The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

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but get the trick.-Pudd'

Landing, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi,

shioned flowers; while on the window-sills of the houses stood wooden boxes containing moss-rose plants and terra-cotta pots in which grew a breed of geranium whose spread of intensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint of the rose-clad house-front like an explosion of flame. When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there-in sunny

the sole business street. It was six blocks long, and in each block two or three brick stores three stories high towered above interjected bunches of little frame shops. Swinging signs creaked in the wind, the street's whole length. The candy-striped pole which indicates nobility proud and ancient along the palace-bordered can

gentle incline; its most rearward border fringed itself out and scattered its houses about the base-line of th

s the case also with the great flotilla of "transients." These latter came out of a dozen rivers-the Illinois, the Missouri, the Upper Mississippi, the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Tennessee, the Red River, the White River, and

country back of it. The town was sleepy and comfortable and contented. It was fift

as fine and just and generous. To be a gentleman-a gentleman without stain or blemish-was his only religion, and to it he was always faithful. He was respected, esteemed and beloved by all the community. He was well off, and was gradually addin

l for that reason, and not to be comforted. The women were good and commonplace people, and did their duty and had the

ng to the nicest requirements of the Virginia rule, a devoted Presbyterian, an authority on the "code," and a man always courteously ready to stand up before you in the field if any act or word o

sex, another F. F. V. of formidable cali

nd this had given the doctor a chance with his effective antediluvian methods; so the cradles were empty. He was a prosperous man, with a good head for speculations, and his fortune was growing. On the 1st of February, 1830

of the children. She had her own way, for Mr. Driscoll soon abso

age. He had wandered to this remote region from his birthplace in the interior of the State of New York, to seek his fortune. He

, he would no doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson's Landing. But he made his fatal remark the first day he spent in the village, and it "gaged" him. He had just made the acqua

wned half o

somebod

would kil

o light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away from him

to be

ther. "Is, I recko

third. "What did he reckon would become of the other half i

uld have wanted to own the whole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the other half died, he would be responsi

the other end, it would be so, just the same; particularly in the first case, because if you kill one half of a general dog, t

responsible if the other end died, which it woul

n he hain't g

ell, he's a lu

"he's a labrick-just a Simon-pure

t him up," said No. 5. "Anybody can think diffe

es, and it ain't going too far to say he is a pudd'nhead.

came to be liked, and well liked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it stayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to get it set