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But as all of them were men of generous spirit, Watty's cap soon contained a very creditable "c'lection," which was made up forthwith into a bag, and carried with some cooked provisions by Polly to Redman's Gap, under the safe escort of her father and Baldwin Burr.
"It's too fur off," said Baldwin, "to make out the crittur's phisog; but if it warn't for his size, I'd say he was a monkey." "P'r'aps it's an ourang-outang," suggested Corkey. "Or a gorilla," said O'Rook. "Oh!" exclaimed Polly, in a low, eager voice of surprise, "I do believe it is Watty Wilkins!" "Polly is right," said Philosopher Jack; "I'd know Watty's action among a thousand."
Mitchell said he liked to be at Watty's when the Army prayed and the Pretty Girl was there; he had no objection to being prayed for by a girl like that, though he reckoned that nothing short of a real angel could save him now.
Polly's step was heard at the moment. She entered with a bowl of soup. "Here, Ben, this will do you good," she said, handing him the bowl. "The cook says it's the stuff to stick to your ribs. There now, I can't stop to give it you, for father wants me, but you're all right when Watty's by. Are you better?"
And even then it was before he had met his own little woman. And that other woman, he says, was plump too, fur he wouldn't never look at none but a plump woman. "What did she weigh?" asts Watty's wife. He tells her a measly little three hundred pound. "But she wasn't refined like my little woman," says Watty, "and when I seen that I passed her up."
Watty knew what he was doing. He was very deep, was Watty. Mitchell further hinted that if he was sick he wouldn't be carried to Watty's, for Watty knew what a thirsty business a funeral was. Tom Hall reckoned that Watty bribed the Army on the quiet. The Army came along at the usual time, but we didn't see the Pretty Girl at first she was a bit late.
Guess they be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin' for work." This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment. "Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?" "That's what he's been a-doin'." "Funny I missed hearin' about it." "He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard and Call's and Godfrey's 'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit discouraged.
One night I hearn an argument from the fenced-off part of the tent Watty and his wife slept in. She was setting on Watty's chest and he was gasping fur mercy. "You know it ain't true," says Watty, kind of smothered-like. "It is," says she, "you own up it is!" And she give him a jounce. "No, darling," he gets out of him, "you know I never could bear them thin, scrawny kind of women."
Folks don't sleep well after seeing a man with wife and bairns round him look death and judgment in the face." "But Watty looked at them smiling, you said?" "He did. Watty's religion went to the bottom and extremity of things. I'll be asking this night for grace to live with, and then I'll get grace to die with when my hour comes. You needn't fash your heart about me.
If a horse bolted with a buggy or cart, he was generally stopped outside Watty's, which seemed to suggest, as Mitchell said, that most of the heroes drank at Watty's also that the pluckiest men were found amongst the hardest drinkers. Watty's dogs were the most quarrelsome in town, and there was a dog-fight there every other evening, followed as often as not by a man-fight.
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