“Well, Sir, the bar war _very_ promiscuous indeed, and some of the old hees war mighty mellifluous, I tell _you_. I had no sens about bar _then_, but thar warn’t no cabin or camp in the whole settlement, and in course I soon larnt thar natur by livin’ ’mongst ’em. A bar, Capting, an old _he_ bar, ain’t no candidate or other good-natured greenhorn to stand gougin’ and treatin’. Oh no, _he_ ain’t, but he’s as ramstugenous an animal as a log-cabin loafer in the dog days, jist about, and if a stranger fools with him he’ll get sarved out in no time. “Well, let’s licker. A bar is a _consaity_ animal, but as far as his sens do go he’s about as smart as any other animal; arter that, the balance is clear fat and fool. I have lived ’mongst ’em, and know ther natur. I have killed as many as seven in a day, and _smartly_ to the rise of sixty in a season. Arter I’d been on the Creek about two months, _up_ comes the Governor _and_ Chunkey; the Governor ’tended like he wanted to see how I come on with the clearin’; but, Sir, he were arter a spree, and I knoe’d it, or _why_ did he bring Chunkey? Everything looked _mighty_ well; the negers looked fat and slick as old Belcher in catfish season. I’d done cut more nor two hundred acres of cane, and had the rails on the ground. I’d done—” “Come, Jim, keep the track!” “Well, Capting, they war mighty savagerous arter likker; they’d been fightin’ the stranger[13] mightly comin’ up, and war perfectly wolfish arter some har of the dog, and I hadn’t a drop; so I started two negers, with mules and jugs, to the Pint (Princeton, Washington County), and the ox-team arter a barrel. Well, Sir, the day arter, the jugs come, and we _darted_ on ’em” (giving a sigh), “but lord, what war two jugs in _sich_ a crowd? They jist kept Chunkey from dyin’, as he was so dry he had the rattles; next day the barrel come, and then we _krack_-ovienned up to it in airnest. You know what kind of man Chunkey is when he gits started—if he commences talkin’, singin’, or whistlin’, no matter which, you’d jist as well try and stop the Mississippi as him. Why I’ve knoed him to whistle three days and three nights on a stretch—the Governor coulden’t eat nor drink for Chunkey’s whistlin’, and at last he gits mad, and that’s the last thing he does with anybody what _he_ likes, and, says he to Chunkey— “‘Chunkey, you have kept me awake two nights a-whistlin’, and you must stop it to-night, or _you_ or _me_ must quit the plantation.’ “Chunkey said: ‘Governor, I don’t want to put you to no trouble, but I _can’t_ stop in the middle of a chune, and as you have known the plantation longer than me, I expect you can leave it with lest trouble.’ “The Governor jist roar’d, and gin Chunkey a new gun and—” “Stop, Jim, you have forgot the bear.”