"One morning I shouldered my Winchester rifle, and going over to my
uncle's house, near Nigger Head, asked my Aunt Mary, his wife, if he
were at home, adding that I had come to kill him. My aunt replied
with her peculiar smile that so many gentlemen called on that errand
and were afterward carried away without having performed it that I
must excuse her for doubting my good faith in the matter. She said I
did not look as if I would kill anybody, so, as a proof of good faith
I leveled my rifle and wounded a Chinaman who happened to be passing
the house. She said she knew whole families that could do a thing of
that kind, but Bill Ridley was a horse of another color. She said,
however, that I would find him over on the other side of the creek in
the sheep lot; and she added that she hoped the best man would win. "My Aunt Mary was one of the most fair-minded women that I have ever
met. "I found my uncle down on his knees engaged in skinning a sheep. Seeing that he had neither gun nor pistol handy I had not the heart to
shoot him, so I approached him, greeted him pleasantly and struck him
a powerful blow on the head with the butt of my rifle. I have a very
good delivery and Uncle William lay down on his side, then rolled over
on his back, spread out his fingers and shivered. Before he could
recover the use of his limbs I seized the knife that he had been using
and cut his hamstrings. You know, doubtless, that when you sever the
_tendo Achillis_ the patient has no further use of his leg; it is just
the same as if he had no leg. Well, I parted them both, and when he
revived he was at my service. As soon as he comprehended the
situation, he said:

"'Samuel, you have got the drop on me and can afford to be generous. I have only one thing to ask of you, and that is that you carry me to
the house and finish me in the bosom of my family.' "I told him I thought that a pretty reasonable request and I would do
so if he would let me put him into a wheat sack; he would be easier to
carry that way and if we were seen by the neighbors _en route_ it
would cause less remark. He agreed to that, and going to the barn I
got a sack. This, however, did not fit him; it was too short and much
wider than he; so I bent his legs, forced his knees up against his
breast and got him into it that way, tying the sack above his head. He was a heavy man and I had all that I could do to get him on my
back, but I staggered along for some distance until I came to a swing
that some of the children had suspended to the branch of an oak. Here
I laid him down and sat upon him to rest, and the sight of the rope
gave me a happy inspiration. In twenty minutes my uncle, still in the
sack, swung free to the sport of the wind. "I had taken down the rope, tied one end tightly about the mouth of
the bag, thrown the other across the limb and hauled him up about five
feet from the ground. Fastening the other end of the rope also about
the mouth of the sack, I had the satisfaction to see my uncle
converted into a large, fine pendulum. I must add that he was not
himself entirely aware of the nature of the change that he had
undergone in his relation to the exterior world, though in justice to
a good man's memory I ought to say that I do not think he would in any
case have wasted much of my time in vain remonstrance. "Uncle William had a ram that was famous in all that region as a
fighter. It was in a state of chronic constitutional indignation. Some deep disappointment in early life had soured its disposition and
it had declared war upon the whole world. To say that it would butt
anything accessible is but faintly to express the nature and scope of
its military activity: the universe was its antagonist; its methods
that of a projectile. It fought like the angels and devils, in
mid-air, cleaving the atmosphere like a bird, describing a parabolic
curve and descending upon its victim at just the exact angle of
incidence to make the most of its velocity and weight. Its momentum,
calculated in foot-tons, was something incredible. It had been seen
to destroy a four year old bull by a single impact upon that animal's
gnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever been known to resist its
downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay it; it would
splinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy honors in the
dust. This irascible and implacable brute--this incarnate
thunderbolt--this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in
the shade of an adjacent tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory. It was with a view to summoning it forth to the field of honor that I
suspended its master in the manner described. "Having completed my preparations, I imparted to the avuncular
pendulum a gentle oscillation, and retiring to cover behind a
contiguous rock, lifted up my voice in a long rasping cry whose
diminishing final note was drowned in a noise like that of a swearing
cat, which emanated from the sack. Instantly that formidable sheep
was upon its feet and had taken in the military situation at a glance. In a few moments it had approached, stamping, to within fifty yards
of the swinging foeman, who, now retreating and anon advancing, seemed
to invite the fray. Suddenly I saw the beast's head drop earthward as
if depressed by the weight of its enormous horns; then a dim, white,
wavy streak of sheep prolonged itself from that spot in a generally
horizontal direction to within about four yards of a point immediately
beneath the enemy. There it struck sharply upward, and before it had
faded from my gaze at the place whence it had set out I heard a horrid
thump and a piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with a
slack rope higher than the limb to which he was attached. Here the
rope tautened with a jerk, arresting his flight, and back he swung in
a breathless curve to the other end of his arc. The ram had fallen, a
heap of indistinguishable legs, wool and horns, but pulling itself
together and dodging as its antagonist swept downward it retired at
random, alternately shaking its head and stamping its fore-feet. When
it had backed about the same distance as that from which it had
delivered the assault it paused again, bowed its head as if in prayer
for victory and again shot forward, dimly visible as before--a
prolonging white streak with monstrous undulations, ending with a
sharp ascension. Its course this time was at a right angle to its
former one, and its impatience so great that it struck the enemy
before he had nearly reached the lowest point of his arc. In
consequence he went flying round and round in a horizontal circle
whose radius was about equal to half the length of the rope, which I
forgot to say was nearly twenty feet long. His shrieks, _crescendo_
in approach and _diminuendo_ in recession, made the rapidity of his
revolution more obvious to the ear than to the eye. He had evidently
not yet been struck in a vital spot.