Roughing It eBook

’She wouldn’t let them roll him up, but planted him just so—­full length.  The church was middling small where they preached the funeral, and they had to let one end of the coffin stick out of the window.  They didn’t bury him—­they planted one end, and let him stand up, same as a monument.  And they nailed a sign on it and put—­put on—­put on it—­sacred to—­the m-e-m-o-r-y—­of fourteen y-a-r-d-s—­of three-ply—­car—–­pet—­containing all that was—­m-o-r-t-a-l—­of—­of—­W-i-l-l-i-a-m—­W-h-e—­’

Jim Blaine had been growing gradually drowsy and drowsier—­his head nodded, once, twice, three times—­dropped peacefully upon his breast, and he fell tranquilly asleep.  The tears were running down the boys’ cheeks —­they were suffocating with suppressed laughter—­and had been from the start, though I had never noticed it.  I perceived that I was “sold.”  I learned then that Jim Blaine’s peculiarity was that whenever he reached a certain stage of intoxication, no human power could keep him from setting out, with impressive unction, to tell about a wonderful adventure which he had once had with his grandfather’s old ram—­and the mention of the ram in the first sentence was as far as any man had ever heard him get, concerning it.  He always maundered off, interminably, from one thing to another, till his whisky got the best of him and he fell asleep.  What the thing was that happened to him and his grandfather’s old ram is a dark mystery to this day, for nobody has ever yet found out.

CHAPTER LIV.

Of course there was a large Chinese population in Virginia—­it is the case with every town and city on the Pacific coast.  They are a harmless race when white men either let them alone or treat them no worse than dogs; in fact they are almost entirely harmless anyhow, for they seldom think of resenting the vilest insults or the cruelest injuries.  They are quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness, and they are as industrious as the day is long.  A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist.  So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his hands he needs no support from anybody; white men often complain of want of work, but a Chinaman offers no such complaint; he always manages to find something to do.  He is a great convenience to everybody—­even to the worst class of white men, for he bears the most of their sins, suffering fines for their petty thefts, imprisonment for their robberies, and death for their murders.  Any white man can swear a Chinaman’s life away in the courts, but no Chinaman can testify against a white man.  Ours is the “land of the free”—­nobody denies that—­nobody challenges it. [Maybe it is because we won’t let other people testify.] As I write, news comes that in broad daylight in San Francisco, some boys have stoned an inoffensive Chinaman to death, and that although a large crowd witnessed the shameful deed, no one interfered.