I grabbed the gourd and swiped it out as best I could with the tail of my underskirt. I could still hear Miss Ophelia and Mister Ward. Her sobbing and his yelling sounded like they had stopped close by, but there were so many dogwood bushes and briar vines and pine trees growing tangled together on both sides of the trail that I couldn't tell for sure where they were. I ran on down the hill. When I got even with Miss Ophelia's berry basket I slowed down to look at it, but I didn't dare touch it. It was lying bottom side up, but I couldn't see any huckleberries spilling out. The more Mister Ward shouted at Miss Ophelia, the faster I scooted on down the steep hillside. Once I stumped my toe on the root of a sweet gum tree and fell. But I held on to the gourd. As I was getting up, I saw the spring just ahead. I decided I'd better wash the dipper in the branch water before I stuck it into the deep, clear spring. As I waded out to the middle of the branch, cool sand oozed up between my toes, and for a minute I forgot all about Mister Ward's loud, ugly talking. But I heard him again. "I don't know why in hell you can't get it through your thick skull, Ophelia! I got it all figured out. All I gotta do is rake up money to buy the copper cooker, and I'm sure gonna get it, one way or another. 'Course, this summer I'll have to buy chops and rye too. But come another year, I'm gonna plant a heap of corn. I ain't gonna raise a stalk of cotton on the whole place. That won't set so good with old Ned. But hell, if that nigger don't like it, he can lump it! I got new plans for him anyways." "New plans?" "Yeah. He's gonna be helpin' with the runs. And them burr-headed boys of his are gonna be cuttin' wood and keepin' up the fires. Ah, I tell you, it's gonna be a perfect setup! Like Hicks said, I got plenty of water and a nice spot here in this hollow, way own the main road. Even the smoke ain't gonna drift far! Can't figure why I haven't done rigged me up a still long ago. Like Hicks said, ain't no need of a man with my brains workin' hisself to death walkin' behind no plow!" "Who's this Hicks you're talking about?" "You don't know him, Ophelia. He's sorta my business partner. Lives down below the State Line Road. Now, he's a moneyed man! He's got him one of them automobiles! Me and him's goin' in together fifty-fifty. I'm gonna take the whiskey to him in big batches—gallons and five gallons. Naturally, I'll be obliged to get myself a automobile! Then Hicks—" "A automobile?" "That's what I said! A automobile! I'll buy me one soon's the money starts pilin' in. Then, by God, when I ride through Drake Eye Springs, folks won't say, 'Yonder goes _Old Ward_.' They'll say, 'Yonder goes _Mister Ward Lawson_.'" "And I'll say, 'Yonder goes the biggest red-headed fool the Lord ever let breathe!'"