Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler) [PAGE 68]

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meet the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the way back to Hannibal. That undertaker boy was a bit shaky himself, though he refused to admit it. I requested speed on the way back to town for there were ghosts lurking back of every tree; eerie spirits were chasing u s ; there was no one on the road, and no houses or barns or any other blessed sanctuary to which I might escape. The boy friend held the reins on that team of Indian ponies and I applied the whip. All of a sudden we came to a bend in the road which brought the Father of Waters in sight, but we were going too fast; we got out of the road, the wagon hit a rock, jumped at least ten feet in the air, and landed with such a terrific bump that we lost our passenger in the rear. Gosh; my gosh, and a whole lot of goshes! A scared team of ponies, a pair of boys scared worse than the ponies, a narrow river road, and a dead man lying somewhere back of us where it was darker than Dante's Inferno. The road was too narrow to turn the wagon around; the ponies were too excited to be turned around; in the argument that ensued I couldn't see why I should leave the wagon to go on the treasure hunt which might be as much as a quarter of a mile back of us. I kept thinking, "Suppose someone would drive along the road and run over the dead man." That would be worse than the Grapes of Wrath and Tobacco Road put together. Finally we tied the ponies to a tree and walked back until we found the body. We got it back into the wagon, and into Hannibal at the witching hour of midnight. I never took another trip out into the country with the undertaker boy. After a week's work in Hannibal I had $65 with which to move over into Pike County, Illinois. The town of Barry was a complete flop as I remember it. Can't remember anyone I met there except a windy lawyer who swelled up to the bursting point over a case he had before a justice of the peace. Then I moved into Pittsfield, a lovely town full of charming people—but one of the first things I learned was that the great J. P. Grier had also worked that town ahead of me. Once more I sent the Library Association a choice assortment of language. I must have had something in those days of my youth, for again I was told to do the best I could and to keep all the money I took in. Scott Wike, the Congressman from that district, bought one of my twelve dollar memberships; Jeff Orr and Harry Higbee, leading lawyers, were kind to me and bought the best I had to sell. So did Judge Mathews and an interesting lawyer