Bring the Jubilee Read Online Free PDF

openly in defiance of United States law, and an incredible number of beggars accosted me.
     
    At last I thought of asking directions. But without realizing it I had wandered from the thronged wooden or granite sidewalks of the brightly lit avenues into an unpeopled, darkened area where the buildings were low and frowning, where the flicker of a candle or the yellow of a lamp in windows far apart were uncontested by any streetlights.
     
    All day my ears had been pressed by the clop of hooves, the rattling of iron tires, or the puffing of minibiles; now the empty street was unnaturally still. The suddenly looming figure of another walker seemed the luckiest of chances.
     
    "Excuse me, friend," I said. "Can you tell me where's the nearest inn, or anywhere I can get a bed for the night cheap?"
     
    I felt him peering at me. "Rube, huh? Much money you got?"
     
    "Th—Not very much. That's why I want to find cheap lodging."
     
    "Okay, Reuben. Come along."
     
    "Oh, don't trouble to show me. Just give me an idea how to get there."
     
    He grunted. "No trouble, Reuben. No trouble at all."
     
    Taking my arm just above the elbow in a firm grip he steered me along. For the first time I began to feel alarm. However, before I could attempt to shrug free he had shoved me into the mouth of an alley, discernible only because its absolute blackness contrasted with the relative darkness of the street.
     
    "Wait—" I began.
     
    "In here, Reuben. Soundest night's sleep you've had in a long time. And cheap—it's free."
     
    I started to break loose and was surprised to find he no longer held me. Before I could even begin to think, a terrific blow fell on the right side of my head and I traded the blackness of the alley for the blackness of insensibility.

 
III. A MEMBER OF THE GRAND ARMY
     
    I was recalled to consciousness by a smell. More accurately a cacophony of smells. I opened my eyes and shut them against the unbearable pain of light; I groaned at the equally unbearable pain in my skull. Feverishly and against my will I tried to identify the walloping odors around me.
     
    The stink of death and rottenness was thick. I knew there was an outhouse—many outhouses—nearby. The ground I lay on, where it was not stony, was damp with the water of endless dish washings and launderings. The noisomeness of offal suggested that the garbage of many families had never been buried, but left to rot in the alley or near it. In addition there was the smell of death, not the sweetish effluvium of blood, such as any country boy who has helped butcher a bull calf or hog knows, but the unmistakable stench of corrupt, maggoty flesh. Besides all this there was the spoor of humanity.
     
    A new discomfort at last forced my eyes open for the second time. A hard surface was pressing painful knobs into my exposed skin. I looked and felt around me.
     
    The knobs were the scattered cobbles of a fetid alley; not a foot away was the cadaver of a dog, thoroughly putrescent; beyond him a drunk retched and groaned. A trickle of liquid swill wound its way delicately over the moldy earth between the stones. My coat, shirt, and shoes were gone, so was the bundle with my books. There was no use searching my pocket for the three dollars. I knew I was lucky the robber had left me my pants and my life.
     
    A middle-aged man, at least he looked middle-aged to my youthful eye, regarded me speculatively over the head of the drunk. A pale, elliptical scar interrupted the wrinkles on his forehead, its upper point making a permanent part in his thin hair. Tiny red veins marked his nose; his eyes were bloodshot.
     
    "Pretty well cleaned yuh out, huh boy?"
     
    I nodded—and then was sorry for the motion. "Reward of virtue. Assuming you was virtuous, which I assume. Come to the same end as me, stinking drunk. Only I still got my shirt. Couldn't hock it no matter how thirsty I got."
     
    I groaned.
     
    "Where yuh from, boy? What rural—see, sober now— precincts miss