“Dah bless Gawd!” he exclaimed; taking a seat across the room, near the kitchen door. “I ain’ _never_ knowed it to fail; long as I kin remember,” he went on, with a sweeping gesture of the right arm. “Evvy time you see me dream ’bout fresh meat, you sho find out it ain’ goin’ be mo’n a day pass by, befo’ I hyeah tell ’bout somebody done died.... An’ now I bin had a dream ’bout fresh meat, dis make _three_ nights successful, han’-runnin’.... An’ hyuh come de news from Lethe dis mawnin’, ’bout two mo’ people done passed out, yonder in Gritny....” “Never mind your dreams,” Mr. Amos interrupted with an amused smile. “Tell me who’s dead. And you can think about your fresh meat afterwards.” “Go ’head, an’ laugh much as you please,” Felo answered, a trifle provoked. “Y’all w’ite folks jus’ alike.... All time ready to laugh at somh’n you don’ un’stan....” “Well, let us hear what Lethe had to say, and maybe I will be better able to interpret your dream,” Mr. Amos encouraged him. “Da’s de very thing I wan’t tell you. If you only keep still, an’ stop ty’in’ up my pro-gress wid so many on-nec’sary queshtun,” he remonstrated playfully; eager to recount Lethe’s sensational chronicle of disaster. Three deaths in less than a week’s time! He began solemnly.... Ole Aunt Milly from down the bayou.... Pulled up in a skiff, all the way from Peach Orchard.... Comin’ all that long distance, rolled up in a blanket.... And buried in a grave half-full of rain water! He went on enumerating the lugubrious incidents; falling into a sort of chant, wavering between two monotonous tones. Then Tempe, fallin’ in a well and gettin’ drownded so curuss.... And nobody able to get the straight understandin’ about it.... And smack on top of dat: Gussie Fisky, cut down by a switch engine haphazzud.... Right in front of his own house, in the black night.... And nobody close by to carry the news.... Umph-umph! Went the vigorous grunt of contemplation.... What was the world comin’ to?... These Gritny people better make haste and pray. Before Gawd reached down and snatched at ’um; and they come to open their eyes in Tawment.... Beggin’ for mercy when it wasn’t no use.... “Yas Lawd!” he concluded with a deep sigh. “It sho look like sudden deaths is gittin’ pop’lar.” Knowing Felo’s eager readiness to have a part in every “popular” demonstration of this kind; Mr. Amos asked him how he was going to manage to be present at all the ceremonies.