Tramping on Life Part 42

"You're a nice one," he muttered, "you pale-faced Yankee son of a b---- ... think you're better 'n the rest of us, don't ye?... readin' in yore books?"

"Nonsense, what are you picking at me for? I'm not harming anybody, am I?"

"No, but you're a G.o.d d.a.m.ned fool!"

"Look here, what have I ever done to you?"

"Nothin', only you're a white-livered stinker, an' I'm jest a-spoilin'

foh a fight with you-all."

"But I don't want to fight with you."

"I'll make you," he replied, striding in; and fetching me a cuff on the ear ... then, in a far-away voice that did not seem myself, I heard myself pleading to be let alone ... by this time all the other boys had crowded down about the cell to see the fun.

I was humiliated, ashamed ... but, try as I would, the thought and vision of my uncle came on me like a palsy.

Bud stepped up. He had always been so meek and placid before that what he did then was a surprise to me.

"_I'll_ fight!"

"What! you?" glowered the young farmer, surprised.

"Yes, I'll give you all the fighting you want, you dirty cotton thief!"

Instantly the farmer made at him. Bud ran in, fetched him two blows in the face, and clinched.

It was not going very well for the desperado. From somewhere on his person he whipped forth a knife, and, with a series of flashes through the air, began stabbing Bud again and again in the back.

I thank G.o.d for what came over me then. Too glad of soul to believe it, I experienced a warm surge of angry courage rus.h.i.+ng through me like an electric storm. All the others were panic-stricken for the moment. But I burst through the group, rushed back to the toilet, and, with frenzied strength, tore loose a length of pipe from the exposed plumbing. I came rus.h.i.+ng back. I brought down the soft lead-pipe across "Jack's" ear, accompanying the blow with a volley of oaths in a roaring voice.

The farmer whipped about to face his new antagonist, letting Bud drop back. Bud sank to the iron floor. The farmer was astonished almost to powerlessness to find facing him, with a length of swinging pipe in his hand, the boy who had a few minutes before been afraid.

But he rapidly recovered and came on at me, gibbering like an incensed baboon.

By this time all the humiliations I had suffered in the past, since succ.u.mbing to the fear-complex that my uncle had beaten into me--all the outrage of them was boiling in me for vengeance. I saw the blood bathing the torn ear of my antagonist. It looked beautiful. I was no longer afraid of anything. Yelling my uncle's name I came on ... I beat the knife out of the other's hand and bloodied his knuckles with the next blow. I beat him down with rapid blows, thres.h.i.+ng at him, shouting and yelling exultantly.

The other men thought me gone crazy. I had, for the time, gone crazy.

The fellow lay at my feet, inert. I stopped for the moment.

In that moment the gang began to close in on me, half frightened themselves. I threatened them back.

"By h.e.l.l, I've had enough of bullying," I shouted wildly; "I'm not afraid of anything or anybody any more ... if there's anyone else here that wants a taste of this pipe, let them step up."

"We ain't a-tryin' to fight you-all," called out the big negro who was in for rape, "we jest don' want you to kill him an' git hung foh murduh."

At the word "murder" I stepped quickly back.

"Well, don't let him come bothering me or my pal for a fight any more when we've done nothing to him."

"Don' worry, he won't no moh!" a.s.sured the fiddler....

I threw down the lead pipe. It had seemed to me that all the while it was my Uncle Landon who had received the blows.

The rough-neck farmer was in bad shape; he was bloodied all over like a stuck pig. The mulatto girl on the outside had for the last five minutes been occupied in calling out of the window for help. She managed to attract the attention of a pa.s.serby-by.

"What's the matter?" was called up to her....

"The jailer ain't downstairs ... an' de boys is killin' each other up heah!"

By the time the angry-faced sheriff came with his son, the jailer, and a couple of doctors, we had quieted down.

Bud and the farmer were taken out; by the side of each a pail of water was placed ... they were seated on stools, stripped to the waist. The surgeons dressed their wounds as if on a battlefield. "Jack" needed ten st.i.tches in his scalp.... Bud had four knife wounds that demanded sewing up. Both the boys went pale like ghosts and spewed their bellies empty from weakness and loss of blood....

"Mind you, you chaps in there have raised 'bout enough h.e.l.l ... ef I hear o' any more trouble, I'll take you all out one by one an' treat each one o' you-all to a good cowhidin', law or no law!"

I was let alone after that. My cowardice had gone forever. I was now a man among men. I was happy. I saw what an easy thing it is to fight, to defend yourself. I saw what an exhilaration, a pleasure, the exchanging of righteous blows can be.

Always my dream was of being a big man when I got out--some day. Always I acted as if living a famous prison romance like that of Baron Von Trenck's.

I collected from the living voices of my fellow prisoners innumerable jail and cocaine songs, and rhymes of the criminal world. I wrote them down on pieces of wrapping paper that the jailer occasionally covered the food-basket with in lieu of newspaper.

"Oh, coco-Marie, and coco-Marai, I'se gon' ta whiff cocaine 'twill I die.

Ho! (sniff) Ho! (sniff) baby, take a whiff of me!"

(The sniffing sound indicating the snuffing up into the nostril of the "snow," or "happy dust," as it is called in the underworld.)

Then there was the song about lice:

"There's a lice in jail As big as a rail; When you lie down They'll tickle your tail-- Hard times in jail, poor boy!..."

And another, more general:

"Along come the jailer About 'leven o'clock, Bunch o' keys in his right hand, The jailhouse do'h was locked....

'Cheer up, you pris'ners,'

I heard that jailer say, 'You got to go to the cane-brakes Foh ninety yeahs to stay!'"

As you can guess, most of these jail songs and ballads of the underworld could only be printed in asterisks. I was hoping, in the interests of folklore, to preserve them for some learned society's private printing press.