes been registered since yesday morning; seems like to me his name is Watts something like that, anyhow. He dont seem to have any friends or no business in particular; hes just kind of hanging round. And he knows about this dinner too. He was talking to me about it a while ago, just before supper said hed read about it in a newspaper up in his country. He even asked me what the names of some of you gentlemen were. If you think hell do to fill in Ill go right down and get him. He was sitting by himself in a corner of the lobby not two minutes ago. I judge hes about the right age, too, if age is a consideration. He looks to be about the same age as most of you.
There was no need for Judge Priest to put the question to a vote. It carried, so to speak, by acclamation. Bearing a verbal commission heartily to speak for the entire assemblage, Manager Ritter hurried out and in less than no time was back again, escorting the person he had described. Judge Priest met them at the door and was there introduced to the stranger, whose rather reluctant hand he warmly shook.
He didnt want to come at first, explained Mr. Ritter; said he didnt belong up here with you-all; but when I told him the fix you was in he gave in and consented, and here he is.
Youre mighty welcome, suh, said Judge Priest, still holding the other mans hand. And were turribly obliged to you fur comin, and to Mr. Ritter fur astin you to come.
With that, he drew their dragooned guest into the room and, standing beside him, made formal presentation to the expectant company.
Gentlemen of Company B, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Watts, of the State of Illinoy, who has done us the great honour of agreein to make fourteen at the table, and to eat a bite with us at this here little dinner of ours. A straggling outburst of greeting and approbation arose from twelve elderly throats. Mr. Watts, suh, will you be so good as to take this cheer here, next to me? resumed Judge Priest when the noise abated; and he completed the ceremonial by indicating the place of the absent Mr. Reeves.
With that, he drew their dragooned guest into the room and, standing beside him, made formal presentation to the expectant company.
Gentlemen of Company B, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Watts, of the State of Illinoy, who has done us the great honour of agreein to make fourteen at the table, and to eat a bite with us at this here little dinner of ours. A straggling outburst of greeting and approbation arose from twelve elderly throats. Mr. Watts, suh, will you be so good as to take this cheer here, next to me? resumed Judge Priest when the noise abated; and he completed the ceremonial by indicating the place of the absent Mr. Reeves.
What the stranger saw as he came slowly forward if, indeed, he was able to see anything with distinctness by reason of the evident confusion that covered him was a double row of kindly, cordial, curious faces of old men, all staring at him. Before the battery of their eyes he bowed his acknowledgments, but did not speak them; still without speaking, he slipped into the seat which Tobe Emery sprang forward to draw clear of the table for his easier admission to the group. What the others saw was a tall, stooped, awkward man of, say, sixty-five, with sombre eyes, set deep in a whiskered face that had been burned a leathery red by wind and weather; a heavy-footed man, who wore a suit of store clothes clothes of a homely cut and none too new, yet neat enough; such a man, one might guess at a glance, as would have little to say and would be chary about saying that little until sure of his footing and his audience. Judging by appearances and first impressions he did not promise to be what you might call exciting company, exactly; but he made fourteen at the table, and that was the main point, anyhow.
Now the dinner got under way with a swing and a clatter. For all the stitches and tucks that time had taken in their leg muscles, the three old negroes flitted about like flickery black shadows, bringing food to all and toddies to several, and just plain ice water to at least three of their white friends. 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 Priests 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.
Through it all the extra guest sat very quietly, eating little and drinking nothing. Sitting alongside him, Doctor Lake noticed that he fed himself with his right hand only; his left hand stayed in his lap, being hidden from sight beneath the table. Naturally this set afoot a train of mild professional surmise in the old doctors mind. The arm itself seemed sound enough; he vaguely wondered whether the Illinois man had a crippled hand or a deformed hand, or what. Judge Priest noticed it too, but subconsciously rather. At the beginning he tried to start a conversation with Watts, feeling it incumbent on him, as chief sponsor for the others presence, to cure him of his embarrassment if he could, and to make him feel more at home there among them; but his well-meant words appeared to fall on barren soil. The stranger answered in mumbled monosyllables, without once looking Judge Priest straight in the face. He kept his head half averted a posture the judge ascribed to diffidence; but it was evident he missed nothing at all of the talk that ran up and down the long table and back and forth across it. Under his bushy brows his eyes shifted from face to face as this man or that had his say.
So presently the judge, feeling that he had complied with the requirements of hospitality, abandoned the effort to interest his silent neighbour, and very soon after forgot him altogether for the time being. Under the circumstances it was only to be expected of Judge Priest that he should forget incidental matters; for now, to all these lifelong friends of his, time was swinging backward on a greased hinge. The years that had lined these old faces and bent these old backs were dropping away; the memories of great and storied days were mounting to their brains like the fumes of strong wine, brightening their eyes and loosening their tongues.
From their eager lips dropped names of small country churches, tiny backwoods villages of the Southwest, trivial streams and geographically inconsequential mountains names that once meant nothing to the world at large, but which, by reason of Americans having fought Americans there and Americans having died by the hundreds and the thousands there, are now printed in the school histories and memorised by the school children Island Number 10 and Shiloh; Peachtree Creek and Stone River; Kenesaw Mountain and Brices Crossroads. They had been at these very places, or at most of them these thirteen old men had. To them the names were more than names. Each one burned in their hearts as a living flame. All the talk, though, was not of battle and skirmish. It dealt with prisons, with hospitals, with camps and marches.
By George, boys, will you ever forget the day we marched out of this town? It was Doctor Lake speaking, and his tone was high and exultant. Flags flying everywhere and our sweethearts crying and cheering us through their tears! And the old town band up front playing Girl I Left Behind Me and Johnnies Gone for a Soger! And we-all stepping along, feeling so high and mighty and stuck-up in our new uniforms! A little shy on tactics we were, and not enough muskets to go round; but all the boys wore new grey suits, I remember. Our mothers saw to that.
It was different, though, Lew, the day we came home again, reminded some one else, speaking gently. No flags flying then and nobody cheering, and no band to play! And half the women were in black yes, more than half.
An dats de Gawds truth! half-whispered black Tobe Emery, carried away for the moment.
Well, said Press Harper, I know they run out of muskets fore they got round to me. I call to mind that I went off totin an ole flintlock that my paw had with him down in Mexico when he wus campin on ole Santy Annys trail. And that wus all I did have in the way of weepins, cept fur a great big bowie knife that a blacksmith out at Massac made fur me out of a rasp-file. I wus mighty proud of that there bowie of mine till we got down yonder to Camp Boone and found a whole company, all with bigger knives than whut mine wus. Called themselves the Blood River Tigers, those boys did, cause they came frum up on Blood River, in Calloway.
Squire Futrell took the floor or the table, rather for a moment:
I recollec one Calloway County feller down at Camp Boone, when we fust got there, that didnt even have a knife. He went round lowin as how he wus goin to pick him out a likely Yank the fust fight we got into, and lick him with his bare hands ef he stood still and fit, or knock him down with a rock ef he broke and run and then strip him of his outfit.
Why, I place that feller, jest ez plain ez if he wus standin here now, declared Mr. Harper. I remember him sayin he could lick ary Yankee that ever lived with his bare hands.
I reckin mebbe he could, too he wus plenty long enough, said the squire with a chuckle; but the main obstacle wus that the Yankees wouldnt fight with their bare hands. They jest would insist on usin tools the contrary rascals! Lets see, now, whut wus that Calloway County fellers name? You remember him, Herman, dont you? A tall, ganglin jimpy jawed, loose-laiged feller he wus built like one of these here old blue creek cranes.