The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Spares Hi

sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbiddi

of the town. Between it and Judge Driscoll's house there was only a grassy yard, with a paling fence dividing the

D WI

ND COUNSEL

, CONVEYA

his services now in the humble capacities of land-surveyor and expert accountant. Now and then he got a job of surveying to do, and now and then a merchant got him to straighten out his books. With Sco

t. In fact he had found that his fads added to his reputation as a pudd'nhead; therefore he was growing chary of being too communicative about them. The fad without a name was one which dealt with people's finger-marks. He carried in his coat pocket a shallow box with grooves in it, and in the grooves strips of glass five inches long and three inches wide. Along the lower e

ith, ri

ass strip, and add name and date and the words "left hand." The strips were now retu

ere-if he found anything-he revealed to no one. Sometimes he copied on paper the involved and delicate pattern left by the ball of

ooks in his work-room, which looked westward over a stretch of vacant lots, when a conversation outside di

o' baby come on?" This

u come on, Jasper?" Thi

h'n' to complain of. I's gwine to

t'n' wid niggers as black as you is. Is ole Miss Cooper's Nancy done give you d

de matter wid you, you hussy-yah-

Jasper, it gwine to kill you sho'. If you b'longed to me I'd sell you down de river 'fo

enjoying the friendly duel and each well satisfied with hi

ng each other. From Roxy's manner of speech, a stranger would have expected her to be black, but she was not. Only one sixteenth of her was black, and that sixteenth did not show. She was of majestic form and stature, her attitudes were imposing and statuesque, and her gestures and movements distinguished by a noble and stately grace. Her complexion was very fair, with the rosy glow of vigorous health in the cheeks, her face was full of character and expression

parts white, and he, too, was a slave, and by a fiction of law and custom a negro. He had blue eyes and flaxen curls like his white comrade, but even the father of the white child was able to tell the children apart-lit

hadn't the privilege. Roxana had heard that phrase somewhere, the fine sound of it had pleased her ear, and as

outside to gather in a record or two. Jasper went to work energetically, at once,

are the

ir-five months. Bawn

chaps. One's just as ha

osed the girl's white

dat, 'ca'se one of 'em ain't on'y a nigger. Mighty prime little

part, Roxy, when they h

gh proportioned to

o Wilson, but I bet Marse Percy

llection-right hand and left-on a couple of his glass strips; then labeled and dat

n. He liked to have a "series," two or three "takings" at intervals during the p

happened three times before. Driscoll's patience was exhausted. He was a fairly humane man toward slaves and other animals; he was an exceedingly humane man toward the erring of his own race. Theft he could not abide, and plainly there was a thief in

good. This time I will teach you a lesson. I will

tolen anything-not money, anyway-a little sugar, or cake, or honey, or something like that, that "Marse Percy wouldn't mind or miss," but not money-never

revival in the colored Methodist Church, a fortnight before, at which time and place she "got religion." The very next day after that gracious experience, while her change of style was fresh upon her and she was vain of her purified conditi

I wisht it had 'a' be'n

etiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to be wrested into a precedent; no, a week or two would limber up her piety, then

far were they from considering such reprisals sinful, that they would go to church and shout and pray the loudest and sincerest with their plunder in their pockets. A farm smoke-house had to be kept heavily padlocked, for even the colored deacon himself could not resist a ham when Providence showed him in a dream, or otherwise, where such a thing hung lonesome and longed for some one to love. But with a hundred hanging before him the deacon would not take two-that is, on the same night. On

the

it, and always in the same hard tone. An

end of that time you have not confessed, I will not only

and the color vanished out of her face; the others dropped to their knees as if they had been shot; te

one

one

, marster-Lord have me

atch, "I will sell you here though you don't d

y were sincere, for like a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the gates of hell against them. He knew, himself, that he had done a noble and gracious thing, and was privately we