Thomas Dixon

The Southerner: a Romance of the Real Lincoln Thomas Dixon

Tom seated himself at the table and looked into his wife's face with a smile: "Nancy, it's a meal fit for a king!" The supper over, he smoked his pipe before the cabin fire of blazing logs, while she cleared the wooden dishes. He watched her get the paper, goose-quill pen and ink as a prisoner sees the scaffold building for his execution. "Now we're all ready," she said cheerfully. The man laid his pipe down with a helpless look. A brief respite flashed through his mind. Maybe he could sidestep the lessons before she pinned him down. "Lord, Nancy, I forgot my gun. I must grease her right away," he cried. He rose with a quick decisive movement and took his rifle from the rack. She knew it was useless to protest and let him have his way. Over every inch of its heavy barrel and polished walnut stock he rubbed a piece of greased linen with loving care, drew back the flint-lock and greased carefully every nook and turn of its mechanism, lifted the gun finally to his shoulder and drew an imaginary bead on the head of a turkey gobbler two hundred yards away. A glowing coal of hickory wood in the fire served for his game.