Law-Abiding Citizens

ONE day, as Uncle Mac and I were standing together upon the main street of Rivertown, a burly, unkempt fellow, whose right arm was held in a dirty bandage and sling, approached us, and struck at once into the thousand and first rehearsal of his ill luck and his sufferings, ending with a proclamation of his imperative need for alms. He was a fair specimen of his class. He looked like the merest rough charcoal sketch of a man, done by an amateurish hand; his nondescript attire, loose, fatty figure, and dull face made a very inadequate sum total of manliness. His plea was addressed to Uncle Mac, as though his experience had yielded a certain power of discrimination. He was undoubtedly experienced ; he spoke with a callous overconfidence, and his plaint had been so often unrolled and rewound that it was worn smooth and threadbare.

Uncle Mac listened until the woeful tale had dragged its slow length along to a conclusion ; and as he listened his feet were spread apart, his hands were pushed deep into his pockets, and his blue, seeing eyes were intent upon the rude face of the beggar, who, when the last word was spoken, stood with his free hand expectantly outstretched.

“You’re a ter’ble clumsy liar,” Uncle Mac said seriously. The other raised his ready hand toward heaven.

“I ’ll take my oath I ain’t said a word that ain’t true as preachin’,” he said, with bravery.

“ Some preachin’,” Uncle Mac amended. “ I ’ll bet four dollars there ain’t a dummed thing the matter with your arm ; or if there is, you’ve blistered it a-purpose with med’cines, to make it look pitiful. I’ve knowed your kind before now.”

The beggar turned away, muttering surlily ; but Uncle Mac called after him : “ On honor, now, is there anything the matter with you ? ”

“ What’s it to you ? ” the fellow growled. Uncle Mac’s answer was to flip into the air a silver dime, which the beggar caught deftly.

“ There’s just one chance you ’re hungry,” the good old man said, as though he felt obliged to apologize for the gift, “ an’ I don’t like to think I’ve mebbe let anybody go that-a-way. But I ’d give dollars to the man that would tell me what’s to be done with the likes of you. You won’t work, nohow ; an’ if you don’t get a livin’ with beggin’, you ’ll take to stealin’, or worse. I don’ know but what the cheapest an’ best way’s to give you enough to keep you from bein’ hungry, because you ain’t goin’ to stir yourself, not even to do devilment, long as you ’re kep’ full o’ grub. Only I do hate like sin to take what oughter be give to them that ’s deservin’ of it, to feed such no-’count critters as you, that ain’t got no more decent pride in you than a salt codfish.”

The man pocketed the coin with an air of indifferent bravado, and ambled on his way down the street, Uncle Mac gazing after him sadly.

“ I ain’t never thought about it till now,” he said, “but we never had none like that feller out here in Nebrasky, early days. They’d’ve made a mighty poor shift. We was all too busy to stand ’round an’ let chaps like him work us for suckers. There was lots o’ the old-timers that wa’n’t a bit backward about coaxin’ each other’s money away from ’em, but they done it dif’rent ways than beggin’, an’ I don’ know but ’t was fairer, all ’round : because when a feller begs from you, you don’t have no show on earth ’ceptin’ to dig down in your clothes an’ give to him ; but if he only tries to cheat it out o’ you, why, you’ve got as good a chance as him.

“ I ain’t sayin’ there was such a powerful sight o’ cheatin’ done, neither, them days, more ’n other times, — not hardly so much, because it’s like I tol’ you awhile ago : folks was on honor a good deal, an’ that always makes a man pretty apt to stand up to the rack. I know I’d trust ’most anybody, them days, a dummed sight quicker ’n I would now. But mebbe I don’ know all. You see, after the Ter’tory was first opened up, there was a right smart while when we did n’t have no great sight o’ law, like we got now. I don’ know but we was better off. Honest, I ain’t never been real friendly to legislatures an’ lawyers. Seems like we don’t need so many of ’em. Why, they ’re makin’ a livin’ out of it, an’ they’ve gone to work an’ got it so a man can’t hardly turn ’round, even mindin’ his own business, without gettin’ all balled up in a mess o’ nasty little laws. I don’t like it. Just as if men wa’n’t goin’ to be straight an’ decent on their own account, without bein’ made to ! A man knows if a thing’s right; an’ if he won’t do it because it’s right, he ain’t liable to do it just because it’s law, is he? You bet he ain’t. I know, because I’ve seen it work out. Them days, when we did n’t have no laws to speak of, it just kind o’ learned us we ’d got to do the best we knowed, an’ look after ourselves ; an’ that helped us to know we ’d got to look out for other folks, too, same time. That’s a pretty good way. We got to know each other, when we wa’n’t all tied up in little wads o’ law to pertect us, an’ we wa’n’t ’feard to stand up an’ let folks see what we looked like, an’ what we could do for ourselves, come to a showdown. I know plenty o’ folks, these times, that don’t seem to think they ’re obligated to do nothin’ but just what the legislature tells ’em to, same as there’s them that don’t feel right about doin’ things unless the preacher says so. I knowed a feller once that would n’t do the least little thing, way o’ business, till he ’d prayed about it some. He’d got a notion the Lord would tell him what to do. Anyway, he was one o’ the ’cutest traders I ever had anything to do with: he skinned me out o’ ’most two hunderd dollars once, time I bought a bunch o’ cattle of him. The Lord never stood by me that-a-way; nor I don’t b’lieve I’d let him if he wanted to.

“Oh, we was law-abidin’ citizens, them days ! ” he said, with a reminiscent chuckle. “We did n’t know what the law was, nor even if there was any, an’ what’s more, we did n’t care ; but we had a mighty big respect for it. just the same. Why, I mind a time, — early summer o’ ’60, I think ’t was, — out on the Salt Lake trail a piece west from the river. There ’d been a passel o’ hoss thieves pesterin’ ’round out there ’mongst the settlers, runnin’ off their critters. They did n’t have no sense. They did n’t get ketched at first, an’ they reckoned they wa’n’t goin’ to get ketched, an’ after while they got too cantankerous to live with, till by an’ by the settlers got all together, an’ made up a committee an’ went after ’em. Two three days after that, I come along the trail with a freightin’ outfit, goin’ west from Omaha ; an’ when we got to where the trail crossed a little creek, where the willers an’ cottonwoods was growin’, we seen the committee ’d got two o’ the gang, an’ they’d bent over some saplin’s an’ fixed up a little scaffoldin’, an’ they ’d strung their men up an’ left ’em. They wa’n’t very pretty to look at, right on the trail like that; but we didn’t feel we had any call to monkey with ’em, us bein’ strangers ’round there. But when we come to the next settler’s place, we spoke up about it. ’T was gettin’ t’wards dark, an’ the old man was settin’ out front of his house, smokin’, whiles his woman was gettin’ supper, an’ he ’d got one of his dogs crawled halfway up on his lap, an’ he was scratchin’ it behind the ears. I can see him yet. We pulled up, an’ I hollered to the feller, an’ I says, ‘ Say ! ’ I says. ‘ Did you know there’s a couple fellers been strung up back at the crossin’ ? ’ An’ he pulls his pipe out of his mouth, an’ spits, an’ he says, 4 Yep; I know. I reckon I oughter ; I helped do it,’ he says. ‘ What was they doin’ ? ’ I says ; an’ he says, ‘ Hoss thieves.’ ‘ Been botherin’ you ’round here ? ’ I says; an’ he says, ‘ Been skedaddlin’ ’round all summer, mostly. But I got back one o’ my critters, that one o’ them fellers was ridin’ we ketched,’ he says. ‘ Well,’ I says, ‘ ain’t it kind o’ on-Christian leavin’ ’em that-a-way ? Why don’t you cut ’em down an’ bury ’em ? ’ I says. ‘ Land, no ! ’ he says. ‘ Why, mister, we ain’t got no ’thority to cut ’em down. But we notified the sheriff,’ he says, ‘ so’s it can be done accordin’ to law.’ That just shows !

“ But the most fun was after while, when the boys begun to get kind o’ dissatisfied with hittin’ off justice ’mongst theirselves best they could, an’ when they was gettin’ sort o’ prideful, an’ wanted to have justices o’ the peace, an’ such. Out ’round the edges, there wa’n’t many men that had good common sense that could afford to play justice o’ the peace, — there wa’n’t enough in it ; so them that was ’lected was mostly pretty raw.

“ There was one Dutch farmer out in Frontier County that got ’lected because there wa’n’t nobody runnin’ ag’inst him, an’ he kep’ his place till his time was nigh up, without havin’ no cases. It suited him, because he’d got the glory. He was too busy to try cases, anyway; because a Dutch farmer would n’t stop his work, not even for the angel Gabriel, long’s there was anything to be ’tended to with his crops. But ’long one fall there was a young feller out there on one o’ the farms that shot another feller he’d had a scrap with whiles they was drunk, an’ he got hauled up. There wa’n’t nobody ’round there to give him his prelim’nary but this Dutchman, an’ it just happened his work was mostly all done for fall, so he wa’n’t so rushed. Folks up there was mighty much interested, because they all knowed the boy’s fam’ly, an’ his daddy was well fixed ; an’ when it got to be knowed there was three four lawyers was hired to come out from the river, why, seemed like everybody that could travel come in to the bearin’. I knowed that old chap mighty well, an’ there wa’n’t an honester old rooster on the prairies ; but he wa’n’t a bit bright, — just stupid-honest, you know, like Dutchmen is.

“ Well, they had it up an’ down for two days, listenin’ to the folks that was called for witnesses ; an’ I ain’t never seen lawyers work like them did. They knowed they ’d got to work, ’count o’ the justice not knowin’ no more about law than he knowed about the cost o’ layin’ gold sidewalks in the New Jerusalem. Them lawyers sweat a heap, an’ when the witnesses was all through with their say, they turned in an’ argued, an’ ripped, an’ stormed, first one an’ then another, for a whole day, an’ after supper they come back at it ag’in. The old Dutchman was boldin’ his court out in his barn, an’ he’d had his women folks just spread theirselves, cookin’, an’ ’most everybody that’d come a good piece from home, pris’ner, an’ lawyers, an’ all, was comp’ny ; an’ he seemed to think he’d got to do his best to make ’em feel to home. He’d got a heart in him deep as a well. There wa’n’t a word any o’ the witnesses said but that the boy’d done the shootin’, with nothin’ to make him do it ’ceptin’ he was drunk ; but I knowed the old chap so well, an’ what soft insides he had t’wards folks, I just made a little bet with myself he was goin’ to let the boy go, ’specially seein’ as how the other feller had got well. I kep’ watchin’ him, settin’ up on the lid of his feed box, where he could be comfort’ble, smokin’, an’ not openin’ his head. If a Dutchman is stupid, he’s mighty ’cute about it, because he mostly don’t give hisself away. The lawyers, they was gettin’ pretty much wore out, so’s they wanted to get finished up that night, an’ ’t was scand’lous the things they tried to tell the old feller was law; an’ after supper, when they ’d took lights out to the barn, they yelled an’ hollered an’ pranced up an’ down till they was limp as wet chickens ; an’ by an’ by, when they could n’t think o’ nothin’ else, they begun callin’ each other liars. That’s a thing that wa’n’t noways safe with other folks, but lawyers don’t care. A man that can set still an’ grin whiles another feller’s callin’ him a liar, he ’s dif’rent from me.

“ The old chap’d been used to goin’ to bed about sundown, so’s they had to stop their talkin’ every little whiles till somebody’d go poke him to wake him up ; because when he’d drop off to sleep he’d snore like a Guinea hen squawkin’, an’ they could n’t talk to save their souls. ’T was awful funny ! But come ’long t’wards ’leven o’clock, an’ they quit, an’ one o’ the fellers that was defendin’ the boy, he says, ‘ Now, your honor, we ’re willin’ to stop right here, an’ let you decide,’ he says ; an’ the rest of ’em, they said they was, too. They was hoarse as barn hinges. The Dutchman, his pipe had gone out; but he lit it up an’ smoked awhile, an’ then he says, ‘ Well,’ he says, ‘ what am I goin’ to do ? You fellers ain’t tol’ me what the law is yet,’ he says. ‘ You talked a heap, an’ I been thinkin’ you might mebbe work ’round to it, so’s you’d make up your minds, peaceable ; but you ain’t done it. Seems like you ’re further apart than when you started in,’ he says. ‘ If you’d got together, why, I would n’t been the one to stand out; I’d done like you fellers tol’ me to,’ he says ; ‘ but it looks like now I got to make up my mind for myself, an’ that’s what I’m goin’ to do. It’s a princ’ple o’ law,’ he says, ‘ that when a feller’s in doubt, why, the pris’ner’s got to be give the advantage of it, an’ he’s got to be let go. I know that’s so,’ he says, ‘ because I was on a jury once, back in Mar’land, an’ the judge, he told us so. If that’s good law for a jury, it oughter be good for a judge, too; because out here in my court,’ he says, ‘ there ain’t goin’ to be no dif’rence between one man an’ another. I don’ know what the law is, an’ my doubts has been gettin’ bigger ever since you fellers started in to talkin’,’ he says; ‘ an’ so, if this boy ’ll give me his word he ’ll go back home on the farm with his folks, an’ won’t do no more shootin’ nor get drunk no more, why, I’m goin’ to let him go free,’ he says ; an’ he says to the boy, ‘ If that suits you, Ed, you can go,’ he says.

“ You’d oughter seen them lawyers ! They just set there, wipin’ the sweat off of ’em, so dumb they couldn’t say a word ; an’ the Dutchman, he got down off the feed box, an’ he stretched hisself an’ gaped, an’ then he went pokin’ off to bed. Mebbe that wa’n’t just accordin’ to the law books, but it worked. Just for fun, I kep’ track o’ that boy, dif’rent times after that, an’ he turned out a heap better ’n he would if he’d been sent up.

“ When we first got our courts an’ things, we mostly just played with ’em, because we did n’t take ’em to be much account. I can’t think yet but the best times of all was before we had ’em. O’ course things was pretty rough, but take an’ average it up, I reckon we felt a good deal more like men than these youngsters does now, goin’ to law every little whipstitch. There ’s no use talkin’: decent, honest men was looked up to a heap more ’n they are now; an’ them that wanted to be looked up to, they knowed mighty well they’d got to be decent an’ honest. That helped a lot. I mind plenty o’ times when I’d make big contracts, with thousan’s o’ dollars in ’em, an’ me an’ the other feller, we’d just go to work by ourselves an’ kind o’ fix it up the way that looked fair an’ square, without no lippy lawyers to hinder us ; an’ we’d get it straightened ’round in our minds, an’ we’d say, ‘ There, if that ain’t accordin’ to law, why, it ’d oughter be ; ’ an’ then we’d live up to it. A man had to be mighty careful how he did n’t do what his contract called for. There was some that was reckless, like what they called the Press-Claim Club, up to Omaha, that run settlers off their lands, an’ ducked ’em under the ice, an’ killed some of ’em, an’ then stole their land. Some o’ them fellers is big turkeys now - days, an’ cuts a splurge, ’count o’ their money ; but us ol’-timers, we got our own way o’ thinkin’ about ’em. I don’ know how a man’s made that’s willin’ to do things like that. I know I would n’t be in their pants, not for all they got.

“We all done things that wa’n’t down on the slate, when we had n’t got no law to show for it. There was the Underground Railroad, for one thing, when ol’ John Brown was rummagin’ ’round down in Kansas an’ Missouri, with his gang, stealin’ niggers an’ sendin’ ’em off places where they’d be took care of. They mostly was sent over to Canada ; but there was towns all along where there was stations on the Underground, an’ there’s where the wagons would stop to get the niggers fed an’ rested. Seemed like all the towns up an’ down the river had took sides, one way or other, FreeSoilers or Pro - Slave, an’ they used to be forever scrappin’ ’mongst theirselves, like Nebraska City an’ Tabor, over in Ioway. Tabor was where ol’ Brown used to get his men together, times, to train ’em, when he was gettin’ ready for some big scheme, an’ the folks over there, they stood together like Scotchmen. ’T was easy enough in a place like that, where the folks was all one way o’ thinkin’ ; but towns like Nebraska City or Falls City, that was all split up, there was where it worried us. We had to be watchful what we said there ; an’ that’s something I never did like. If a feller don’t want to talk, that’s dif’rent from bein’ made to keep still. ’T wa’n’t that we was ’feard o’ trouble, exac’ly ; but there was plenty o’ them that said they was Free-Soilers that wa’n’t trusty, an’ had to be watched. Them was the ones we was ’feard of.

“ Only time I ever seen ol’ John Brown was down to Falls City, — ’57, I b’lieve’t was, — when he was makin’ one o’ his trips to Ioway with a bunch o’ niggers. That was one o’ the things I was talkin’ about awhile ago. ’T wa’n’t noways law - abidin’ to run them niggers off. Accordin’ to law, ol’ Brown was a thief when he took ’em, an’ us that stood by him, we was as bad as him ; that’s just the long an’ short of it. But what did we care ? I don’t s’pose the youngsters now-days could hardly make out why we done it. ’T wa’n’t because we loved the niggers so much, nor yet for devilment; but just seemed like ’t was in the wind, an’ ketchin’, when a few o’ the men like Brown an’ ol’ Jim Lane started it. I’ve always noticed it don’t take more ’n one good man to make a thousan’ others get to work. Brown, he was a good one ! Seemed like Jim Lane was more human, like other folks ; but things would n’t been done if it had n’t been for Brown. He’d got his head set just one way, an’ you could n’t no more turn him by talkin’ than you could turn a blizzard by blowin’ your breath on it; so’s there wa’n’t nothin’ for the rest of us to do but tail after him.

“ I’d just happened to be down to Falls City one day when Brown got word up to ’em he was comin’, an’ he ’d want his niggers fed up an’ some clothes got ready for ’em. I knowed some o’ the boys down there, an’ I turned in to help ’em. We kep’ it still as we could ; but seems to me like Americans ain’t got the knack o’ keepin’ secrets. Secrets swells us up, same as dried apples, till we fair bust with ’em. Anyway, some o’ the ProSlaves ’round town got to know he was comin’, an’ we did n’t know but there’d be trouble. Falls City ain’t but just a few mile back from the river, acrost from Missouri, an’ over in Missouri they was payin’ big money for niggers that was brought back to ’em. ’Long t’wards dark there was so much talkin’ ’round town, two three of us fellers took our rifles an’ rode out horseback so’s to meet Brown an’ look after him some, comin’ in to town. Look after Brown ! Makes me laugh! Like talkin’ about takin’ care o’ sun-up, so’s nothin’ won’t happen to it.

“ Four five mile out we come on a mean-lookin’ covered wagon, drawed by ox-teams, with a couple fellers ridin’ ’longside. Did n’t ’pear to be much of an outfit, an’ we turned our ponies out to go past it, when one o’ the riders, he sung out to us to know where we was goin’. I happened to be leadin’, so’s it came to me to do the talkin’ ; an’ I says to the feller, I says, ‘ Oh, we ’re just goin’ ’long on our own business ; ’ an’ he says, ‘ Be you lookin’ for John Brown ? ’ I did n’t see ’t was any o’ his doin’s who we was lookin’ for, an’ I tol’ him so ; but he says, plain as could be, ‘ I ’m him,’ he says. I was just on the p’int o’ tellin’ him he was a liar, till I come to take a good look at him, an’ then I reckoned I better wait a minute. I been thankful ever since I did wait. But I was ter’ble disapp’inted. I’d heerd so much o’ John Brown, an’ the things he’d done, I ’d thought I was goin’ to see a man seven foot tall, an’ big as a barrel ; but he wa’n’t neither one. He was just a common-lookin’ feller, matter o’ size, an’ he was settin’ humped over in his saddle like anybody else, joggin’ ’long an’ makin’ hisself easy as he could. ’T was his face that shut me up. I ain’t never seen anybody’s face like it, not even Abe Lincoln’s. ’T was a face that looked like’t was made out o’ rock, with a jaw strong as a beartrap, an’ his eyes looked fair through me. Yes, sir, I’m almighty glad I did n’t say what I was goin’ to. One o’ the fellers that was with me, he’d knowed Brown before, an’ he rode up an’ spoke ; an’ come to find out, there was seven niggers under the wagon cover, an’ just ol’ Brown an’ the driver takin’ care of ’em whiles they was travelin’. If I ’d been doin’ it, I ’d ’ve wanted a half-comp’ny escort, anyway. That just shows ! He did n’t seem a mite bothered, just pokin’ ’long like they was goin’ to a Sunday - school picnic ; only he had a Sharps rifle slung acrost his saddle, an’ the driver had a rifle, too, settin’ up beside him on the seat.

“Well, we started back t’wards town, with the other fellers ridin’ up ahead, an’ me an’ Brown back by the wagon. The niggers under the wagon cover, they was keepin’ mighty still. I wanted to square myself with the ol’ man, so I started in tellin’ him what we ’d been hearin’ all day, an’ what we was ’feard of, about the Pro-Slaves makin’ trouble. He set listenin’, like he did n’t half hear me ; an’ when I’d got through, he just give his head a little shake, an’ he says, ‘There ain’t goin’ to be no trouble,’ he says. How’d he know ? I did n’t like it, bein’ turned down so flat; an’ I started in ag’in, tellin’ him the brags the ProSlaves had been makin’, till he shut me off ; an’ he says to me, ‘ Young man,’ he says, ‘ you need n’t never be seared o’ them that makes their brags about stoppin’ the Lord’s work,’ he says, ‘ because there ain’t no man can make that kind of a brag stick.’ So I shut up ; an’ Brown, he took us right in to the house where he’d been used to goin’, other trips, where he knowed the feller ; an’ he wa’n’t act’ly so much bothered as a man is now-days takin’ a wagonload o’ hogs to stockyards. I never seen such a chap. When we got to the house, Brown made the niggers get down from the wagon, an’ they was turned into this feller’s barn; an’ they cooked their supper an’ laid down an’ went to sleep, with two three of us standin’ on post. Brown, he slep’ in the barn with ’em, on a pile o’ fodder, with a blanket wrapped ’round him, an’ he took his turn like the rest of us, doin’ sentry duty. He’d been dead right about it, — there wa’n’t a whisper o’ trouble all night; an’ come mornin’, they just took their time gettin’ breakfast, an’ then they got loaded up an’ started on. I ain’t never forgot that, nor I would n’t take a new red wagon for what it learned me. No, sir, a man that knows he’s right, he don’t need to be scared o’ law nor nothin’ else. Trouble is, I reckon, there ain’t many folks so dead sure they ’re right.”

William R. Lighton .