“Yes, I 'lowed I would, Uncle Ab. I couldn't stay away. I told Sally it ud be the biggest fun on earth. She's a-comin' on as soon as she gits the childern ready. She's excited, too, an' wants to see how it 'll come out. She's as big a believer in you as I am, mighty nigh, an' she 'lowed, she did, that she'd bet you'd take hair an' hide off'n that gang 'fore they got good started.” Abner raised his shaggy eyebrows. If this was one of Pole's jokes it failed in the directness that usually characterized the jests of the ex-moonshiner. “I wonder what yo' re a-drivin' at, you blamed fool,” he said, smiling in a puzzled fashion. Pole was walking in front, and suddenly wheeled about. He took off his hat, and, wiping the perspiration from his high brow with his forefinger, he cracked it into the broom-sedge like a whip. “Looky' heer, Uncle Ab,” he laughed, “what you givin' me?” “I was jest tryin' to find out what you was a-givin' me,” retorted the rural philosopher, a dry note of rising curiosity dominating his voice. They had reached a rail fence which separated the field from the wood, and they climbed over it and stood in the shade of the trees. Pole stared at the old man incredulously. “By hunkley, Uncle Ab, you don't mean to tell me you don't know what that passle o' hill-Billies is a-goin' to do with you this mornin' at meetin'?” Abner smiled mechanically. “I can't say I do, Pole. I'm at the fust of it, if thar is to be any--” Pole slapped his thigh and gave vent to a loud guffaw that rang through the trees and was echoed back from a hidden hill-side. “Well, what they _are_ a-goin' to do with you 'll be a God's plenty. They are a-goin' to walk yore log, ur make you do it on all fours so they kin see you. You've made it hot fer them an' they are a-goin' to turn t'other cheek an' git a swipe at you. They are a-goin' to show you whar you come in--ur, ruther, whar you go out.” Abner's face was a study in seriousness. “You don't say!” he muttered. “I _did_ notice that brother Dole kinder give our house a wide berth last night. I reckon he sorter hated to eat at the same table with a feller he was goin' to hit at to-day. Yes, Dole is at the bottom of it. I know in reason I pushed 'im too fur the last time he was heer, but when he rears back an' coughs up sanctimony like he was literally too full of it fer comfort, I jest cayn't hold in. Seems to me I kin jest close my eyes an' hit some spot in 'im that makes 'im wiggle like a tadpole skeered in shallow water. But maybe I mought 'a' got a better mark to fire at; fer this 'll raise no end of a rumpus, an' they may try to make me take back water, but I never did crawfish. I couldn't do that, Pole. No siree, I--I can' t crawfish.”