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Saturday was the last day of the county fair, the day of the County Trot. It was also Veterans' Day, when the old soldiers were the guests of honor, and Ladies' Day, which meant all white females of any age were admitted free. So naturally, with all these attractions, Saturday was the biggest day of fair week.

The fairgrounds lay in a hickory flat a mile out of town, where the tall scaly-bark trees grew so close to the fence that their limbs poked over the top and dropped nuts onto the track. The fence had been whitewashed once, long ago, but time and rain had faded it to a misty gray, so that in the dusk the long panels stood like pale, high-shouldered ghosts. Rust had streaked from the nail holes, giving each plank two staring marks like rheumy eyes. The old grandstand was wood, weathered and creaking, its rafters groaning when the wind blew.

Behind the grandstand stood Floral Hall and Agricultural Hall, looking like hastily built, neglected barns. Up the track to the north were rows of stables, empty and smelling of hay for most of the year, but now alive with darky stable hands and horses, and the good scents of wood fires, clean hay, and turned-up turf.

The weather was ideal for the fair's close. No frost had fallen yet, but the air hinted of its coming. Hickory leaves curled up as if to hold the dying warmth, and an ash tree flamed red like a signal fire for Indian summer. Wild geese flew over in V's pointing south, and the sweet-potato bird—a pewee, perhaps—called from the treetops. The woods were fragrant with ripening wild grapes and pawpaws, and from orchards came the winy smell of windfalls and cider mills. On the smokehouse roof, sliced fruit dried yellow and leathery, looking like countless ears turned to listen.

By sunup the fairgrounds were stirring. Undershirted concessionaires emerged from canvas tents to sniff the tantalizing smoke from narrow trenches dug in the ground. Those trenches held live hickory coals, and above them, on greenwood stakes, a shoat, a whole sheep, and a string of young squirrels had been barbecuing all night. Uncle Isom Woolfolk was in charge—mighty and solely in charge—official purveyor to the county at fish fries and camp breakfasts, secretary of the Republican County Committee, high in his church and lodges, and the best barbecue cook in seven states. He bellowed contradictory orders to two negro women arranging clean white clothes on trestles, and constantly moved from shoat to sheep to squirrels, basting them with a rag-wrapped stick dipped in his potent sauce of red pepper and sweet vinegar. Each carcass sizzled and smoked, gaining a yellowish glaze under his careful hand.

His white chin beard wagged with importance.

Before the barbecue was off the fire, the crowds poured in—from town on foot, in buggies and hacks, from the country in farm wagons carrying whole families, from grandsire to baby, all in kitchen chairs with bedquilt lap robes. At noon a thin trickle of martial music came down the pike, and soon the veterans, forty or fifty of them, marched in two by two, some in reunion gray, some in Sunday black. At the head was a fife-and-drum corps: two sons of veterans on drums, and Corporal Harrison Treese, sometime bugler of Terry's Cavalry, half buried in whiskers, ripping high notes from "The Girl I Left Behind Me." Near the tail came Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, late of King's Hellhounds—though that wasn't its official name, as his conversation soon revealed.

The sergeant wore a little skirtless jacket, absurdly high-collared, faded and falling apart. Three tarnished buttons and a rag of rotted braid clung to its front. It had fit him well when he was a slim partisan ranger, but now the peaked tail showed halfway up his back, and his white-shirted paunch jutted out like a cotton pod bursting from a boll. He wore the jacket on all high occasions, with a gangrened leather cartridge box bouncing on his plump hip, and over his shoulder the musket he had carried to war and back—an ancient Springfield with a stock like a log butt and a hammer like a mule's ear.

He walked side by side with his closest friend and bitterest political foe, Major Ashcroft, late of the Ninth Michigan Volunteers, so close that the Loyal Legion button on the major's lapel almost touched the bronze Southern Cross on the sergeant's chest. From time to time the sergeant would poke the major and call out, "Boys, I've took the first prisoner—this pizen Yank is my meat!" And the major would retort, "Yes, and about dark the prisoner will have to load you into a hack and send you home." Laughter would run up the line.

The local band blared "Dixie," and the crowd cheered as the soldiers halted, disbanded, and scattered. The veterans, with their womenfolk, spread across the grounds—through Floral Hall to see oil paintings, prize cakes, quilts, and calves and a Berkshire boar; in Agricultural Hall, watermelons like green boulders, corn stalks fourteen feet long, and chickens in coops. Side-show barkers and toy balloons added to the din, and under every tree basket dinners were spread.

A cracked bugle sounded, and there was a rush to the grandstand. A small crowd of men gathered around the lone bookmaker. Some were strict church members who wouldn't touch a card or fiddle, but they bet on horses, their own private affair.

At the blare, Floral Hall and cattle pens emptied. The Berkshire boar returned to his wallow, and a young Jersey bullock, left with a blue ribbon on his horn, shook his head angrily.

The first race was a half-mile dash for running horses. Four horses entered; three jockeys wore regular outfits, but the fourth was an imp-black stable boy in a cotton shirt and ruined pants, his brimless straw hat clamped down like a cup. He rode a sweaty little red gelding named Flitterfoot, the only local entry, a forlorn hope.

As the horses danced around, a slim black figure wormed through the crowd to the bookmaker's block—Judge Priest's Jeff, putting a sum on Flitterfoot to win. "Ain't that your nigger boy Jeff?" asked Doctor Lake. Judge Priest chuckled indulgently.

During the veterans' parade, Jeff had marched a pace to his right, though his private convictions leaned away from the old cause. But it was a chance to march with music, and Jeff had marched, his feet cutting scallops in the dust.

Jeff was small, jet-black, and wise. He could make cast-off clothes look new. For this occasion he wore Attorney Clay Saunders' blue serge coat, draped fashionably, and Mr. Otterbuck's pearl-gray trousers, pressed to a crease and turned up rakishly. Having got his money down, Jeff was now choking a post up the homestretch, urging Flitterfoot in low, confidential tones: "Come on, you little red hoss! I asks you lak a gen'leman to come on and win all that money fur me."

As if hearing, Flitterfoot opened a gap, stretched into a long red rubber band, and won by twenty yards. Jeff crowed, "Ain't he a regular runnin' and a-jumpin' fool!"

The big interest, however, was in the harness events—the two-twenty pace and the free-for-all, culminating in the County Trot, open only to county-bred and owned horses, with a purse of two thousand dollars and a silver trophy nearly fifty years old.

Between events, there was a balloon ascension and parachute drop. Jeff did two men's work holding the bag, was first to brush off the descending man, fetched water for a stout lady, and got a watermelon butt-end from the veterans. He bought at Uncle Isom's barbecue stand, paying with a lead half dollar he'd saved for months. Uncle Isom discovered it later and flew into a rage.

Most of all, Jeff concerned himself with the County Trot. From the start, the crowd favored Van Wallace's black mare, Minnie May, against Jackson Berry's big roan stallion, Blandville Boy. The mare won the first two heats easily; Blandville Boy broke badly each time. Nearly everybody bet on Minnie May for the third heat.

Waiting, the crowd scattered. The city marshal calmed some excited young bucks. Bananas and coconuts advanced in price. The steam flyin' Jenny ground endlessly with family groups. Crap games started, fights broke out, and a darky was shot at over the fence.

But Jeff, speculating heavily, walked toward the stables to see what he could see. What he saw was Van Wallace and Jackson Berry slipping into an empty feed shed. Jeff, hiding alongside, put his ear to a crack and heard them plotting: they'd agreed to make the mare break in the third heat so the stallion would win, splitting the money among themselves, with the bookmaker included.

When they emerged, Jeff lay as if drunk, and they moved on. Jeff rose, transformed, and streaked for the grandstand, looking for Judge Priest. He ran into Captain Buck Owings, who heard the tale and hurried with him.

They found the judge coming from the refreshment stand. After Jeff's report, the judge said, "Ah-hah! The infernal scoundrels!" Captain Buck Owings wanted to act, but the judge knew it was too late for warnings. The horses were already on the track. The captain lamented he'd left his pistol at home, and the judge said a circuit judge didn't carry such things.

Just then Sergeant Jimmy Bagby staggered by, his old Springfield over his shoulder. Captain Buck and Jeff relieved him of the gun and sped up the track. The sergeant, distraught, clung to the judge, weeping that he'd lost her—carried her four years, and now four men took her.

From the track, the judge saw the flashing wheels, but none of the crowd noticed the two figures as they moved to intercept the race.

As the trotters swung around the first turn, Minnie May broke badly. Blandville Boy drew ahead. It seemed the plot was working—until Berry saw, seventy-five yards ahead, Captain Buck Owings standing by the big oak, drawing a bead with that old musket. Terrified, Berry hauled on the reins, and at the same moment a gate flew open, with Jeff shrieking, "This way out, boss!". Berry turned the horse and fled through the gate, down the road, out of the race. Captain Buck dropped the useless musket into the grass, and Minnie May jogged in a winner, the crowd cheering, puzzled but relieved.

*****

That evening, Judge Priest sat in his sitting room, smoking his corncob pipe. Jeff brought him a toddy, anxious to be gone—it was Saturday night, and he had money in his pocket and new patent-leather shoes. But the judge called him back.

"Jeff," said the judge musingly, "violence or a show of violence is always to be deplored."

"Yas, suh," said Jeff, "it suttinly is."

"But there are times and places when it is necessary."

"Yas, suh," said Jeff, catching the drift, "lak at a racetrack."

"Ah-hah! Quite so," said the judge, nodding. "And, Jeff, did it ever occur to you that there are better ways of killin' a cat than by chokin' him with butter?"

"Indeed yas, suh," said Jeff. "Sometimes you kin do it best with one of these yere ole rusty Confedrit guns!"

Just then, in a little house on the next street, Sergeant Jimmy Bagby's family was trying to convince him not to take his musket to bed with him.

---

We had a feud once down in our country—not one of those sanguinary mountain feuds, but a shabby, small neighborhood vendetta affecting only two families: the Flemings and the Faxons.

It persisted twenty years, starting over a boundary dispute in War Times, lasting until the Faxons moved away, all but one branch that settled in town. The feud flared up momentarily when old Ranee Fleming was killed by young Jim Faxon, and then it died for good.

Ranee Fleming was a vengeful old guerilla, feared and hated. Young Jim Faxon, last survivor of his clan, was a quiet, decent, undersized boy who kept a truck stand and lived with his aunt, Miss Puss Whitley, and his sweetheart, Emmy Hardin, a shy, pretty girl.

Old Ranee, nursing hatred, picked a quarrel with Jim at the market on a Saturday in November. He stared insultingly, called him a coward, and used the unforgivable name. Jim, ashamed, took it without a word, and the crowd was shocked.

A month later, at Christmas time, Ranee came again, slapped Jim in the face in front of Emmy, and then went to a saloon. Jim stepped into a pawnshop, came out with a pistol, and shot him dead once. He was arrested and charged with murder.

The community sympathized with Jim, but the law was against him—it was premeditated. He stayed in jail until the spring term of court. Miss Puss mortgaged her house to hire Dabney Prentiss, the best lawyer.

On the Sunday night before court opened, Miss Puss and Emmy came to Judge Priest's home, begging for mercy. The judge said he was bound by the law, but promised a fair trial.

That night, the judge went to his chambers and dug through old records. He found an old proclamation: in 1865, the Governor had offered $500 for the apprehension of Ransom Fleming, dead or alive, for arson and felonious assault. The proclamation had never been withdrawn.

In court the next morning, Judge Priest announced that, under strict construction of the law, the indictment against Jim Faxon was set aside—Ransom Fleming had been an outlaw when he died, and Jim had actually earned the reward. The court ruled the $500 be turned over to Jim's legal guardian, his aunt.

Cheering broke out. Jim embraced his aunt and sweetheart, and Judge Priest shook hands with the lawyers.

---

When the sidewheel packet Belle of Memphis landed, a large, impressive man came up the levee with a darky behind him carrying valises. He wore glittering golden emblems—a gold ax and an Indian's head—and a vest of magnificent colors. He registered at the Richland House in an unreadable hand, but in red and purple ink he had written "Representing Daniel the Mystic." We boys were thrilled.

The next day Daniel the Mystic himself arrived—tall, slim, with long hair, dressed all in black. He had long, slender hands and eyes that seemed to look through you. With his manager, D. C. Davello, he visited the newspaper offices and invited the town to his show.

In the afternoon, at Felsburg Brothers' clothing store, Van Wallace showed them around. Daniel the Mystic gave an impromptu demonstration of mesmerism, calling a sickly boy, Jack Irons, and putting him into a trance. Jack stood stiff as a board, and Daniel stood on his stomach. The boy woke crying, and Van Wallace gave two boys a nickel each to take him home.

Jack was the son of old Mr. Gid Irons, a quiet, shabby clerk at Scotter's hardware store. That night, at the show in St. Clair Hall, Daniel the Mystic put on his act—a cabinet trick with bells and banjo, then a spiritualist message that moved the crowd.

Then he asked for volunteers for mesmerism. Four came forward, including old Mr. Gid Irons. When Daniel approached him, Mr. Irons stood up and knocked him down, punching him repeatedly. The crowd cheered, and the manager tried to intervene but was tackled by Fatty McManus. Judge Priest restrained the young policeman, saying it was "a merited chastisement."

Mr. Irons beat Daniel until he was under his cabinet, then left without a word. The city marshal arrived, arrested D. C. Davello on a trumped-up charge, and they caught the 10:50 train out of town. At the depot, Judge Priest told Daniel he'd been licked by "the most efficient scout in General John Morgan's cavalry."

---

One behind the other, three short sections of a special train slid into the yard sidings. They were circus cars—box cars, flat cars with loaded wagons, and faded sleeping cars. It was broad day, and a crowd of boys welcomed the show train.

Men in overalls emerged, and teams of white horses materialized. A corrugated runway sprouted, and a cook wagon thumped down, its cook already lighting a fire. Other wagons followed with stakes, ropes, and canvas. Soon the circus tents were going up on a flat lot near the tracks.

Judge Priest, an early riser, was up an hour early, watching from his window. He sent Jeff and Aunt Dilsey on ahead. Jeff was soon making friends with the stable hands; Aunt Dilsey anchored herself where the sideshow would be.

The judge set off on foot. Along Clay Street he met Lemuel Hammersmith, a little coal clerk, whose son was dying. The boy, Lemuel Junior, had set his heart on seeing the circus parade, and he believed Judge Priest could make it come by his house. The judge promised to try.

He went to the show grounds and tried to see the owner, Daniel P. Silver, but was met with blasphemy and turned away. He went to Soule's drug store, dejected.

Then a man named Stanton came in—the fixer for the show—claiming Silver had "red-lighted" him off the privilege car, and he wanted an attachment. Stanton revealed the circus's tricks: animals in the wife's name, electric shocks to make them look dangerous. He suggested attaching the band wagon, which would stop the parade.

The judge brightened. He had the sheriff serve the attachment, with orders to bring the band wagon up Clay Street before continuing. When the parade started, it turned up Clay Street—to the amazement of all—and passed by the little brown house. There, the boy saw everything: the band wagon, the horses, the clowns, the elephants, the snake charmer, and the calliope. The clown bowed and grinned, and the calliope played "Little Boy Blue." The boy was transported with joy.

The parade went on, and the judge watched it go, satisfied.

---

"Mister Sheriff," ordered the judge, "bring Pressley G. Harper to the bar."

Judge Priest had two ways of speaking: one ungrammatical for private conversation, the other proper English for the bench. Today, in his high, carrying voice, he sentenced Press Harper to two years at hard labor for shooting Virgil Settle. But the old man, a former soldier, asked to be allowed to go to prison himself, without a sheriff, a free man.

The judge, moved, granted his request, but on condition that Harper not touch liquor until he began his sentence. Harper promised. The court adjourned.

Doctor Lake stayed to talk. They spoke of the old days, of Brice's Crossroads, Vicksburg, Chickamauga. The judge admitted he'd forgotten the reunion was starting the day after next, and it would be awkward for all if Press traveled with them.

On the day of the reunion, the veterans gathered at the depot, decorated car, speeches, and all. Among them were Judge Priest, Doctor Lake, Major Covington, Sergeant Bagby, Captain Woodward, and Uncle Zach, a black man who'd cooked for both sides. Young Mrs. McLaurin, Rita Covington, and Miss Minnie Lyon accompanied them.

As the train started, an erect old man swung aboard the forward car—Press Harper, keeping away from the others. The train wound through the countryside. Then, in a cut, the train stopped. Two masked men with pistols boarded, demanding valuables. They began collecting from the passengers.

When one threatened Rita Covington, her father and Judge Priest lunged forward. A shot was fired, and chaos erupted. Press Harper, in the other car, had acted. He wrestled both robbers, choked one, and threw him off the train. The other was captured by the veterans. The train moved on, with cheers for the Southern Confederacy.

At the Junction, Press moved to get off, but the judge stopped him. "You're goin' on through to the reunion with the rest of us," he said. He revealed that the governor would pardon Press, so he'd be a temperance man for life. Press's face was transfigured with joy as the veterans gathered round.

---

Three events of national importance took place that week: a total eclipse of the moon, the Tri-State Laundrymen's Convention, and the arrival of J. Hayden Witherbee, Eastern capital. The greatest of these was Witherbee.

He came to buy the Light and Power Company and make it part of a proposed interurban railway. He was smooth, courteous, and full of praise for the New South. The local owners, including Major Covington and Doctor Lake, were charmed. They named a price, and he accepted—on condition they also acquire the gasworks, which he would take for $50,000 after buying at $60,000.

They went to see Henry Betts, the Northern owner of the gasworks. Betts was a dour, flinty man, and he refused to sell except at an outrageous price—$60,000, cash. The local men, trapped, agreed. They paid, and Betts left town. Witherbee also left, promising to return Friday. He never did.

They discovered they'd been swindled—Witherbee and Betts were partners, and the gasworks were worthless. The local men were ruined. Cash Poindexter, the former gasworks manager, had seen a letter linking them but had forgotten to tell anyone.

---

In New York, a reporter named Malley met an old Southern judge at the Hotel Royal—Judge Priest, by name. The judge was charming, provincial, and quotable. Malley wrote a humorous story that made the judge famous overnight. Suddenly, the judge was a celebrity, interviewed by all the papers.

On the fourth day, the judge had an idea. He telephoned the newspapers and then went to Wall Street, to the office of J. Hayden Witherbee. He offered to sell Witherbee the gasworks he'd bought—for $60,000, and to buy them back for $26,500, the exact figures of the swindle. Witherbee threatened to have him thrown out, but the judge revealed that a crowd of reporters was waiting outside. Witherbee, fearing exposure, agreed to the deal, paying the difference in cash.

On the ferryboat, saying goodbye to Malley, the judge reflected that this was the third Confederate invasion of the North, and the first to succeed completely.

---

You might call it a tragedy—this thing that came to pass in our country a few years back. It was a shift in local politics, a changing of the guard. Old officeholders were beaten by a younger generation. Some took it hard: Major J. Q. A. Pickett drank himself to death; Captain Andy J. Redcliffe died of a mysterious wasting disease; ex-County Treasurer Whitford shot himself over an error.

But some might have seen it coming. The young men complained they did the work while the old held the offices. They organized and fought hard, and in the summer of the fourth year, they came close to winning. Dabney Prentiss said, "We can afford to wait and they can't. Young men keep growing up, but all old men can do is die off. Four years from now we'll win sure!"

And in the August of that fourth year, a man from Massac Creek galloped in with news of a crime. A mob formed to seize a negro prisoner from the jail. In the absence of the sheriff and other officials, Judge Priest alone faced the mob outside the courthouse, with the keys in his hand and a pistol in his pocket. He drew a line in the dust and said, "I will now kill the first man who puts his foot across that line."

The mob hesitated and then, one by one, backed away. Later, it was discovered the real criminal was another man, already killed. The boy in jail was innocent.

On election night that fall, the old ring was smashed. The judge himself was behind, but then the returns from Massac precinct came in—all eighty-four votes for him, and he won.

---

One or two nights a week, my uncle took me to spend the evening with old Judge Priest. There were sure to be half a dozen gray heads there, sitting on the porch, smoking and talking. I perched on the top step, listening.

On one such night, I heard the story of Singin' Sandy Riggs, the Under Dog. Old Cap'n Jasper Lawson told it.

In the old days, this was a rough river settlement. The bully was Harve Allen, a huge, violent man who'd never been licked. Singin' Sandy was a small, freckled man who hummed as he walked. Harve insulted him, beat him badly. Sandy said, "I'll be back agin, mister, one month frum today."

And he did, every month, getting beaten each time. He never fought back successfully, but he never gave up. People began to watch for his monthly trips. Captain Braxton Montjoy tried to stop it, but Sandy said it was a private matter, "ontil I lick him."

One month, Sandy came again. Harve was there, but this time he didn't fight so savagely. Afterward, Sandy stood, his teeth broken, and said, "In a month." Then he walked away, humming.

Harve Allen grew uneasy. The next month, when Sandy came, Harve was nowhere to be seen. He had fled across the river, never to return. Sandy had won.

Cap'n Jasper asked, "Would you call it cowardice?" Squire Buckley said, "P'raps I would—and then agin, p'raps I wouldn't."

---

Over night, it almost seems, a town will change. Our town had grown, modernized, with new industries and new people. But one tradition remained: the Eighth of August, 'Mancipation Day, when all the negroes celebrated with speeches, picnics, and joy.

On one such Eighth, Judge Priest spent the day alone. In the evening, he walked through the celebrating crowds, mostly black. He turned into the quiet side street and climbed the dark stairs to Kamleiter's Hall, where the Gideon K. Irons Camp still held its meetings.

Only Sergeant Jimmy Bagby showed up. The other members were dead or dying. The judge sat, thinking of old friends gone. They decided to hold the meeting anyway. But then an old negro man appeared—Uncle Ike Copeland. He told how he had followed his young master to war, and when the master was killed at Shiloh, he had carried him off the field, dug a grave with a stick, and buried him. Then he had returned after the war and brought the body home, paying for everything.

Judge Priest, moved, moved that Uncle Ike be admitted to the camp. Sergeant Bagby seconded, and they voted unanimously. Then the judge named him color bearer, giving him the flag of the camp. Uncle Ike held it, his bent back straightening, his old eyes shining. He thanked them, knowing that now he would be buried with honor, with music and a band.

They came down the stairs, and the judge slipped a coin into Uncle Ike's hand. The old negro shuffled off into the darkness. The two old white men watched him go, then turned and walked away.

As the judge walked home through the bright, noisy streets, he turned into the dark, quiet Clay Street, and the shadows swallowed him up.