The Sheriffs Bluff 1908 — Story, Setting & Ideas

designs himself on Sam Jefford's buxom, black-eyed daughter, while others held that he was afraid of young Dick, who was an amiable and popular young fellow, and that he did not want him to get too much influence in the lower end of the county. However it was, Mary Jefford not only married her young lover, but sobered him, and as she was young, pretty, and ambitious, and worshipped her husband, Dick Creel at the next election, to use the vernacular, “made cornsideruble show runnin' ag'inst the Sheriff, and give him cornsideruble trouble.” Still, Thompson was elected overwhelmingly, and few people believed Mary Creel's charge that the Sheriff had got Dick drunk on purpose to beat him. Thompson said, “Did n't anybody have to _git_ Dick drunk--the work was t'other way.”

The session of the Circuit Court in the “------ year of the Commonwealth,” as the writs ran, and “in the sixteenth year of Aleck Thompson's Sheriffalty,” as that official used to say, was more than usually important. The noted case of “_Dolittle et al. vs. Dolittle's Executrix_” was tried at the autumn term of the court, and caused considerable excitement in the county; for, in addition to the amount of property and the nice questions of law which were involved, the two sides had been severally espoused by two sister churches, and nearly half the county was in attendance, either as witnesses or interested spectators. Not only was every available corner in the little village filled to overflowing with parties, witnesses, and their adherents, but during the first week of the term the stable yards and road-sides were lined with covered wagons and other vehicles, in or under which some of those who had not been fortunate enough to obtain shelter in the inn used to sleep, and “Briles's bar” under the tavern did a thriving business.

As the case, however, wore on, and the weather became inclement, the crowd dropped off somewhat, though a sufficient number still remained to give an air of life to the little roadside village.

Certain of these visitors found the bar-room on the ground floor of the tavern across the road more attractive than the court-room, and as evening came the loud talking in that direction told that the visits had not been fruitless.

Perfect order, however, prevailed in the court, until one evening one of these visitors, a young man named Turkle, who had been spending the afternoon at the bar, made his way into the court-room. He was clad in a dingy, weather-stained overcoat and an old slouch hat. He sank into a seat at the end of a bench near the door and, being very drunk, soon began to talk aloud to those about him.

“Silence!” called the Sheriff over the heads of the crowd from his desk in front, and those near the man cautioned him to stop talking. A moment later, however, he began again. Again the Sheriff roared “Silence!” But by this time the hot air of the court-room had warmed up Mr. Turkle, and in answer to the warning of those about him, he declared in a maudlin tone, that he “Warn't goin' to keep silence.”

“I got 's much right to talk 's anyone, and I'ma goin' to talk 's much 's I please.”

His friends tried to silence him, and the Sheriff made his way through the crowd and endeavored to induce him to leave the court-room. But it was to no purpose. Jim Turkle was much too “far gone” to know what he was doing, though he was in a delightfully good humor. He merely hugged the Sheriff and laughed drunkenly.

“Aleck, you jist go 'way f'om here. I ain't a-goin' to shet up. You shet up yourself. I 'm a-goin' to talk all I please. Now, you hear it.”

Then as if to atone for his rudeness, he caught the Sheriff roughly by the arm and pulled him toward him:

“Aleck, how 's the case goin'? Is Mandy a goin' to win? Is that old rascal rulin' right!”

The Sheriff urged something in a low voice, but Turkle would not be silenced.

“Now you see thar,” he broke out with a laugh to those about him, “did n't I tell you Aleck wa' n 't nothin' but a' ol' drunkard? What d' you s'pose the ol' rascal wants me to do? He wants me to go over there to the bar and git drunk like 'im, and I ain't goin' to do it. I never drink. I 've come here to see that my cousin Mandy's chil'ern gits their patrimony, and I ain' a goin' to 'sociate with these here drunken fellows like Aleck Thompson.”

The Sheriff made a final effort. He spoke positively, but Turkle would not heed.