More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down
Papa had right around two hundred and fifty dollars in his purse as I had reason to know since I kept his books for him. Mama was never any good at sums and she could hardly spell cat. I do not boast of my own gifts in that direction. Figures and letters are not everything.
Mama was never any good at sums and she could hardly spell cat. I do not boast of my own gifts in that direction. Figures and letters are not everything.
He had mistaken the drummers for men. “The wicked flee when none pursueth.”
I have since learned that Judge Isaac Parker watched all his hangings from an upper window in the Courthouse. I suppose he did this from a sense of duty. There is no knowing what is in a man’s heart.
Some people will take it wrong and criticize me for not going to my father’s funeral. My answer is this: I had my father’s business to attend to.
She told about the event in detail and asked me impertinent questions about my family. It was all I could do to reply politely. I did not wish to discuss the thing with idly curious strangers, no matter how well intentioned they might be.
I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces? Some preachers will say, well, that is superstitious “claptrap.” My answer is this: Preacher, go to your Bible and read Luke 8: 26-33.
“He will find plenty of his own stamp there,” said he. “Birds of a feather. It is a sink of crime. Not a day goes by but there comes some new report of a farmer bludgeoned, a wife outraged, or a blameless traveler set upon and cut down in a sanguinary ambuscade. The civilizing arts of commerce do not flourish there.”
Nature tells us to rest after meals and people who are too busy to heed that inner voice are often dead at the age of fifty years.
“I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.”
“Are you still game?” “Game? I was born game, sis, and hope to die in that condition.”
Why is it calm in the early morning? You will notice that lakes are usually still and smooth before daybreak.
“The Ranger troop!” said Rooster, with some contempt. “I tell you what you do. You go tell John Wesley Hardin about the Ranger troop. Don’t tell me and sis.”
“I am a Federal officer!” said Rooster. “Who all is in there? Speak up and be quick about it!” “A Methodist and a son of a bitch!” was the insolent reply. “Keep riding!”
I love this.
skinflint.
I think Smallwood was a gentleman but gentlemen are only human and their memories can sometimes fail them. Business is business.
But I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?
The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.
