these yere saddenin' canines--big, lop-y'eared hound-dogs, they be--
works in the piece.
"'Do you-all hear them hound-clogs a-mournin' an' a-bayin' last
evenin'?' asked Boggs of Enright.
"'Shore! I hears 'em,' says Enright.
"Enright, that a-way, is allers combatin' of Boggs' sooperstitions.
As he says, if somebody don't head Boggs off, them deloosions
spreads, an' the first news you gets, Wolfville's holdin' table-
tippin's an' is goin' all spraddled out on seances an' sim'lar
imbecilities, same as them sperit-rappin' hold-ups one encounters in
the East. In sech event, Red Dog's doo to deem us locoed, an' could
treat us with jestified disdain. Enright don't aim to allow
Wolfville's good repoote to bog down to any sech extent, none
whatever; an' so stand's in to protect both the camp an' pore Boggs
himse'f from Boggs' weird an' ranikaboo idees. So Enright says
ag'in: 'Shore! I hears 'em. An' what of it? Can't you-all let a pore
pup howl, when his heart is low an' his destinies most likely has
got tangled in their rope?'
"'jest the same,' says Boggs, 'them outcries of theirs makes me feel
a heap ambiguous. I'm drawin' kyards to a pa'r of fours that first
howl they emits, an' I smells bad luck an' thinks to myse'f, "Here's
where you get killed too dead to skin!" But as I takes in three
aces, an' as the harvest tharof is crowdin' hard towards two hundred
dollars, I concloodes, final, them dogs don't have me on their mind
after all; an' so I'm appeased a whole lot. Still, I'm cur'ous to
know whatever they're howlin' about anyhow.'
"'Which you're too conceited, Boggs,' says Tutt, cuttin' in on the
powwow. 'You-all is allers thinkin' everythin' means you. Now, I
hears them dogs howlin', an' havin' beheld the spectacle they
performs in, I sort o' allows they're sorrowin' over their
disgraceful employment--sort o' 'shamed of their game. An' well them
dogs might be bowed in sperit! for a more mendacious an' lyin'
meelodramy than said "Uncle Tom's Cabin," I never yet pays four
white chips to see; an' I'm from Illinoy, an' was a Abe Lincoln man
an' a rank black ab'litionist besides.'
"'Seein' I once owns a couple of hundred Guineas,' says Enright, 'my
feelin's ag'in slavery never mounts so high as Tutt's; but as for
eloocidatin' them dog-songs that's set your nerves to millin',
Boggs, it's easy. Whenever you-all hears a dog mournin' an' howlin'
like them hound-pups does last night, that's because he smells
somethin' he can't locate; an' nacherally he's agitated tharby. Now
yereafter, never let your imagination pull its picket-pin that a-
way, an' go to cavortin' 'round permiscus--don't go romancin' off on
any of them ghost round-ups you're addicted to. Thar's the whole
groosome myst'ry laid b'ar; them pups merely smells things they
can't locate, an' it frets 'em.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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