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where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a

thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says: ssssssssss

"Say -- who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumfn. Well,

I knows what I's gwyne to do. I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears

it agin." ssssssssss

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up

against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of

mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But

I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching

underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness

went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that.

I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it

more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then

Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore -- and then I was pretty soon

comfortable again. ssssssssss

Tom he made a sign to me -- kind of a little noise with his mouth -- and we went

creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off, Tom whis-

pered to me and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun; but I said no; he might

wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then Tom

said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get

some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come.

But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom

laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to

get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on

his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good

while, everything was so still and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path, around the garden fence,

and by-and-by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house.

Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over

him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the

witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State,

and then set him under the trees again and hung his hat on a limb to show who

done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans:

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