Part 2 (1/2)

Homer didn't savvy, but he didn't care. Mainly he wanted comp'ny. He whispered to us to go easy, suspectin' that if we woke up Mother Bickell she'd want to feed him some more clam fritters. By the time we'd unlocked the front door though, she was after us, but all she wanted was to make Homer wrap a shawl around his head to keep out the night air.

”And don't you dare take it off until you get back,” says she. Homer was glad to get away so easy and said he wouldn't. But he was a sight, lookin' like a Turk with a sore throat.

The old man had routed Ase Horner out by the time we got there, and they was havin' it hot and heavy. Ase said it wasn't either November nor March when he went up after Hen Dorsett, but the middle of October. He knew because he'd just begun s.h.i.+ngling his kitchen and the line storm came along before he got it finished. More'n that, it was in '84, for that was the year he ran for sheriff.

”See here, gentlemen,” says Leonidas, ”isn't it possible to find some official record of this sad tragedy? You'll excuse us, being strangers, for takin' a hand, but there don't seem to be much show of our getting any sleep until this thing is settled. Besides, I'd like to know myself.

Now let's go to the records.”

”I'm ready,” says Ase. ”If this thick-headed old idiot here don't think I can remember back a few years, why, I'm willing to stay up all night to show him. Let's go to the County Clerk's and make him open up.”

So we started, all five of us, just as the town clock struck twelve. We hadn't gone more'n a block, though, before we met a whiskered old relic stumpin' along with a stick in his hand. He was the police force, it seems. Course, _he_ wanted to know what was up, and when he found out he was ready to make affidavit that Hen had been killed some time in August of '81.

”Wa'n't I one of the pall bearers?” says he. ”And hadn't I just drawn my back pension and paid off the mortgage on my place, eh? No use routin'

out the Clerk to ask such a fool question; and anyways, he ain't to home, come to think of it.”

”If you'll permit me to suggest,” says Leonidas, ”there ought to be all the evidence needed right in the cemetery.”

”Of course there is!” says Ase Horner. ”Why didn't we think of that first off? I'll get a lantern and we'll go up and read the date on the headstun.”

There was six of us lined up for the cemetery, the three natives jawin'

away as to who was right and who wasn't. Every little ways some one would hear the racket, throw up a window, and chip in. Most of 'em asked us to wait until they could dress and join the procession. Before we'd gone half a mile it looked like a torchlight parade. The bigger the crowd got, the faster the recruits fell in. Folks didn't stop to ask any questions. They just jumped into their clothes, grabbed lanterns and piked after us. There was men and women and children, not to mention a good many dogs. Every one was jabberin' away, some askin' what it was all about and the rest tryin' to explain. There must have been a good many wild guesses, for I heard one old feller in the rear rank squallin' out: ”Remember, neighbors, nothin' rash, now; nothin' ras.h.!.+”

I couldn't figure out just what they meant by that at the time; but then, the whole business didn't seem any too sensible, so I didn't bother. On the way up I'd sort of fell in with the constable. He couldn't get any one else to listen to him, and as he had a lot of unused conversation on hand I let him spiel it off at me. Leonidas and Homer were ahead with Ase Homer and the old duffer that started the row, and the debate was still goin' on.

When we got to the cemetery Homer dropped out and leaned up against the gate, sayin' he'd wait there for us. We piled after Ase, who'd made a dash to get to the headstone first.

”It's right over in this section,” says he, wavin' his lantern, ”and I want all of you to come and see that I know what I'm talking about when I give out dates. I want to show you, by ginger, that I've got a mem'ry that's better'n any diary ever wrote. Here we are now! Here's the grave and--well, durn my eyes! Blessed if there's any sign of a headstun here!”

And there wa'n't, either.

”By jinks!” says the old constable, slappin' his leg. ”That's one on me, boys. Why, Lizzie Dorsett told me only last week that her mother had the stun took up and sent away to have the name of her second husband cut on't. Only last week she told me, and here I'd clean forgot it.”

”You're an old billy goat!” says Ase Horner.

”There, there!” says Leonidas, soothing him down. ”We've all enjoyed the walk, anyway, and maybe----” But just then he hears something that makes him p.r.i.c.k up his ears. ”What's the row back there at the gate?” he asks.

Then, turnin' to me, he says: ”Shorty, where's Homer?”

”Down there,” says I.

”Then come along on the jump,” says he. ”If there's any trouble lying around loose he'll get into it.”

Down by the gate we could see lanterns by the dozen and we could hear all sorts of yells and excitement, so we makes our move on the double.

Just as we fetched the gate some one hollers:

”There he goes! Lynch the villain!”

We sees a couple of long legs strike out, and gets a glimpse of a head wrapped up in a shawl. It was Homer, all right, and he had the gang after him. He took a four-foot fence at a hurdle and was streakin' off through a plowed field into the dark.