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all in good time, don't you fret about that. Go 'long with you now, and do

us your mother told you." ssssssssss

When we got up stairs to his room, he got me a coarse shirt and a round-

about and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he asked me what

my name was, but before I could tell him, he started to telling me about a blue

jay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods day before yesterday, and he

asked me where Moses was when the candle went out. I said I didn't know; I

hadn't heard about it before, no way. ssssssssss

"Well, guess," he says.

"How'm I going to guess," says I, "when I never heard tell about it

before?" ssssssssss

"But you can guess, can't you? It's just as easy."

"Which candle?" I says.

"Why, any candle," he says.

"I don't know where he was," says I; "where was he?"

"Why he was in the dark! That's where he was!"

"Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?"

"Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say, how long are you going to

stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming times -- they

don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've got a dog -- and he'll go in

the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do you like to comb up,

Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet I don't, but ma she makes

me. Confound these ole britches, I reckon I'd better put 'em on, but I'd ruther

not, it's so warm. Are you all ready? All right -- come along, old hoss."

Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and butter-milk -- that is what they

had for me down there, and there ain't nothing better that ever I've come across

yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes, except the nigger

woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They all smoked and

talked, and I eat and talked. The young women had quilts around them,

and their hair down their backs. They all asked me questions, and I told

them how pap and me and all the family was living on a little farm down at

the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann run off and got married and

never was heard of no more, and Bill went to hunt them and he warn't heard of

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