As I see the vision now, it was at the close of a mighty warm day, when the sun went down as a red-hot ball and all the west was copper-plated with promise of more heat to-morrow, when Mr. Herman Felsburg passed. I don’t know what errand was taking him up Clay Street that evening – he lived clear over on the other side of town. But, anyway, he passed; and as he headed into the sunset glow I was inspired by a boy’s instinctive appreciation of the ludicrous to speak of the peculiar conformation of Mr. Felsburg’s legs. I don’t recall now just what it was I said, but I do recall, as clearly as though it happened yesterday, the look that came into Judge Priest’s chubby round face.
“Aha!” he said; and from the way he said it I knew he was displeased with me. He didn’t scold me, though – only he peered at me over his glasses until I felt my repentant soul shrivelling smaller and smaller inside of me; and then after a bit he said: “Aha! Well, son, I reckin mebbe you’re right. Old Man Herman has got a funny-lookin’ pair of laigs, ain’t he? They do look kinder like a set of hames that ain’t been treated kindly, don’t they? Whut was it you said they favoured – horse collars, wasn’t it?” I tucked a regretful head down between my hunched shoulders, making no reply. After another little pause he went on:
“Well, sonny, ef you should be spared to grow up to be a man, and there should be a war comin’ along, and you should git drawed into it someway, jest you remember this: Ef your laigs take you into ez many tight places and into ez many hard-fit fights as I’ve saw them little crookedy laigs takin’ that little man, you won’t have no call to feel ashamed of ‘em – not even ef yours should be so twisted you’d have to walk backward in order to go furward.”
At hearing this my astonishment was so great I forgot my remorse of a minute before. I took it for granted that off yonder, in those far-away days, most of the older men in our town had seen service on one side or the other in the Big War – mainly on the Southern side. But somehow it never occurred to me that Mr. Herman Felsburg might also have been a soldier. As far back as I recalled he had been in the clothing business. Boylike, I assumed he had always been in the clothing business. So —
“Was Mr. Felsburg in the war?” I asked.
“He most suttinly was,” answered Judge Priest.
“As a regular sure-nuff soldier!” I asked, still in doubt.
“Ez a reg’lar sure-nuff soldier.”
I considered for a moment.
“Why, he’s Jewish, ain’t he, Judge?” I asked next.
“So fur as my best information and belief go, he’s practically exclusively all Jewish,” said Judge Priest with a little chuckle.
“But I didn’t think Jewish gentlemen ever did any fighting, Judge?”
I imagine that bewilderment was in my tone, for my juvenile education was undergoing enlargement by leaps and bounds.
“Didn’t you?” he said. “Well, boy, you go to Sunday school, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, sir – every Sunday – nearly.”
“Well, didn’t you ever hear tell at Sunday school of a little feller named David that taken a rock-sling and killed a big giant named Goliath?”
“Yes, sir; but – ”
“Well, that there little feller David was a Jew.”
“I know, sir; but – but that was so long ago!”
“It was quite a spell back, and that’s a fact,” agreed Judge Priest. “Even so, I reckin human nature continues to keep right on bein’ human nature. You’ll be findin’ that out, son, when you git a little further along in years. They learnt you about Samson, too, didn’t they – at that there Sunday school?”
I am quite sure I must have shown enthusiasm along here. At that period Samson was, with me, a favourite character in history. By reason of his recorded performances he held rank in my estimation with Israel Putnam and General N. B. Forrest.
“Aha!” continued the Judge. “Old Man Samson was right smart of a fighter, takin’ one thing with another, wasn’t he? Remember hearin’ about that time when he taken the jawbone of an ass and killed up I don’t know how many of them old Philistines?”
“Oh, yes, sir. And then that other time when they cut off his hair short and put him in jail, and after it grew out again he pulled the temple right smack down and killed everybody!”
“It strikes me I did hear somebody speakin’ of that circumstance too. I expect it must have created a right smart talk round the neighbourhood.”
I can hear the old Judge saying this, and I can see – across the years – the quizzical little wrinkles bunching at the corners of his eyes.
He sat a minute looking down at me and smiling.
“Samson was much of a man – and he was a Jew.”
“Was he?” I was shocked in a new place.
“That’s jest exactly what he was. And there was a man oncet named Judas – not the Judas you’ve heared about, but a feller with the full name of Judas Maccabæus; and he was such a pert hand at fightin’ they called him the Hammer of the Jews. Judgin’ by whut I’ve been able to glean about him, his enemies felt jest as well satisfied ef they could hear, before the hostilities started, that Judas was laid up sick in bed somewheres. It taken considerable of a load off their minds, ez you might say.
“But – jest as you was sayin’, son, about David – it’s been a good while since them parties flourished. When we look back on it, it stretches all the way frum here to B. C.; and that’s a good long stretch, and a lot of things have been happenin’ meantime. But I sometimes git to thinkin’ that mebbe little Herman Felsburg has got some of that old-time Jew fightin’ blood in his veins. Anyhow, he belongs to the same breed. No, sirree, sonny; it don’t always pay to judge a man by his laigs. You kin do that with reguards to a frog or a grasshopper, or even sometimes with a chicken; but not with a man. It ain’t the shape of ‘em that counts – it’s where they’ll take you in time of trouble.”
He cocked his head down at me – I saying nothing at all. There didn’t seem to be anything for me to say; so I maintained silence and he spoke on:
“You jest bear that in mind next time you feel moved to talk about laigs. And ef it should happen to be Mister Felsburg’s laigs that you’re takin’ fur your text, remember this whut I’m tellin’ you now: They may be crooked; but, son, there ain’t no gamer pair of laigs nowheres in this world. I’ve seen ‘em carry in’ him into battle when, all the time, my knees was knockin’ together, the same ez one of these here end men in a minstrel show knocks his bones together. His laigs may ‘a’ trembled a little bit too – I ain’t sayin’ they didn’t – but they kept right on promenadin’ him up to where the trouble was; and that’s the main p’int with a set of shanks. You jest remember that.”
Being sufficiently humbled I said I would remember it.
“There’s still another thing about Herman Felsburg’s laigs that most people round here don’t know, neither,” added Judge Priest when I had made my pledge: “All up and down the back sides of his calves, and clear down on his shins, there’s a whole passel of little red marks. There’s so many of them little scars that they look jest like lacework on his skin.”
“Did he get them in the war?” I inquired eagerly, scenting a story.
“No; he got them before the war came along,” said Judge Priest. “Some of these times, sonny, when you’re a little bit older, I’ll tell you a tale about them scars on Mr. Felsburg’s laigs. There ain’t many besides me that knows it.”
“Couldn’t I hear it now?” I asked.
“I reckin you ain’t a suitable age to understand – y it,” said Judge Priest. “I reckin we’d better wait a few years. But I won’t for-git – I’ll tell