The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

The men enter the barn to search for the boys. Whiskey seller Cornelius “Corny” Witham climbs up to the loft with a pitchfork and stabs at the pile of hay until the boys stand up and surrender. Corny leads them outside, where Squint waits with county magistrate JT Marston and a drunken Union sergeant. Marston owns most of the local town of Pine Swamp, Maine, and he gets his way with town officials through bribery and payoffs.

Marston tells Harold that he must join the army. Harold protests that he’s only 17, but Squint insists angrily that the boy is 20, and Marston accepts that. Harold protests some more, so the drunken sergeant pulls a gun and insists that Harold take the oath or be shot. Harold swears allegiance; Homer lunges at Squint but gets pulled away by Corny and locked in the root cellar. Harold, barefoot, is led away by the Sergeant. 

The root cellar contains moldy furniture, rotted beaver pelts, bug-infested Mason jars, and a floor of dirt and rocks. Hungry and despairing, Homer blames himself for eating the hog food and causing Harold’s predicament. Worse, “the notion of being on my own scares me worse than spiders” (14), and already he misses his brother terribly.

He hears Squint and Corny upstairs, talking about the money they just made. Squint bribed the judge $30 and paid Corny $20 as a witness, and he pockets $200 from a wealthy man who paid Squint to substitute Harold to serve in the army in place of the wealthy man’s son. Homer remembers hearing that the draft hasn’t yet gone into effect; he decides to run away, search for Harold, and rescue him. 

Homer finds a piece of wood and, with it, digs a hole in the dirt floor next to the wall and squeezes through to the outside at night. Corny is drunk, and he staggers outside, just missing the crouching Homer, and climbs onto his horse for the ride home. Squint steps out for a moment, yawns, and returns inside. The house lights go dark, and soon Squint is snoring “so loud and fruitful you could hear it in the next county” (19). Homer hurries to the paddock, leads Bob the horse outside, and they walk south in the dark. 

Homer and Bob are nervous as they walk through the forest at night. After some miles, Homer climbs onto Bob. As he rides, he worries about bears that might lurk nearby. Bob picks up on Homer’s fear and begins to gallop; they race through the trees, branches flicking past. Bob is old; he tires quickly and slows down. Homer and Bob are still scared, though, and Homer thinks he’s hearing voices in the forest. In fact, he is, and one voice is clear: “‘Kill that son of a bee,’ it says. ‘Kill him while we got the chance’” (23).