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79 - Roughing It by Mark Twain · Roughing It

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  Speaker 1: This is chapter seventy nine of Roughing It. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Roffing It by Mark Twain, Chapter seventy nine. I launched
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  Speaker 1: out as a lecturer now with great boldness. I had
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  Speaker 1: the field all to myself. For public lectures were almost
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  Speaker 1: an unknown commodity in the Pacific market. They are not
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  Speaker 1: so rare now. I suppose I took an old personal
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  Speaker 1: friend along to play agent for me, and for two
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  Speaker 1: or three weeks we roamed through Nevada and California and
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  Speaker 1: had a very cheerful time of it. Two days before
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  Speaker 1: I lectured in Virginia City, two stage coaches were robbed
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  Speaker 1: within two miles of the town. The daring act was
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  Speaker 1: committed just at dawn by six masked men who sprang
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  Speaker 1: up alongside the coaches, presented revolvers at the heads of
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  Speaker 1: the drivers and passengers, and commanded a general dismount. Everybody
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  Speaker 1: climbed down, and the robbers took their watches and every
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  Speaker 1: cent they had. Then they took gunpowder and blew up
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  Speaker 1: the express specie boxes and got their contents. The leader
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  Speaker 1: of the robbers was a small, quick spoken man, and
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  Speaker 1: the fame of his vigorous manner and his intrepidity was
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  Speaker 1: in everybody's mouth. When we arrived the night. After instructing Virginia,
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  Speaker 1: I walked over the desolate divide and down to Gold
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  Speaker 1: Hill and lectured there. The lecture done, I stopped to
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  Speaker 1: talk with a friend and did not start back till eleven.
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  Speaker 1: The divide was high, unoccupied ground between the towns, the
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  Speaker 1: scene of twenty midnight murders and a hundred robberies. As
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  Speaker 1: we climbed up and stepped out on this eminence, the
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  Speaker 1: gold Hill lights dropped out of sight at our backs,
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  Speaker 1: and the night closed down, gloomy and dismal. The sharp
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  Speaker 1: winds swept the place too, and chilled our perspiring bodies through.
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  Speaker 1: I tell you, I don't don't like this place at night,
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  Speaker 1: said Mike, the agent. Well, don't speak so loud, I said,
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  Speaker 1: you needn't remind anybody that we are here. Just then
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  Speaker 1: a dim figure approached me from the direction of Virginia,
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  Speaker 1: a man. Evidently, he came straight at me, and I
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  Speaker 1: stepped aside to let him pass. He stepped in the
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  Speaker 1: way and confronted me again. Then I saw that he
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  Speaker 1: had a maskne and was holding something in my face.
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  Speaker 1: I heard a click click and recognized a revolver in
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  Speaker 1: the dim outline. I pushed the barrel aside with my
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  Speaker 1: hand and said, don't he ejaculated sharply? Your watch, your money?
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  Speaker 1: I said, you can have them with pleasure, but take
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  Speaker 1: the pistol away from my face, please, it makes me shiver.
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  Speaker 1: No remarks, hand out your money, certainly? I put up
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  Speaker 1: your hands. Don't you go for a weapon. Put him
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  Speaker 1: up higher? I held him above my head. A pause.
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  Speaker 1: Then are you going to hand out your money or not?
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  Speaker 1: I dropped my hands to my pockets and said, certainly,
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  Speaker 1: I put up your hands. Do you want your head
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  Speaker 1: blown off? Higher? I put them above my head again.
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  Speaker 1: Another pause. Are you going to hand out your money
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  Speaker 1: or not? Ah? Again, put up your hands, by George,
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  Speaker 1: you want the head shot off? You awful bad well friend.
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  Speaker 1: I'm trying my best to please you. You tell me
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  Speaker 1: to give up my money, and when I reach for it,
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  Speaker 1: you tell me to put up my hands. If you
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  Speaker 1: would only, Oh, now, don't all six of you at me.
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  Speaker 1: That other man will get away. While now please take
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  Speaker 1: some of those revolvers out of my face, do if
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  Speaker 1: you please. Every time one of them clicks, my liver
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  Speaker 1: comes up into my throat. If you have a mother,
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  Speaker 1: any of you, or if any of you have ever
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  Speaker 1: had a mother or a grandmother, or a chase it,
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  Speaker 1: will you give up your money? Or have we got
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  Speaker 1: to there? There are none of that? Put up your hands, gentlemen.
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  Speaker 1: I know you are a gentleman by your silence. If
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  Speaker 1: you want to be facetious, young man, and there are
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  Speaker 1: times and places more fitting. This is serious business. You
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  Speaker 1: prick the marrow of my opinion. The funerals I have
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  Speaker 1: attended in my time were comedies compared to it. Now
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  Speaker 1: I think, curse your polaver, your money, your money, your money.
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  Speaker 1: Hold Put up your hands, gentlemen, listen to reason. You
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  Speaker 1: see how I am situated? Now, don't put those pistols
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  Speaker 1: so close. I smell the powder. You see how I
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  Speaker 1: am situated? If I had four hands so that I
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  Speaker 1: could hold up two and throttle him, gag him, kill him. Gentlemen,
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  Speaker 1: don't nobody's watching the other fellow? Why don't some of
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  Speaker 1: you out take it away? Please? Gentlemen, you see that
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  Speaker 1: I've got to hold up my hands, and so I
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  Speaker 1: can't take out my money. But if you'll be so
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  Speaker 1: kind as to take it out for me, I will
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  Speaker 1: do as much for you. Some search him, Beauregard, and
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  Speaker 1: stop his jaw with a bullet quick if he wags
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  Speaker 1: it again, Help Beauregard stone Wall. Then three of them,
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  Speaker 1: with a small spry leader, adjourned to Mike and fell
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  Speaker 1: to searching him. I was so excited that my lawless
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  Speaker 1: fancy tortured me to ask my two men all manner
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  Speaker 1: of facetious questions about their rebel brother generals of the South.
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  Speaker 1: But considering the order they had received, it was but
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  Speaker 1: common prudence to keep still when everything had been taken
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  Speaker 1: from me. Watch money and a multitude of trifles of
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  Speaker 1: small value, I supposed I was free, and forthwith put
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  Speaker 1: my cold hands into my empty pockets, and began an
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  Speaker 1: inoffensive jig to warm my feet and stir up some
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  Speaker 1: latent courage. But instantly all pistols were at my head,
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  Speaker 1: and the order came again. They stood Mike up alongside
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  Speaker 1: of me, with strict orders to keep his hands above
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  Speaker 1: his head too. And then the chief highwaymen said, Bauregard,
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  Speaker 1: hide behind that boulder, Phil Sheridan, you hide behind that
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  Speaker 1: other one, Stonewall Jackson, put yourself behind that sage bush there.
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  Speaker 1: Keep your pistols bearing on these fellows, and if they
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  Speaker 1: take down their hand within ten minutes or move a
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  Speaker 1: single peg, let em have it. Then three disappeared in
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  Speaker 1: the gloom toward the several ambushes, and the other three
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  Speaker 1: disappeared down the road toward Virginia. It was depressingly still
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  Speaker 1: and miserably cold. Now, this whole thing was a practical joke,
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  Speaker 1: and the robbers were personal friends of ours in disguise,
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  Speaker 1: and twenty more lay hidden within ten feet of us
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  Speaker 1: during the whole operation. Listening. Mike knew all this and
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  Speaker 1: was in the joke when I suspected nothing of it.
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  Speaker 1: To me, it was most uncomfortably genuine. When we had
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  Speaker 1: stood there in the middle of the road five minutes
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  Speaker 1: like a couple of idiots with our hands aloft, freezing
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  Speaker 1: to death by inches, Mike's interest in the joke began
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  Speaker 1: to wane. He said, the time's up, now, ain't it? No?
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  Speaker 1: You keep still? Do you want to take any chances
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  Speaker 1: with these bloody savages? Presently? Mike said, now, the time's up. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: I'm freezing, well, freeze, better freeze than carry your brains
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  Speaker 1: home in a basket. Maybe the time is up, but
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  Speaker 1: how do we know, got no watch to tell by.
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  Speaker 1: I mean to give them good measure. I calculate to
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  Speaker 1: stand here fifteen minutes or die. Don't you move? So,
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  Speaker 1: without knowing it, I was making one joker very sick
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  Speaker 1: of his contract. When we took our arms down at last,
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  Speaker 1: they were aching with cold and fatigue. And when we
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  Speaker 1: went sneaking off, the dread I was in that the
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  Speaker 1: time might not yet be up, and that we would
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  Speaker 1: feel bullets in a moment was not sufficient to draw
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  Speaker 1: all my attention from the misery that racked my stiffened body.
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  Speaker 1: The joke of these highwayman friends of ours was mainly
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  Speaker 1: a joke upon themselves, for they had waited for me
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  Speaker 1: on the cold hilltop two full hours before I came,
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  Speaker 1: and there was very little fun in that they were
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  Speaker 1: so chilled that it took them a couple of weeks
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  Speaker 1: to get warm again. Moreover, I never had a thought
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  Speaker 1: that they would kill me to get money, which it
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  Speaker 1: was so perfectly easy to get without any such folly,
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  Speaker 1: And so they did not really frighten me bad enough
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  Speaker 1: to make their enjoyment worth the trouble they had taken.
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  Speaker 1: I was only afraid that their weapons would go off accidentally.
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  Speaker 1: Their very numbers inspired me with confidence that no blood
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  Speaker 1: would be intentionally spilled. They were not smart. They ought
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  Speaker 1: to have sent only one highwayman with a double barreled
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  Speaker 1: shotgun if they desired to see the author of this
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  Speaker 1: volume climb a tree. However, I suppose that in the
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  Speaker 1: long run I got the largest share of the joke
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  Speaker 1: at last, and in a shape not foreseen by the highwaymen.
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  Speaker 1: For the chilly exposure on the divide while I was
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  Speaker 1: in a perspiration gave me a cold, which developed itself
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  Speaker 1: into a troublesome disease and kept my hands idle some
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  Speaker 1: three months, besides costing me quite a sum in doctor's bills.
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  Speaker 1: Since then, I play no practical jokes on people, and
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  Speaker 1: generally lose my temper when one is played upon me.
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  Speaker 1: When I returned to San Francisco, I projected a pleasure
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  Speaker 1: journey to Japan and thence westward around the world. But
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  Speaker 1: a desire to see home again changed my mind, and
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  Speaker 1: I took a berth in the steamship bad goodbye to
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  Speaker 1: the friendliest and the livest, heartiest community on our continent,
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  Speaker 1: and came by the way of the Isthmus to New York,
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  Speaker 1: a trip that was not much of a picnic excursion,
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  Speaker 1: for the cholera broke out among us on the passage,
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  Speaker 1: and we buried two or three bodies at sea every day.
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  Speaker 1: I found home a dreary place after my long absence,
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  Speaker 1: for half the children I had known were now wearing
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  Speaker 1: whiskers or waterfalls, and few of the grown people I
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  Speaker 1: had been acquainted with remained at their hearthstones, prosperous and happy.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them had wandered to other scenes, some were
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  Speaker 1: in jail, and the rest had been hanged. These changes
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  Speaker 1: touched me deeply, and I went away and joined the
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  Speaker 1: famous Quaker City European Excursion, and carried my tears to
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  Speaker 1: foreign lands. Thus, after seven years Vicissitudes ended a pleasure
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  Speaker 1: trip to the silver mines of Nevada, which had originally
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  Speaker 1: been intended to occupy only three months. However, I usually
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  Speaker 1: miss my calculations further than that. Moral. If the reader
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  Speaker 1: thinks he has done now and that this book has
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  Speaker 1: no moral to it, he is in error. The moral
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  Speaker 1: of it is this. If you are of any account,
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  Speaker 1: stay at home and make your way by faithful diligence.
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  Speaker 1: But if you are no account, go away from home,
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  Speaker 1: and then you will have to work, whether you want
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  Speaker 1: to or not. Thus you become a blessing to your
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  Speaker 1: friends by ceasing to be a nuisance to them, if
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  Speaker 1: the people you go among suffer by the operation the
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  Speaker 1: end end of chapter seventy nine