They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd
pressing around just the same, and the whole town
following, and I rushed and got a good place at the
window, where I was close to him and could see in.
They laid him on the floor and put one large Bible
under his head, and opened another one and spread
it on his breast; but they tore open his shirt first,
and I seen where one of the bullets went in.
He made about a dozen long gasps, his breast lifting
the Bible up when he drawed in his breath, and letting
it down again when he breathed it out—and
after that he laid still; he was dead. Then
they pulled his daughter away from him, screaming
and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen,
and very sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale
and scared.
Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming
and scrouging and pushing and shoving to get at the
window and have a look, but people that had the places
wouldn’t give them up, and folks behind them
was saying all the time, “Say, now, you’ve
looked enough, you fellows; ’tain’t right
and ’tain’t fair for you to stay thar all
the time, and never give nobody a chance; other folks
has their rights as well as you.”
There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out,
thinking maybe there was going to be trouble.
The streets was full, and everybody was excited.
Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it
happened, and there was a big crowd packed around
each one of these fellows, stretching their necks
and listening. One long, lanky man, with long
hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back
of his head, and a crooked-handled cane, marked out
the places on the ground where Boggs stood and where
Sherburn stood, and the people following him around
from one place to t’other and watching everything
he done, and bobbing their heads to show they understood,
and stooping a little and resting their hands on their
thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with
his cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff
where Sherburn had stood, frowning and having his
hat-brim down over his eyes, and sung out, “Boggs!”
and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and
says “Bang!” staggered backwards, says
“Bang!” again, and fell down flat on his
back. The people that had seen the thing said
he done it perfect; said it was just exactly the way
it all happened. Then as much as a dozen people
got out their bottles and treated him.
Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be
lynched. In about a minute everybody was saying
it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and snatching
down every clothes-line they come to to do the hanging
with.
CHAPTER XXII.
They swarmed up towards Sherburn’s house,
a-whooping and raging like Injuns, and everything
had to clear the way or get run over and tromped to
mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling
it ahead of the mob, screaming and trying to get out
of the way; and every window along the road was full
of women’s heads, and there was nigger boys in
every tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every
fence; and as soon as the mob would get nearly to
them they would break and skaddle back out of reach.
Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking
on, scared most to death.
Copyrights
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
