Part 35

"Why, Devol, I wouldn't give five cents for your head if that nigger gets a lick at it," spoke up a young planter who was in the party.

Then I got mad, and exclaimed:

"I'll bet $500 I can make the nigger squeal."

The mate roared out with laughter; but I put up my money, and so did the young planter, thinking that I would back out. He only had $175 in his roll, and he offered to bet that.

"All right; I don't back out. I'll butt the nigger for $175."

The money was soon up in the barkeeper's hands; and then the mate knew that I meant business, and he put up $25 to make bet the even $200.

At this juncture the mate called a halt. "Wait till I see if the nigger will butt with a white man;" and rushing down stairs, the "image of God cut in ebony" was interviewed.

"I doant like for to butt a white man," he said, "for I'm afraid I'll kill him, and den dey hang de ole nigger."

But the mate said, "I've just put up $25 on you, and I want to win it."

"All right; if yer means it, boss, I'll go yer."

At the bar I procured a long string and a ribbon from a cigar bunch, and started down stairs. Instantly the wildest excitement reigned on the boat. Two of the deck-hands stood guard at the foot of the stairs to keep the crowd back, and the hurricane roof and boiler deck were thronged with an eager and excited crowd. Fastening one end of the string to the jack-staff and the other to the steps at about the proper height, the ribbon was tied in the centre of the string, and the black man and myself stood back five feet on either side, and at a given signal were to come forward and strike at the ribbon. Then the passengers said it was a shame to let that nasty nigger butt that nice white man to death; but as there were no S. P. C. A. officers aboard, the game went on.

The deck-hands all rolled up their eyes and looked at me as they would at a corpse. Just before the word ready was given, I asked the nigger if he had any money to put up on the result, and running his hand down in his watch-pocket he pulled out a ten-dollar bill. I covered it, and the planter told the nigger he would give him $10 more if he downed me. I cocked my eye on the nigger's head, and saw that it was one of those wedge-shaped cocoanuts so peculiar to people of African descent; so I inwardly resolved to hit him on one side of his wedge-shaped cranium. The nigger had his face to the sun, so that I felt confident that I could hit him pretty near where I wanted to.

The word was given, and at the ribbon we both rushed like a couple of frenzied bulls. I gave him a glancing blow that skinned his head for about three inches. The next time there was a crash, a jar that shook the boat and drew a shriek of terror from the passengers, for the nigger fell with a dull thud on the deck. He lay as stiff and cold as a dead man.

"Dat nigger is done gone dead! Dat nigger is no good any more!" shouted the alarmed roustabouts.

The mate lifted him up, and he began bleeding from the nose, eyes, and ears. The mate kindly asked him if he wanted to butt any more. He did not reply, only shook his head sadly and murmured inaudibly, "No." They applied whisky and water to his head, and at last removed him into the deck to cool off.

Many years have rolled by, and I have never heard the last of that butting adventure. The papers wrote it up, and in less than ten days every planter on the coast had heard of it. The planter who lost the $175 tells the story to this day; and Bill Patterson, the mate (he is dead now), used to tell it to every new crew that he shipped.

Towards night the old nigger came crawling up stairs and said:

"Massa, you have done for this poor nigger, for I must go to the hospital and get cured up."

I returned him his $10, and for the rest of the trip the passengers paid for everything I wanted to drink.

IT SHOOK THE CHECKS.

It never pays a man to be too officious and volunteer information or advice when it is not asked, for he very often makes enemies and courts a disturbance that he could easily have avoided if he had simply minded his own business.

Some seven years ago I attended a fair at Cynthiana, Ky., and opened out a gentleman's game in the Smith Hotel bar-room. There were a number of sports from Louisville and Cincinnati present, and everything was moving along lively, and as decorous as a funeral, when some of the Paris and Louisville boys indulged in a scrimmage and were arrested. Everybody left the hotel and went to see the result of the trial. I sat near the judge, and when the evidence was all in I whispered to him to fine them $10 each. This he did, and as we were leaving the court-room, I noticed that a big fellow from Paris, Ky., regarded me with very sour looks.

After supper I opened up my game, and in he came, and going to the bar-keeper, whispered in a tone of voice loud enough for me to hear: "I am going to whip that dealer."

Pretty soon I closed up the game, and then Sam Aliways and myself took a turn around the town, and running into a saloon, met the big bully. He had his coat off and a six-shooter a foot long hanging to his side; so, edging up to where he stood, I tapped him on the shoulder, observing:

"You are the gentleman that is looking for a fight."

As soon as he saw who it was, he grabbed for his shooting-iron; but just as he got hold of the handle, I dealt him a blow in the neck and he fell over against the counter, but I soon grabbed him and hit him a butt with my head. That ended the fight. He had sense enough to say, "That will do;" and seeing a policeman coming in one door, I went out another, hastened to the hotel and paid my bill, and caught the train for Covington. I was none too quick, however; for the next day when Aliways came along with my tools, he said that the fellow had a host of friends in the town, and that at least fifty fellows came around armed with case-knives, axes, double-barreled shotguns, revolvers, and rocks; and that if they had caught me, I would have met a fate worse than the martyr Stephen or the Chicago anarchists.

The fellow went by the name of Bill Legrets. When he was asked why he didn't shoot me, he said:

"Shoot h--l. The first lick he hit me, I thought my neck was disjointed; and when he ran that head into me, I though it was a cannon-ball."