Stringtown on the Pike

A Novel by John Uri Lloyd

Chapter Fourteen

COURT DAY

Stringtown is situated eight miles from the ?county seat? of Stringtown County, where stood the county jail. In order to reach this important spot, the traveller from Stringtown follows the Mt. Carmel pike to Mt. Carmel Church, and then branches to the Turkey Foot road, which follows a creek bed four miles to its source. On the summit of this rise stands the village honoured by holding the court-house of Stringtown County

Like other county seats in Kentucky, at the time under consideration this was subject several times a year to the flow and ebb of a human tide. The tide was high in Court week, but during the intermediate periods stagnation prevailed.

At the time of Quarterly Court, in June, from every section of the county, on the first day of Court week, men on horseback could be seen ?going to Court.? These as a rule started in pairs, or parties of three or four; but as they journeyed onward the byways merged into main roads and the isolated groups upon them coalesced until, when the village was reached, a steady stream of horsemen came pouring into its main avenue.

In this county seat, even to the very day before Court convened, stagnation ruled supreme. The two grocery stores were open for traffic between Court periods, but attracted none but home patrons; the two taverns were ready for business, but even their bar-rooms were quiet and the long rows of shed stalls adjacent to each tavern were empty, and the horse racks in front of the groceries and the taverns were vacant. The court-house, built like a church, excepting that it was the proud possessor of a second story and four whitewashed round brick pillars in front, stood, the day before Court, with closed eyes; the iron gate was locked, the pepper-grass and shepherd?s-purse grew high and luxuriant between the flat-rock paving stones, and the dog-fennel covered the edges and far into the street unmolested even about the long rows of horse racks that bounded ?Court-House Square.?

In the early morning, each hot summer day, a little business was done in each store; the barkeepers found occasion to wash a few glasses and bruise a little mint; the barefooted boy drove his cow to and from the pasture, and a smell of frying ham or bacon and browning corn-bread or biscuit hung at breakfast time about each residence. But as the sun mounted into the sky a universal lethargy settled over the scorching village, and not until the slanting shadows of evening fell did life reappear.

The idle sojourner might spend his time in this lazy village, and between Court periods, even to the day before Court, find nothing more exciting than an occasional dog fight, unless, perchance, it were a quarrel between the owners of the dogs.

Lazily the sun came up the day before Court; lazily the inhabitants of this sluggish village moved, when they did move; lazily the stray pig meandered along the side of the unpaved streets, picking up an occasional morsel; lazily a flock of gabbling geese waddled through the dusty road seeking the nearly dried creek bed adjacent to the village; lazily the unshaven barkeeper, with closed eyes, sat before the inn on the flat stone pavement in his tipped-back chair. One could not easily have found a creature in this village that was not infected by the lazy sun, which, day after day, crept through the sky and leisurely sank toward the earth into the tree tops, glowing a second through the branches, seemingly undetermined whether it were not best to pause awhile upon earth?s edge before dropping over and rolling out of sight.

Opening of Court day brought a change. Bustle in and confusion about the tavern. The long dining-room tables were ?set? by break of day; the kitchen stove was red and furious, the negro servants moved as if they actually enjoyed motion; piles of vegetables, a quarter of beef and several boiled hams spoke of the coming feast. The freshly shaven barkeeper, with freshly filled bottles and a pile of freshly cleaned glasses, no long sat beside the door in the tipped-back chair; he too was ready for action. The iron gates that barred the main entrance of the court-house yard were open and the windows to that ?Hall of Justice? were unshuttered. Even the stray geese had moved to other scenes, the wandering pig had not been loosed that morning, and the boy had come and gone with his cow before the sun had risen. The village was awake and the very buildings themselves took on a different air?the residents were in touch with life again and eager for the coming fray. The word fray is not inappropriate, for many were the men who had ridden to this court-house on horseback and returned home in an improvised spring wagon hearse; many have been the feuds that, argued in the Court of Stringtown County?s capital by the mouths of the lawyers, have been settled, immediately after the Court adjourned, in the street by the mouths of pistols.

Men came to Court, antagonists led to enmity by some trifling incident, and grouped themselves into clusters; one clan went to Jim White?s tavern, the other went to Jo Sweet?s. They stood in separate groups about the streets, and scowled, but did not speak when first they chanced to meet; they visited their respective barrooms again, and grew surlier and thought meaner things with each uplifted glass; now they growled when group met group and looked defiantly at each other; another visit to the tavern, and when the antagonistic groups next came together their tongues were loosened, pistols flashed in the sunlight, and another ?case? was made for the opposing lawyers to beat the air over at the next term of Court.


Typed by Sharon Franklin, M. L. S., Boone County Public Library; Manager, Walton Branch

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