“'Your tender adorer, Sam Crowder, sends you the followin' fust trofy of a hunt on the Osage; the condition of this bar are somethin' like him, the bar are all fat, he are all tenderness! Hopin' that you will gin up a small corner of your heart to the writer, while he is among the furriners of Lusiane, he will ever remember you, and be sure not to furgit to bring a pledge of affection from the sunny south, to bind our openin' loves. “'Yours, with stream, or agin it. “'Sam Crowder. “I studdyed that out with considerable difficulty, and writ it with more, and 'stick me on a sand-bar' ef that Jess didn't way-lay Jim and read the note! Maybe it didn't stir up the alluvial bottom of his love fur Sally--the varmint's countenance looked as riled as the old Missouri in a June rise. “Off I started next day, with my flat, for the imporium of the south, and as I war floating along, I couldn't help turnin' over in my mind what a scrougin smart family the Crowders would be, when Sally and I agreed upon annexation. I jest thort I could see 'young Sam,' the fust boy, standin' on the other eend of the flat, strong as a bar--eye like an Ingin--spry as a catamount--fair as Sally and keen as his daddy--I swar, I yelled rite out, thinkin' on it. “While I was in this way rollin' in clover, by pic-turin' what was to be, they wur tarin' my character all to _chitlins_ up at home. My perlite note was raisin' a parfect freshet of wrath agin me. That display of larnin', about bringin' home a _pledge of affection_, from the sunny south, most onaccountably oversot my whole family prospects. It wur a stumper to Sally, so she got Jess to explain it, and the way he did it was _enormous_. “'Why, don't you see,' ses Jess, 'he means to bring you up one of his nigger children, from the south, to _nuss!_ Nothing can be plainer--thar aint no other 'pledges of affection' than children, that I know on.' “Well, I swar ef she didn't believe him. “'The nasty dog,' ses Sally, 'does he think I'm agoin to nuss any of his yaller pledges--ef them thar is all he's got to offer, he aint wuth shucks, and ef you don't lick him fur his onmannerly note, you aint wuth shucks, nuther.'