Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/203

 chance—the winner of the horse magnanimously paying his subscription. The rest either had gambling offsets, else were not prepared just at any one particular given moment to pay up, though always ready generally and in a general way.

Unlike his namesake, Tom and his landlady were not—for a sufficient reason—very gracious; and so, the only common bond, Tom's money, being gone, Tom received "notice to quit" in regular form.

In the hurly-burly of the times I lost sight of Tom for a considerable period. One day, as I was traveling over the hills in Greene, by a crossroad leading me near a country mill, I stopped to get water at a spring at the bottom of the hill. Clambering up the hill, after remounting, the summit of it brought me to a view, on the other side, through the bushes, of a log country schoolhouse, the door being wide open, and who did I see but Tom Edmundson, dressed as fine as ever, sitting back in an armchair, one thumb in his waistcoat armhole, the other hand brandishing a long switch, or rather pole. As I approached a little nearer I heard him speak out: "Sir—Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, was the author of the Declaration of Independence—mind that. I thought everybody knew that—even the Georgians." Just then he saw me coming through the bushes and entering the path that led by the door. Suddenly he broke from the chair of state, and the door was slammed to, and I heard some one of the boys, as I passed the door, say, "Tell him he can't come in—the master's sick." This was the last I ever saw of Tom. I understand he afterwards moved to Louisiana, where he married a rich French widow, having first, however, to fight a duel with one of her sons, whose opposition could n't be appeased until some such expiatory sacrifice to the manes of his worthy father was attempted; which failing, he made rather a lame apology for his zealous indiscretion,—the poor fellow could make no other,—for Tom had