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"A sensible man can get along without it ordinarily, by the grace o' God and hard tryin', though I've knowed a yoke o' dumbed steers in a stumpy field to purty nigh overcome me. But the army's no common experience, and I s'pose a man's justified in bustin' out in a time like this. Old Job was lucky that he didn't have to ride on an army railroad."
The Deacon strode up to Groundhog and, catching him by the arm, demanded sternly: "What are you doing, you miserable scoundrel? Stop it at once." Groundhog, who had drunk considerable himself, and was pot-valiant, shook him off roughly, saying: "G'way from here, you dumbed citizen. This hain't none o' your bizniss. Go back to your haymow and leave soldiers alone."
'I'll be dumbed if I hain't, broke it all to shivers! the terrified Peterkin exclaimed, as he struggled to his feet, and looked with dismay upon the débris. 'What's the damage? he continued, taking out his pocket-book and ostentatiously showing a fifty-dollar bill.
Of course, a Deacon in the Baptist Church could not swear under any provocation, but the way he remarked on the conduct of some of the "critters" as "dumbed," "confounded," and "tormented," had almost as vicious a ring as the profuse profanity of his fellow-herders. Late in the afternoon the tired-out herd was halted in a creek bottom near Chattanooga.
And you know the boys who come in here do spit about careless like and that dumbed screen door is always open and the calendars do get specked up considerable. And the old woman is just where I don't want her being upset about anything. "Well, I hired that Barney boy to keep the place clean.
She laughed lightly and he forced himself to smile. "I know him too well to ever be disillusioned," she said. "Love, they say, is blind," he ventured. "I know his faults as I do mine," she said slowly, "and love him for them. You see, we've known each other since we were children." He could not reply. The awfulness of the truth dumbed him and an impetuous desire to protect her swept through him.
The suit had gone against Peterkin, and it was in a towering rage that he stood in the long depot, denouncing everybody, and swearing he would sell out Lubbertoo and every dumbed thing he owned in Shannondale and take his money away, 'and then see how they'd git along without his capital to boost 'em. At Harold he would not even look, for his testimony had been the most damaging of all, and he frowned savagely when on entering the car he saw his son in the same seat with him, talking in low, earnest tones, while Harold was evidently listening to him with interest.
No, sir! It wasn't that. Bill ain't a-gittin' scared easy. He was jest mad, that's what he was. When that feller trod on his hand, he up an' sed that he was willin' t' give his hand t' his country, but he be dumbed if he was goin' t' have every dumb bushwhacker in th' kentry walkin' 'round on it. So he went t' th' hospital disregardless of th' fight. Three fingers was crunched.
I'll be dumbed if I ever imagined there wuz sich a passel o' condemned thieves on the face o' the airth. And they all seem sich nice, gentlemanly fellers, too. What'll we do with them when they git back home?" Presently he roused himself up to carry out his idea of getting a good meal ready for the boys by the time they returned, tired and hungry.
"But we didn't lose 'em in action, and to say so'd be a lie," answered Si, whose conscience had none of the easy elasticity of his partner's. "We could report 'em burnt up by lightnin','but we won't. They was lost by sheer, dumbed carelessness, that me and you and the boys should knowed better than to've allowed. That's all there is of it, and that's what I'm goin' to report, if I have to."
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