"Well, a body wouldn't 'a' never thought hit!" Mr. Doggett rose weakly, as unsteady on his feet, as a day old calf, and rubbed his forehead. "We'd jest as well as go on and feed the hosses, Joey. Big Money's been a nickerin' fer his breakfast fer an hour, and I'll need him to go to town and see what Mr. Castle says. Mr. Castle told me a while back I needn't to plant no terbaccer: he wuz afeerd I wouldn't git to raise hit, and I ort to 'a' listened." At this moment there were four bursts of laughter from the roof of the barn. The three on the floor looked up to see Jappy and Marshall, who had not come home the evening before,--Dock, who was supposed to be yet in bed, and Bunch Trisler, sitting in acrobatic fashion across the tier poles, in a high state of glee. "Pap, who's a gona git you?" called out Dock, giving vent to a howl that endangered the safety of his position. "'Some people swaller down ever' theng they see on a paper, like a duck does dough,'" quoted Marshall, facetiously, as the four clambered down from their perch. "We 'lowed they would when we fixed up that notus." Mr. Doggett and Joey grinned feebly as the perpetrators of the joke, still laughing, swung themselves to the ground. But Mrs. Doggett was full of reproach. "Whar'd that blood come from, I'd like to know?" she asked angrily. "That's my old Dominecker hin's blood, Ma," Dock informed her. "Me and Bunch jeet killed her about a hour ago." Mrs. Doggett turned on Bunch. "You're a nice un, Bunch Trisler," she inveighed. "You, a married man, with chillern, a puttin' up them boys to play off sech a caper on their parents! Here I am, wore to a plumb frazzle, a pullin' through that plowed ground, a runnin', thenkin' Eph, er one the boys, wuz shore killed! You outdacious scamp, somepin will be sent on you fer that!" "Don't be too hard on the boys, Ann," interposed Mr. Doggett, who had partially regained his spirits: "they didn't mean no great harm,--jest wanted to have a leetle fun, you might say." "Fun!" mimicked Mrs. Doggett. "I don't see no fun in no sich jokes, Eph Doggett, ner nobody else would, with a quarter of a pint o' brains! A little taste o' jail boardin'd improve the quality o' the little spoonful you've got in your head, Bunch Trisler! Your recollection shorely hain't good, er you'd remember about Jake Wilson a bein' give nine months in jail fer playin' a night rider joke, er two, in _this_ County!" "But, Ma," argued Dock, "this hain't like sendin' letters through the Nuniter State's mail! And Jake wouldn't a never been done nothin' to, ef he hadn't 'a' writ that letter fer that feller that 'tended like he couldn't write,--that thar Gover'ment 'Tecter that wuz out a runnin' down the feller that sent them night rider letters to the big men. This hain't no sendin' through the mail!"