"Look at me, Bushie, de way you did at de painter," said Burl, with a broad grin. "I wants to see how well you've larnt your lesson." Complying at once, Bushie pulled down and screwed up his quizzical little face in such a marvelous manner that eyes, nose, mouth, and coon-skin cap seemed on the point of breaking out into a family row beyond hope of ever coming again to a good understanding one with another. "No wonder the varmint was skeered and went screamin' away!" And the black giant laughed till the forest shook to its roots, and every inquisitive squirrel and prying fox within a half mile peered warily forth from its hole to discover what jovial monster this might be that had invaded their leafy wilds. Suddenly checking his laughter, Burl said: "But, Bushie, I forgot to ax you if you axed your modder to let you come out here to de fiel'. Did you?" "Yes." "An' she said you might come, did she?" "Just look up yonder, Burl, and see how the crows have gone to fighting." "You g' 'long with your crows, an' look at me right, an' tell me if yo' modder said you might come." "And Burl, after I skeered the painter away," remarked Bushie, "I saw two buffalo bulls fighting right on the high river-bank, and the one that got his tail up hill pushed the other clean----" "You g' 'long with your bulls too, an' no mo' uf yo' dodgin', but look me right in de face an' answer my question." Now, Bushie had never told a lie--that is to say, a downright lie--in all his life. It must be owned, however, that he would sometimes try to dodge the truth, by throwing out some remark quite foreign to the offense under consideration; an effective way of whipping the father of fibs around the stump, as many people who ought to know can testify. Or, failing to clear his skirts by this shift, he would go on picking at the mud-daubing in the wall, near which he might chance to be standing, or breaking off splinters from the fence on which he might chance to be sitting, without saying a word either foreign or akin to the matter in hand. But let him once be fairly cornered, convinced that dodging the question was out of the question, then would he turn himself square about, and looking you full in the face, out with the naked truth as bluntly as if he had "chawed" it into a hard wad and shot it at you from his pop-gun. So, in the present instance, throwing down the handful of splinters he had broken from the rail, he turned his big blue eyes full upon the face of his black inquisitor, and bluntly answered, "No, she didn't." "Did she say you mus'n't come?" "Yes, she did." "Den, why didn't you mind yo' modder?" "Because."