“It wa’n’t yo’, Deacon Atwood; I might ha’ froze to death walking this house, and nigh fainting with fear, thinking some nigger had outened yo’ smoke fo’ yo’ fo’ allus’ on this earth.” (He was fumbling in his pocket for an old clay pipe he carried there.) “I do believe uncle Jesse and aunt Phebe are the best Christians on this plantation. Yo’r old mother took her toddy, and went to snoring hours ago, thinking nothing o’ what might happen yo’—her only son, who she’s dependent on to manage all her thousand acres o’ land; though gracious knows I wish she’d give yo’ a foot or two of it, without waiting to all eternity fo’ her to die ’fo’ we can call an earthly thing our own. I couldn’t get that story I hearn yo’ telling Den Bardon ’to’ther day, out o’ my head, and I war that scarred I couldn’t go to bed.” “What story was that?” asked Watson, as he hung his whip and saddle upon a wooden peg in a corner of the kitchen where the trio were. “Why, about that Texas Jack that is around here, killing niggers and everybody; and he don’t have more ’n a word with a man till he shoots him down. If I had a knowed yo’ was coming home tight, father, I’d a been scarred ’clar to death shor’. A pretty mess yo’ll hev’ in the church now, Deacon Atwood! Elder Titmouse’ll be after yo’ shor.” “Hi, hi, hi,” laughed the Deacon. “Hic, a-hic, a-hic, hi, hi. No danger o’ that, old gal. He’d have to be after the whole church, and take the lead of the leaviners hisself. He’s the Chaplain o’ the Club, and the d-r-u-n-kest man in town to-night. The old bell-sheep jumped the fence first, and helter skelter! all the flock jumped after him. Hick, a-hic. But who, hic, taken that wood, hic, from the yard, hic, and brung it thar?” demanded the head o’ the house, with changed mood, ominous of a coming domestic storm. “Dina’s gone, and Tom’s gone, and yo’ wouldn’t do it if yo’ froze.” “Wal, now, I was feeling powerful bad, a-walking the house, and crying and praying mighty hard, and fust I knowed I heard a humming and a singing, and who should come up to the do’ but Aunt Phebe, and Uncle Jesse close behind? They reckoned thar was sickness, and they come to help. Now, I call that Christian, if they be niggers. “Why yo’re freezing,” says Uncle Jess, “and yo’ll git the fever.” So he brung the wood and made the fire, and we all prayed for _yo’_, a heap mo’n yo’re worth; fo’, as I say, I war a thinking o’ Texas Jack. When we heahed ole Duke whinny they went home, and this minute they’ve blowed their light out.” “Hi! hi! Old gal, we’ve been _making_ Texas Jacks—setting ’em up all night; and they’ll be thicker ’n bumble bees and yaller jackets ’fo’ ’lection. But they don’t know how to kill nobody but radicals—niggers and carpet-baggers and scalawags.” “Now, Deacon, if yo’ve been setting up anything agin such men as Jesse and Den, and Penny Loo, I just hope yo’ll git chawed up by yo’re own Jacks?” said this Southern aristocratic female Christian, in great ire.