Part 29 (2/2)
It is just a quarter of a century since I have seen Uncle Remus He visited us in our ho eyes of Susy and Clara, for I made a deep and awful impression upon the little creatures--who knew his book by heart throughto them privately that he was the real Uncle Remus ashed so that he could come into people's houses the front way
He was the bashfulest grown person I have ever met When there were people about he stayed silent, and seeone But he was lovely, nevertheless; for the sweetness and benignity of the iraces and sincerities of his character shone in his face
It may be that Jim Wolf was as bashful as Harris It hardly seems possible, yet as I look back fifty-six years and consider Ji sli-office in Hannibal He was seventeen, and yet he was as h I was only fourteen
He boarded and slept in the house, but he was always tongue-tied in the presence of entle htened irl was; nothing could persuade hi
Once when he was in our small parlor alone, two majestic old maids entered and seated themselves in such a way that Ji by the by one of Harris's plesiosaurians ninety feet long I came in presently, was charmed with the situation, and sat down in a corner to watch Jim suffer, and enjoy it My mother followed a an to talk Ji a quarter of an hour he did not change his position by a shade--neither General Grant nor a bronze ie could have maintained that immovable pose more successfully I mean as to body and li reveal--so out of the common There would be a sudden twitch of the muscles of the face, an instant distortion, which in the next instant had passed and left no trace
These twitches gradually grew in frequency, but no idity, or betrayed any interest in as happening to Ji to him, and I knew perfectly well that that was the case At last a pair of tears began to swis, but Jiht hand steal along his thigh until half-way to his knee, then take a vigorous grip upon the cloth
That was a _wasp_ that he was grabbing! A colony of the around, and every time he winced they stabbed hiroup of excursionists after another clihtest wince or squired himself with, in his misery
When the entertainripping the thereat cost, for, as he couldn't see the wasp, he was as likely to take hold of the wrong end of hiave him a punch to remember the incident by
If those ladies had stayed all day, and if all the wasps in Missouri had cos, nobody there would ever have known it but Jim and the wasps and me There he would have sat until the ladies left
When they finally went aent up-stairs and he took his clothes off, and his legs were a picture to look at They looked as if they were le red hole in the centre The pain was intolerable--no, would have been intolerable, but the pain of the presence of those ladies had been so s was quite pleasant and enjoyable by comparison
Jim never could enjoy wasps I reraphy of Me_ [1885-6]
Maiven me a very pleasant little newspaper scrap about papa, to copy I will put it in here
[_Thursday, October 11, 1906_] It was a rather strong compliment; I think I will leave it out It was froredients of Redpath's make-up were honesty, sincerity, kindliness, and pluck He wasn't afraid He was one of Ossawato Kansas days; he was all through that struggle He carried his life in his hands, and froht's lodging He had a shunted by the ”jayhawkers,” ere proslavery Missourians, guerillas, modern free lances
[_Friday, October 12, 1906_]I can't think of the nauerilla who led the jayhawkers and chased Redpath up and down the country, and, in turn, was chased by Redpath By grace of the chances of war, the two h they several times came within an ace of it
Ten or twelve years later, Redpath was earning his living in Boston as chief of the lecture business in the United States Fifteen or sixteen years after his Kansas adventures I beca there soht, at the Tremont Hotel in Boston, and I attended it I sat near the head of the table, with Redpath between er sat on er, but he see him
He was ht have been losing sleep the night before
The first man called up was Redpath At the er started, and showed interest He fixed a fascinated eye on Redpath, and lost not a word of his speech Redpath told so other things:
”Three tiallant jayhawker chief, and once he actually captured _o, because he said he was hot on Redpath's trail and couldn't afford to waste tier was called up next, and when Redpath heard his naer said, bending a caressing glance upon Redpath and speaking gently--I may even say sweetly:
”You realize that I was that jayhawker chief I alad to know you now and take you to my heart and call you friend”--then he added, in a voice that was pathetic with regret, ”but if I had only known you then, what tumultuous happiness I should have had in your society!--while it lasted”
The last quarter of a century of my life has been pretty constantly and faithfully devoted to the study of the human race--that is to say, the study of myself, for, in ether I have found that then is no ingredient of the race which I do not possess in either a se way When it is sredient in soh of it for all the purposes of examination In my contacts with the species I find no one who possesses a quality which I do not possess The shades of difference between other people and me serve to make variety and prevent , we are all alike; and so by studyingences, I have been enabled to acquire a knowledge of the human race which I perceive is more accurate and more comprehensive than that which has been acquired and revealed by any other member of our species As a result, my private and concealed opinion of myself is not of a complimentary sort It follows that my estimate of the human race is the duplicate ofto discuss all of the peculiarities of the huhtly upon one or two of theood billiard-table to a poor one; and why he should prefer straight cues to crooked ones; and why he should prefer round balls to chipped ones; and why he should prefer a level table to one that slants; and why he should prefer responsive cushi+ons to the dull and unresponsive kind I wonder at these things, because e examine the matter we find that the essentials involved in billiards are as competently and exhaustively furnished by a bad billiard outfit as they are by the best one One of the essentials is amuseotten out of the one outfit than out of the other, the facts are in favor of the bad outfit The bad outfit will always furnish thirty per cent more fun for the players and for the spectators than will the good outfit Another essential of the gaive the players full opportunity to exercise their best skill, and display it in a way to compel the admiration of the spectators Very well, the bad outfit is nothing behind the good one in this regard It is a difficult matter to estimate correctly the eccentricities of chipped balls and a slanting table, and ht allowance for them and secure a count; the finest kind of skill is required to accoaa opportunities to bet Very well, in this regard no good outfit can claie over a bad one I know, by experience, that a bad outfit is as valuable as the best one; that an outfit that couldn't be sold at auction for seven dollars is just as valuable for all the essentials of the game as an outfit that is worth a thousand
I acquired so in Jackass Gulch, California, o Jackass Gulch had once been a rich and thriving surface-old deposits were exhausted; then the people began to go away, and the town began to decay, and rapidly; in my time it had disappeared Where the bank, and the city hall, and the church, and the ga-dens, and the newspaper office, and the streets of brick blocks had been, was nothing now but a wide and beautiful expanse of green grass, a peaceful and chars were still inhabited, and there was still one saloon of a ruined and rickety character struggling for life, but doomed In its bar was a billiard outfit that was the counterpart of the one in arret The balls were chipped, the cloth was darned and patched, the table's surface was undulating, and the cues were headless and had the curve of a parenthesis--but the forlorn rearand opera combined