Puddnhead Wilson | Page 5

him, one to one of his slave girls, Roxana by name. Roxana was
twenty years old. She was up and around the same day, with her hands
full, for she was tending both babes.
Mrs. Percy Driscoll died within the week. Roxy remained in charge of
the children. She had her own way, for Mr. Driscoll soon absorbed
himself in his speculations and left her to her own devices.

In that same month of February, Dawson's Landing gained a new
citizen. This was Mr. David Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch
parentage. He had wandered to this remote region from his birthplace
in the interior of the State of New York, to seek his fortune. He was
twenty-five years old, college bred, and had finished a post-college
course in an Eastern law school a couple of years before.
He was a homely, freckled, sandy-haired young fellow, with an
intelligent blue eye that had frankness and comradeship in it and a
covert twinkle of a pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate remark of his,
he would no doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at
Dawson's Landing. But he made his fatal remark the first day he spent
in the village, and it "gaged" him. He had just made the acquaintance of
a group of citizens when an invisible dog began to yelp and snarl and
howl and make himself very comprehensively disagreeable, whereupon
young Wilson said, much as one who is thinking aloud:
"I wish I owned half of that dog."
"Why?" somebody asked.
"Because I would kill my half."
The group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but
found no light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away
from him as from something uncanny, and went into privacy to discuss
him. One said:
"'Pears to be a fool."
"'Pears?" said another. "_Is,_ I reckon you better say."
"Said he wished he owned half of the dog, the idiot," said a third.
"What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his
half? Do you reckon he thought it would live?"
"Why, he must have thought it, unless he IS the downrightest fool in
the world; because if he hadn't thought it, he would have wanted to own

the whole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the other half died,
he would be responsible for that half just the same as if he had killed
that half instead of his own. Don't it look that way to you, gents?"
"Yes, it does. If he owned one half of the general dog, it would be so; if
he owned one end of the dog and another person owned the other end,
it would be so, just the same; particularly in the first case, because if
you kill one half of a general dog, there ain't any man that can tell
whose half it was; but if he owned one end of the dog, maybe he could
kill his end of it and--"
"No, he couldn't either; he couldn't and not be responsible if the other
end died, which it would. In my opinion that man ain't in his right
mind."
"In my opinion he hain't got any mind."
No. 3 said: "Well, he's a lummox, anyway."
That's what he is;" said No. 4. "He's a labrick--just a Simon-pure
labrick, if there was one."
"Yes, sir, he's a dam fool. That's the way I put him up," said No. 5.
"Anybody can think different that wants to, but those are my
sentiments."
"I'm with you, gentlemen," said No. 6. "Perfect jackass--yes, and it ain't
going too far to say he is a pudd'nhead. If he ain't a pudd'nhead, I ain't
no judge, that's all."
Mr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over the town, and
gravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first
name; Pudd'nhead took its place. In time he came to be liked, and well
liked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it
stayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to
get it set aside, or even modified. The nickname soon ceased to carry
any harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was to
continue to hold its place for twenty long years.

CHAPTER 2
Driscoll Spares His Slaves
Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for
the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The
mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the
serpent.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Pudd'nhead Wilson had a trifle of money when he arrived, and he
bought a small house on the extreme western verge of