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By Root 1803 0

of a murder: that the worthy man has died and unworthy ones continue to live. The crude boasting and bragging of these four affected me like blows and left me breathless. Someone came and took away their horses, and then they came into the house. I could hear them laughing and stomping below, then I heard Helen’s voice, and then I heard Papa’s. I went over to the chest and picked up the towel Lorna had placed there for me and wiped my face with it, then I wrapped it around the pistol, leaving only the tip of the barrel showing and two inches or so of the stock. It was hard to keep in place, and I looked around the room for something to tie it, but there was nothing, unless I should elect to tear a strip off the bed curtains—but there was Helen’s knock. I sat down on the bed and arranged my skirt over the wrapped gun. Helen entered with a smile. "Are you feeling any better? They’re a little exuberant today. As Papa would say, they haven’t gone without refreshment. But Delia made a lovely supper. Lots of cucumbers!"

I pulled the pistol close to myself and stood up as gracefully as possible. Actually, it wasn’t heavy, and once I was standing, I had no trouble concealing it. I said, "Are they all here, then?"

"I think so. Lorna had to set another place for Mr. Lafayette. He’s very old! I can’t believe he’s still drilling, but Papa says he won’t give up! Oh, my, he hates the abolitionists. He came from Mississippi, you know. One of the best families in Tupelo, I’m told, but he’s ever so old. Shh. He’s right there!" We came down to the landing and looked over the banister at a tall, thin man with a hatchet face and a mane of white hair. A broadsword in a scabbard hung at his side, and he affected extremely large spurs. Another man joined him, clapped him on the back, and shouted in his ear: "That’s quite a mount you’ve got, Lafayette. Want to sell ’im to someone who can actually ride ’im?"

"I’ll shoot the beast first, Chesbrough! Do ’im a kindness that way!" They laughed. Others crowded in, jangling and clanking. Almost everyone, it appeared, was wearing a sword, and now I saw the rifles jumbled against the wall by the front door with their ramrods. Some of them looked seventy-five or a hundred years old, designed to go with knee britches and pigtails. I expected, of course, that the Samsons and Chaney would present themselves, perhaps that they would light up on their own, like paper lanterns with candles in them, but all the men were alike— equally strange to me, equally familiar with one another. The only one I recognized was Papa, who hopped among the others like a robin among crows, herding them with little pokes and prods toward the dining room. I felt the pistol through my dress and pulled back the hammer with my thumb. Then I said to Helen, "Where are Mr. Perkins and Mr. Smith?"

She whispered, "Mr. Smith is the one in the blue vest just coming out of the parlor, and Perkins is looking right at us. Hello, Mr. Perkins," she caroled. I looked at Perkins with a bright, deflective smile firmly fixed to my face. I looked at him straight, and I looked at him for a very long, careful moment. My finger eased around the trigger of the pistol. Samson Perkins saw Helen, then me, and smiled at us. I noticed that his teeth were white, and that he had all of them. I had never seen him before in my life.

Then I looked at Chaney Smith. For someone reputed to be a rough character, he looked benign enough—rather fat and soft, almost good-humored about the eyes. He wore a pince-nez, which he took off and polished while he waited for the other men to get through the doorway into the dining room.

The boy came closest. He had a round white face with a disgruntled look on it, and a shock of dirty blond hair. No mustaches or whiskers of any kind. Had I been pressed, I would have said that he looked rather like I had as a boy. He was not prepossessing in any way, but was he the boy who had shot Jeremiah in the neck and then laughed about it? In a hundred years, I could not have said for sure. I felt the pistol begin to slip out of my grasp