Travis Burdow Character Analysis

“There be things that’s evil in these woods tonight. I seed evil apassin’ my place a while ago, comin’ in from the shortcut road to town and reelin’ in the saddle. I heered evil braggin’ in the saloon today about layin’ fer a young ’un on his way home.” He reached over and took the reigns from Jethro’s hands. “I’d best drive till we’re out of the brush,” he added. We’re gittin’ close to the place where some piz’nous snake might strike quick.”

The world was turning upside down for Jethro. He felt as if he were someone else […]. When he tried to speak, he found that […] his lips worked as they had often seemed to work in a bad dream to form the words that he wanted to say, but no sound passed them, and there was nothing to do but sit quietly while his mind floundered in the uncertainties that beset it.

The authority of the law loomed big in his mind; he remembered, “You and your family will be in serious trouble.” Loyalty to his brother Tom and the many thousands who had fought to the last ditch at Pittsburgh Landing, at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and all the other places that were adding length to the long list—how could loyalty to these men be true if one were going to harbor and give comfort to a man who simply said, “I quit.”

But on the other hand, how did one feel at night if he awoke and remembered, “I’m the one that sent my cousin to his death.” Eb was not a hero, certainly—not now, anyway. People scorned the likes of Eb; sure, so did Jethro, and yet—

“How do I know what I’d be like if I was sick and scared and hopeless; how does […] any man know that ain’t been there?”

“There be things that’s evil in these woods tonight. I seed evil apassin’ my place a while ago, comin’ in from the shortcut road to town and reelin’ in the saddle. I heered evil braggin’ in the saloon today about layin’ fer a young ’un on his way home.” He reached over and took the reigns from Jethro’s hands. “I’d best drive till we’re out of the brush,” he added. We’re gittin’ close to the place where some piz’nous snake might strike quick.”

The world was turning upside down for Jethro. He felt as if he were someone else […]. When he tried to speak, he found that […] his lips worked as they had often seemed to work in a bad dream to form the words that he wanted to say, but no sound passed them, and there was nothing to do but sit quietly while his mind floundered in the uncertainties that beset it.

The authority of the law loomed big in his mind; he remembered, “You and your family will be in serious trouble.” Loyalty to his brother Tom and the many thousands who had fought to the last ditch at Pittsburgh Landing, at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and all the other places that were adding length to the long list—how could loyalty to these men be true if one were going to harbor and give comfort to a man who simply said, “I quit.”

But on the other hand, how did one feel at night if he awoke and remembered, “I’m the one that sent my cousin to his death.” Eb was not a hero, certainly—not now, anyway. People scorned the likes of Eb; sure, so did Jethro, and yet—

“How do I know what I’d be like if I was sick and scared and hopeless; how does […] any man know that ain’t been there?”