They moved up toward Sherburn’s house, a-shouting and carrying on like Indians, and everything had to clear out or get run over and stepped into the mud, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling it ahead of the crowd, crying and trying to get out of the way; and every window along the road was full of women’s heads, and there was black boys in every tree, and young men and women looking over every fence; and as soon as the crowd would get nearly to them they would break and run back out of reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most to death.
They crowded up in front of Sherburn’s house as thick as they could squeeze together, and you couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise. It was a little twenty-foot yard. Some shouted out "Break down the fence! destroy it!" Then there was the sound of breaking, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd starts to push in like a wave.
Just then Sherburn steps out onto the roof of his little front porch, with a rifle in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly relaxed and confident, not saying a word. The noise stopped, and the wave moved back.
Sherburn never said a word -- just stood there, looking down. The quiet was awful strange. Sherburn run his eye along the crowd; and wherever it landed the people tried to look back, but they couldn’t; they dropped their eyes and looked guilty. Then pretty soon Sherburn kind of laughed; not the nice kind, but the kind that makes you feel like you're eating bread that’s got sand in it.
Then he says, slow and proud: "The thought of you hanging anyone is a laugh. You think you're strong enough to hang a man! Because you’re brave enough to tar and feather poor women without anyone to help them, did that make you think you were brave enough to put your hands on a man? Why, a man’s safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind -- as long as he can see you and you’re not behind him.
"Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and grew up in the South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know most people all around. Most people are too afraid to do anything. In the North they let anyone walk over them that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a coach full of men in the light of day, and robbed them all. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people. Truth is, you’re just as brave, but no braver. Why don’t your courts hang killers? Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark -- and it’s just what they would do too.
"So they always let a killer off; and then a man goes in the night, with a hundred people who are so scared that they wear masks, and hangs the awful man. Your problem is you didn’t bring a man with you; that’s one thing you did wrong, and the other is you didn’t come in the dark and bring masks. You brought part of a man -- Buck Harkness, there -- and if you hadn’t had him to start you, you would a just talked.
"You didn’t want to come. Most don’t like trouble and danger. But if only half a man -- like Buck Harkness, there -- shouts ‘Hang him! hang him!’ you’re afraid to back down -- afraid you’ll be found out to be what you are -- too scared to act -- and so you start shouting, and hang yourselves onto that half-a-man’s coat-tail, and come racing up here, saying what big things you’re going to do. The saddest thing out is a crowd come for a hanging; that’s what an army is -- a crowd coming for a hanging; they don’t fight because they’re brave, no, they borrow their strength from those around them, and from their leaders. But a crowd without any man at the head of it is worse than sad. Now the thing for you to do is to let your tails hang down and go home and climb into a hole. If any real hanging’s going to be done it will be done in the dark, the way they do it down here; and when they come they’ll bring their masks, and bring a man along. Now leave -- and take your half-a-man with you!" He threw his rifle up across his left arm when he said this.
The crowd moved back quickly, and then broke all apart, and went running off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking pretty cheap. I could a stayed if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to.
*****
I went to the circus instead and was hanging around the back until the watchman went by, and then climbed in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold piece and some other money, but I thought it was better to save it, because there ain’t no telling how soon you're going to need it, away from home like that. I ain’t against spending money on circuses when there ain’t no other way, but there ain’t no use in wasting it on them.
It was a real good circus. It was the best thing in the world to see them all come riding in, two by two, a man and a woman, side by side, the men just in their underpants and undershirts, and no shoes, and resting their hands on the top of their legs easy and comfortable -- there must a been twenty of them - - and every woman with a nice skin, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang of real sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost millions of dollars, and just covered with diamonds. It was more than beautiful; I never seen anything so nice. And then one by one they got up and stood on the back of a horse, and went a-riding around the circle so soft and smooth, the men looking ever so tall and straight, with their heads moving along, away up there under the tent-roof, and every woman’s beautiful dress moving softly around her hips, and she looking like the most beautiful umbrella.
And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one foot in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and more, and the man with the whip going round and round the centre, hitting his whip and shouting "Hi! -- hi!" and the clown making jokes behind him; and by and by all hands dropped the ropes controlling the horses, and every woman put her fists on her hips and every man folded his arms, and then how the horses did lean over and lead themselves! And so one after the other they all jumped off into the circle, and made the sweetest bow I ever seen, and then ran out, and everybody clapped their hands and went just about wild.
Well, all through the circus they done the most surprising things; and all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people. The man with the whip couldn’t ever say a word to him but he was back at him fast as lightning with the funniest things a body ever said; and how he ever could think of so many of them, and so quickly and so perfectly, was what I couldn’t no way understand. Why, I couldn’t a thought of them in a year. And by and by a drunk man tried to get into the circle -- said he wanted to ride; said he could ride as well as anyone. They argued and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn’t listen, and the whole show come to a stop. The people started to shout at him and make fun of him, and that made him angry, and he started to shout back; so that made the people more angry, and a lot of men started to come down off the benches and crowd toward the circle, saying, "Knock him down! throw him out!" One or two women started to cry out. So, then, the man with the whip he gave a little talk, and said he hoped there wouldn’t be no trouble, and if the man would promise to make no more trouble he would let him ride if he thought he could stay on. So everybody laughed and said all right, and the man got on.
The minute he was on, the horse started to jump and throw itself around, with two circus men hanging on to its ropes trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to its neck, and its heels flying in the air every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing until tears come down. At last, sure enough, after all the circus men could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went like he was crazy, around and around the circle, with that poor drunk man lying down on him and hang- ing to his neck, with first one leg hanging almost to the ground on one side, and then t’other one on t’other side, and the people just went crazy. But it weren’t funny to me; I was shaking all over to see his danger. But pretty soon he got himself up to sitting on the horse and he took a hold of the ropes, a-leaning this way and that; and the next minute he jumped up and dropped the rope and stood! and the horse a-going like a house on fire too. He just stood up there, a- sailing around as easy and comfortable as if he weren’t ever drunk in his life -- and then he started to pull off his clothes and throw them. He took them off so thick they kind of filled the air, and in the end he took off seventeen suits.
And, then, there he was, thin and good looking, and dressed the prettiest you ever saw, and he made that horse almost fly -- and in the end he jumped off, and made his bow and danced off to the dressing-room, and everybody just a-shouting with happiness and surprise.
Then the man with the whip he see how he had been tricked. Why, it was one of his own men who had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on to nobody. Well, I felt embarrassed enough to be took in so, but I wouldn’t a been in that whip man’s place, not for a thousand dollars. There may be better circuses than what that one was, but I never seen them yet. Anyway, it was more than good enough for me; and wherever I run across it, it can have all of my business every time.
Well, that night we had our show; but there weren’t only about twelve people there -- just enough to pay costs. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke angry; and everybody but one boy who was asleep left before the show was over. So the duke said these Arkansas timber heads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low laughs -- and maybe something even worse than low laughs, he thought. He said he could size their way of thinking. So next morning he got some big pieces of paper and some black paint, and made some signs and put them up all over the village.
The signs said:
AT THE COURT HOUSE!
FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
The Well known actors
DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
And
EDMUND KEAN THE OLDER!
Of the London and Haymarket Theatres,
In
THE KING’S FOOLISHNESS ! ! !
50 cents to get in
Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said:
WOMEN AND CHILDREN CANNOT COME IN.
"There," says he, "if that line don’t bring them, I don’t know Arkansas!"