One day whilst husking corn he said he had once killed twelve eagles at a shot. The darkies remonstrated with him, and said they had never seen more than two eagles at a time, whereupon Billy said he had killed ten. They continued to taunt him until he dropped to three, and then said, “I’ll die befo’ I drap another eagle!” One Saturday in March Billy sauntered to the humble cabin of Jerry and Caesar Butler, brothers and free negroes, to steal a dozen raw. They lived at the head of a creek, fished, oystered, and hunted the marsh for muskrats for a livelihood. Saturday night the boat came, and he knew they would have several barrels of oysters for the steamer. The weather was not very cold and he assumed they were oystering, because the day before whilst they were out Billy had slipped over and stolen a cooking ’possum. Arriving at the cabin, lo! and behold, Caesar and Jerry were both on deck, the former lamenting and pondering about his ’possum, the latter skinning a lot of muskrats he had trapped the night before. Caesar was fond of ’possum, and returning from oystering hungry and tired, stopped at the country store, bought a pint of applejack and a fat ’possum, went home, put his ’possum in the ashes, covered it with coals, took several swigs of applejack, and went soundly to sleep—_’possum struck_. When Billy appeared the ’possum was nicely roasted, which Billy ate, piled the bones in Caesar’s lap, greased his hands and face, so when Caesar awoke he found his hands and cheeks greasy, and a pile of ’possum bones in his lap. He licked his hands, and said, “Dat’s ’possum;” felt his cheeks and said, “Dat’s ’possum sho’,” and when he saw the pile of bones in his lap, said: “Dat’s ’stonishin’ applejack, an’ de mos’ ornsatisfactionis’ ’possum dat ebber I et.” Billy was very generous and when he had money would buy oysters, but without money would invite himself to take, and generally took them, for he was prodigal. It was nothing unusual for him to go to the country store and buy two eggs’ worth of molasses, of which he was very fond.