“No, they won't, John. Ef you could master yo' own soft heart--ef you could stay away (like he's tole ye a minny a time to do, knowin' 'at you was safe not to mind him)--Sammy would stop this here foolishness. He'd come to his senses and be thankful for what the Lord sent, like other people. W'y, John--” “Cornely honey--don't. Don't ye say another word. I tell ye, this last year there's a feelin' in my throat and in my breast--hyer,”--he laid his hand pathetically over his heart,--“a cur'us, gone, flutterin' feelin'. And when Sammy r'ars up and threatens he'll take Huldy and the chaps--you know,”--he finished with a gesture of the hand and a glance of unspeakable pain,--“when he does that 'ar way, or something comes at me sudden like that--that we may lose 'em, hit seems like--right hyer,”--and his hand went again to his heart,--“that I can't bear it--that hit 'll take my life.” This was the last time Cornelia ever remonstrated with Pap John. She had a little talk with the new doctor from Hepzibah who bad succeeded old Dr. Pastergood; and after that John was added to the list of her anxieties. He might carry the milk to the cabin on The Bench; he might slip in, when he deemed Sammy away--or asleep--and plough the corn; she saw the tragic folly of it, but must be silent. And so on that particular June morning, when Pap had put up the mule, clambered down the short-cut footway from The Bench to the old house, stopping several times to shake his head again and murmur to himself--“Whut you gwine do? There's them chaps; there's Huldy. Mustn't plough his co'n; mustn't take over air cow. Whut you gwine do?”--Aunt Cornelia's seeing eye noted his perturbation the moment he came in at the door. With tender guile she built up a considerable argument in the matter of a quarterly meeting which was approaching--the grove quarterly, in which Pap John was unfailingly interested, and during which there were always from two to half a dozen preachers, old and young, staying with them. So she led him away--ever so little away--from his ever-present grief. It was the next day that he said to her, “Cornely, I p'intedly ain't gwine to suffer this hyer filchin' o' co'n them Fusons is a-keepin' up on me.” “Is the Fusons a-stealin' yo' co'n, John?” she responded, in surprise. “W'y, they got a-plenty, ain't they?” “Well, no, not adzactly, that is to say, Buck Fuson ain't got a-plenty. He too lazy and shif'less to make co'n of his own; and he like too well to filch co'n from them he puts his spite on. Buck Fuson he tuck a spite at me, last time the raiders was up atter that Fuson hideout; jes set up an' swore 'at I'd gin the word to 'em. You see, honey, he makes him up a spite that-a-way--jes out o' nothin'--'cause hit's sech a handy thing to have around when he comes to want co'n. Thar's some one already purvided to steal from--some one 'at's done him a injury.”