"Not a thing in the world but pyore joy, Jonas! Climb up in the waggon and let's all take a ride. I'm dead in love wi' this little gal here; won't you j'ine me? Nan Dorrin'ton used to be my beau-lover, but Nan's too old, an' now Adelaide's done took her place! Slap yourself on the hams an' crow like a rooster! Jump up an' crack your heels together twice before you come to earth ag'in. We've ketched the Boogerman, an' was gittin' ready for to fetch him home bekaze we had him whar he could nuther back nor squall, but jest about that time, here come Lucindy. She wa'n't gallopin', but she give us ez purty a sample of the ginnywine buzzard-lope as you ever laid eyes on. She grabbed the Boogerman an' give him the Putmon county witch-hug. Arter she'd smivelled an' smovelled him mighty nigh to death, she helt him off from her an' claimed him as her long-lost son; she know'd it bekaze he had a swaller-fork in one y'ear, an' a under-bit in the other, an' a wind-gall on the back of his neck. Her son, mind you! Well, when I know'd her son the first letter of his name was Randall Bowden, bekaze Bowden was the name of the man he belonged to--you remember him, Jonas?" "He admitted me to the bar and came within one of frightening me to death," responded old Jonas. "Well, you're a lawyer, an' you know mighty well that a man an' a citizen can't change his name wi'out a special law passed by the legislatur'. Now, ef the Boogerman was a plain nigger, it wouldn't make a bit of difference what he called hisse'f. But thar ain't no plain niggers any more; they're all sufferin' citizens. An' here he is callin' hisself Randall Holden. What do you think of that?" Randall shifted from one foot to the other and looked, first, at Mr. Sanders, and then at all of the others in turn. "Well, suh, Mr. Sanders, I call myse'f Holden bekaze they ain't no Bowdens fer me ter be named after. Marster's dead, Mistiss is dead, an' Miss Betty is done gone an' changed her name by--er--gittin' married. De Holdens ain't all dead yit, an' my mistiss wuz a Holden proceedin' the day she married marster. I felt like I want ter be named after somebody that wuz alive." "What have you been doing all this time?" old Jonas asked in his sharpest and curtest tone. "Workin' hard all day, an' studyin' hard at night, suh. I laid off ter be a preacher. In four years, I reckon I has been to school about one year. I can read a little, an' write a little, an' maybe do some easy figgerin'. It looks like that books git harder the more you fool with 'em. That's what I find about 'em. I jest come ter see my mammy, suh, an' she come up on me while I was playin' Boogerman with the little mistiss there." "Doing what?" snapped old Jonas; and then Mr. Sanders had to relate the wonderful adventures that befell Adelaide and him in the Whish-Whish Woods. How he did it must be imagined, but old Jonas listened patiently to the end, without uttering so much as the habitual "pish-tush."