“And Squire,” continued Dick, “the last I seen of him that day, he tuck a flask out of his pocket, _as he lay_, drinkt, ketcht some water in the flask, and drinkt again, _as he lay; and then throw’d his face back_, this way, like, _to keep the river out of his mouth and nose_!” Amused at Dick’s anecdote of his lazy neighbour, I solicited some information about the occupant of a cabin nearly in the water, on the ’Possum Trot side. At the very door of the dwelling commenced a fish-trap dam; and on the trap stood a stalwart fellow in a red flannel shirt, and pantaloons that were merely breeches—the legs being torn off entirely. “Who’s that?” I asked. “Wait till we pass him, and I’ll tell you.” We tumbled onward a few yards. “That’s Jim Ed’ards; _he loves cat-fish, some! Well_, he does! Don’t do nothin’ but ketch ’em. Some of the boys says he’s got slimy all over, _like_ unto a cat—don’t know about that; all I know is, we ketcht one in the seine, that weighed over forty pounds. Thar was a _mocassin_ tuk out of it longer than my arm. And nobody wouldn’t have it then, but Jim. As we was goin’ home, Jim a totin’ the fish—ses I, ‘Jim, you ain’t agwine to eat _that_ cat, sure_ly_!’ “Ses he, ‘Pshaw! that mocassin warn’t nothin’.’ “Ses I, ‘Jim, enny man that’ll eat that cat, would eat a bull-frog.’ “And with that, he knocked me down and liked to a killed me: and that was the reason I didn’t want to tell you about him twell we’d passed him.” As we neared a pretty little island, on which were a house and two or three acres in cultivation: “Thar,” said Dick, “is Dock Norris’s settle_ment_. I guess he won’t ‘_play horse_’ agin in a hurry. He claims ’Possum Trot for his beat, but we’d all rather he’d take Turpingtine.” “What game was that he played?” I asked. “Oh! playin’ horse. See, thar was a crowd of boys come down and kamped on Turpingtine side, to seine. They was but a little ways from the river—leastways thar camp-fire was—and between the river and it, is a pretty knoll, whar the river’s left a pretty bed of white sand as big as a garden spot, and right at it the water’s ten foot deep, and it’s about the same from the top of the bluff to the water. “A big, one-eyed fellow named Ben Baker, was at the head of the town crowd, and as soon as they’d struck a camp, Ben and his fellers, except one (a lad like), tuck the seine and went away down the river, fishin’, and was gone a’most all day. Well, Dock bein’ of a sharp, splinter-legged, mink-face feller, gits some of his boys, and goes over in the time, and they drinks all Ben’s whiskey and most all his coffee, and eats up all his bacon-meat—’sides bein’ sassy to the boy. Arter a while here comes Ben and his kump’ny, back, wet and tired, and hungry. The boy told ’em Dock Norris and his crowd had eat and drunk up everything, and Ben’s one eye shined like the ev’ning star.