Look at me! I take nineteen alligators and a bar’l of whiskey
for breakfast when I’m in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes
and a dead body when I’m ailing! I split the everlasting
rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak!
Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according to my strength!
Blood’s my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is music to my ear!
Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!–and lay low and hold your breath,
for I’m bout to turn myself loose!’
All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head
and looking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle,
tucking up his wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and
beating his breast with his fist, saying, ‘Look at me, gentlemen!’
When he got through, he jumped up and cracked his heels together
three times, and let off a roaring ‘Whoo-oop! I’m the bloodiest son
of a wildcat that lives!’
Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch
hat down over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward,
with his back sagged and his south end sticking out far,
and his fists a-shoving out and drawing in in front of him,
and so went around in a little circle about three times,
swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then he straightened,
and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times,
before he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to
shout like this–
‘Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow’s
a-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers
a-working! whoo-oop! I’m a child of sin, don’t let me get a start!
Smoked glass, here, for all! Don’t attempt to look at me
with the naked eye, gentlemen! When I’m playful I use
the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine,
and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! I scratch my head
with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep with the thunder!
When I’m cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe in it;
when I’m hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm;
when I’m thirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge;
when I range the earth hungry, famine follows in my tracks!
Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and spread! I put my hand on the sun’s
face and make it night in the earth; I bite a piece out of the moon
and hurry the seasons; I shake myself and crumble the mountains!
Contemplate me through leather–don’t use the naked eye!
I’m the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels!
The massacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments,
the destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life!
The boundless vastness of the great American desert is my
enclosed property, and I bury my dead on my own premises!’
He jumped up and cracked his heels together three times before he lit
(they cheered him again), and as he come down he shouted out:
‘Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the pet child of
calamity’s a-coming! ‘
Then the other one went to swelling around and blowing again–the first one–
the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped in again,
bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time, swelling round
and round each other and punching their fists most into each other’s faces,
and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob called the Child names,
and the Child called him names back again: next, Bob called him a heap
rougher names and the Child come back at him with the very worst kind
of language; next, Bob knocked the Child’s hat off, and the Child picked it
up and kicked Bob’s ribbony hat about six foot; Bob went and got it and said
never mind, this warn’t going to be the last of this thing, because he was
a man that never forgot and never forgive, and so the Child better look out,
for there was a time a-coming, just as sure as he was a living man,