II. MIKE HOOTER’S BAR STORY. A YAZOO SKETCH. SHOWING HOW THE BEAR OUTWITTED IKE HAMBERLIN. BY A MISSOURIAN.

“It’s no use talkin’,” said Mike, “ ’bout your Polar Bar, and your Grisly Bar, and all that sort er varmont what you read about. They ain’t no whar, for the big black customer that circumlocutes down in our neck o’ woods beats ’em all hollow. I’ve heard of some monsus explites kicked up by the brown bars, sich as totein off a yoke o’ oxen, and eatin’ humans raw, and all that kind o’ thing; and Capten Parry tells us a yarn ’bout a big white bar, what ’muses hisself climin’ up the North Pole and slides down to keep his hide warm; but all that ain’t a circumstance to what I’ve saw.

“You see,” continued Mike, “there’s no countin’ on them varmonts as I’s been usened to, for they comes as near bein’ human critters as anything I ever see what doesn’t talk. Why, if you was to hear anybody else tell ’bout the bar-fights I’ve had, you wouldn’t b’leeve ’em, and if I wasn’t a preacher, and could not lie none, I’d keep my fly-trap shot ’till the day of judgment.

“I’ve heard folks say as how bars cannot think like other human critters, and that they does all the sly tricks what they does, from instink. Golly! what a lie! You tell me one of ’em don’t know when you’ve got a gun, and when you ain’t? Just wait a minit, an’ my privit ’pinion is, when you’ve hearn me thro’ you’ll talk t’other side of your mouth.

“You see, one day, long time ago, ’fore britches come in fashion, I made a ’pointment with Ike Hamberlin the steam doctor, to go out next Sunday to seek whom we couldn’t kill, a bar, for you know bacon was skace, and so was money, and them fellers down in Mechanicsburg wouldn’t sell on tick, so we had to ’pend on the varmints for a livin’.

“Speakin’ of Mechanicsburg, the people down in that ar mud-hole ain’t to be beat nowhere this side o’ Christmas. I’ve hearn o’ mean folks in my time, an’ I’ve preached ’bout ’em a few; but ever sense that feller, Bonnel, sold me a pint of red eye-whiskey—an’ half ov it backer juice—for a ’coon-skin, an’ then guv me a brass picayune fur change, I’ve stopped talkin’. Why, that chap was closer than the bark on a hickory tree; an’ ef I hadn’t hearn Parson Dilly say so, I’d ov swore it wasn’t er fact, he was cotch one day stealin’ acorns from a blind hog. Did you ever hear how that hossfly died? Well, never mind. It was too bad to talk ’bout, but heap too good for him.

“But that ain’t what I was spoutin’ ’bout. As I was sayin’ afore, we had to ’pend on the varmints fur a livin’. Well, Ike Hamberlin, you see, was always sorter jubous o’ me, kase I kilt more bar nor he did; an’, as I was sayin’, I made a ’pointment with Ike to go out huntin’. Then, Ike, he thought he’d be kinder smart, and beat ‘Old Preach’ (as them Cole boys usen to call me), so, as soon as day crack he hollered up his puppies, an’ put! I spied what he was ’bout, fur I hearn him laffin’ to one o’ his niggers ’bout it the night afore—so, I told my gal Sal to fill my private tickler full o’ the old ‘raw,’ and then fixed up an’ tramped on arter him, but didn’t take none o’ my dogs.

“Ike hadn’t got fur into the cane, ’fore the dogs they ’gan to whine an’ turn up the har on ther backs; an’, bimeby, they all tucked tail, an’ sorter sidled back to war he was stanin’. ‘Sick him!’ says Ike, but the cussed critters wouldn’t hunt a lick. I soon diskivered what was the matter, for I kalkilated them curs o’ hisn wasn’t worth shucks in a bar fight—so, I know’d thar was bar ’bout, if I didn’t see no sine.

“Well, Ike he coaxed the dogs, an’ the more he coaxed the more they wouldn’t go, an’ when he found coaxin’ wouldn’t do, then he scolded and called ’em some of the hardest names ever you hearn, but the tarnation critters wouldn’t budge a peg.

“When he found they wouldn’t hunt no how he could fix it, he begin a cussin’. He didn’t know I was thar. If he had er suspicioned it, he’d no more swore than he’d dar’d to kiss my Sal on er washin’ day; for you see both on us belonged to the same church, and Ike was class-leader. I thought I should er flummuxed! The dogs they sidled back, an’ Ike he cussed; an’ I lay down an’ rolled an’ laughed sorter easy to myself, ’til I was so full I thort I should er bust my biler. I never see ennything so funny in all my life! There was I layin’ down behind er log, fit to split, an’ there was the dogs with their tails the wrong eend down, and there was Ike a rarin’ an’ er pitchin’—er rippin’ an’ er tarrin’—an’ er cussin’ wus nor a steamboat cap’n! I tell you it fairly made my har stan’ on eend. I never see er customer so riled afore in all my born days. Yes I did too, once—only once. It was that feller Arch Coony, what used to oversee for old Ben Roach. Didn’t you know that ar’ hossfly? He’s a few! well he is. Jewhilliken, how he could whip er nigger! and swar! whew! Didn’t you ever hear him swar? I tell you, all the sailors and French parrots in Orleans ain’t a patchin’ to him. I hearn him let hisself out one day, and he was a caution to sinners, an’ what was wus, it was all ’bout nothin’, for he warn’t mad a wrinkle. But all that ain’t neither here nor thar.

“But, as I was sayin’ afore, the dogs they smelt bar sine, an’ wouldn’t budge a peg, an arter Ike had almost cussed the bark off’n a dogwood saplin’ by, he lent his old flint-lock rifle up agin it, and then he pealed off his old blanket an’ laid her down, too. I diskivered mischief was er cumin’, for I never see a critter show rathy like he did. Torectly I see him walk down to the creek bottom, ’bout fifty yards from where his gun was, and then he ’gin pickin’ up rocks an’ slingin’ um at the dogs like bringer! Cracky! didn’t he linkit into um? It minded me of David whalin’ Goliath, it did! If you’d er seed him, and hearn them holler, you’d er thought he’d er knocked the nigh sites off’n every mother’s son of ’em!

“But that ain’t the fun yet. While Ike was er lammin’ the dogs, I hearn the allfiredest crackin’ in the cane, an’ I looked up, and thar was one of the eternalist whollopin’ bars cummin’ crack, crack, through the cane an’ kerslosh over the creek, and stopped right plumb slap up whar Ike’s gun was. Torectly he tuck hold er the ole shooter, an’ I thought I see him tinkerin’ ’bout the lock, an’ kinder whistlin’, and blowin’ into it. I was ’stonished, I tell you, but I wanted to see Ike outdone so bad that I lay low and kep’ dark, an’ in about a minit Ike got done lickin’ the dogs, an’ went to git his gun. Jeemeny, criminy! if you’d only been whar I was! I do think Ike was the maddest man that ever stuk an axe into a tree, for his har stuck rite strait up, and his eyes glared like two dogwood blossoms! But the bar didn’t seem to care shucks for him, for he jist sot the old rifle rite back agin the saplin’, and walked off on his hind legs jist like any human. Then, you see, I gin to git sorter jelus, and sez I to myself, ‘Mister Bar,’ sez I, ‘the place whar you’s er stanin’ ain’t prezactly healthy, an’ if you don’t wabble off from thar purty soon, Mizis Bar will be a widder, by gum!’ With that, Ike grabbed up ole Mizis Rifle, and tuk most pertickler aim at him, and by hokey, she snapped! Now, sez I, ‘Mister Bar, go it, or he’ll make bacon of you!’ But the varmint didn’t wink, but stood still as a post, with the thumb of his right paw on the eend of his smeller, and wiglin’ his t’other finger thus,” (and Mike went through with the gyration). “All this time Ike he stood thar like a fool, er snappin’ and her snappin’, an’ the bar he lookin’ kinder quare like, out er the corner o’ his eye, an’ sorter laffin’ at him. Torectly I see Ike take down the ole shooter, an’ kinder kersamine the lock, an’ when he done that, he laid her on his shoulder, and shook his fist at the bar, and walked toward home, an’ the bar he shuk his fist, an’ went into the cane brake, and then I cum off.”

Here all the Yazoo boys expressed great anxiety to know the reason why Ike’s gun didn’t fire.

“Let’s licker fust,” said Mik, “an’ if you don’t caterpillar, you can shoot me. Why, you see,” concluded he, “the long and short of it is this, that the bar in our neck o’ woods has a little human in um, and this feller know’d as much about a gun as I do ’bout preachin’; so when Ike was lickin’ the dogs, he jest blowed all the powder outen the pan, an’ to make all safe, he tuk the flint out too, and that’s the way he warn’t skeered when Ike was snappin’ at him.”