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How they got a livin' nobody knew; for they didn't seem to pay no attention to raisin' nothin' but childun, but the duce knows, there was plenty o' them. Their old hut was like a rabbit-pen: there was a tow-head to every crack and cranny. 'Member what old Cæsar said once when the word come to the store that old Hokum had got twins.
Now, Primus King was the master hand for diggin' wells, and so they said they'd get him by givin' on him a shere. "Harry Wiggin he didn't want no nigger a sherin' in it, he said; but Toddy and Hokum they said that when there was such stiff diggin' to be done, they didn't care if they did go in with a nigger.
"'I expect you'd been at the tahvern, said Hokum. "'Wal, yes, we had; but them was sperits: we wa'n't drunk, now; we was jest as sober as ever we was. "'Wal, they won't get away my money, says Primus, for I put it safe away in Dinah's teapot afore I come out; and then he showed all his ivories from ear to ear. 'I think all this 'are's sort o' foolishness, says Primus.
She says to Hokum, 'Get into bed, old man, quick, and let me tell the story, says she. So she covered him up; and when Gidger come in she come up to him, and says she, 'Why, Mr. Gidger, I'm jest ashamed to see yo: why, Mr.
"Wal, they got it all planned out. They was to wait till the full moon, and then they was to get Primus King to go with 'em and help do the diggin'. Ye see, Hokum and Toddy Whitney and Wiggin are all putty softly fellers, and hate dreffully to work; and I tell you the Kidd money ain't to be got without a pretty tough piece o' diggin. Why, it's jest like diggin' a well to get at it.
I'll make a bet with you now, anything you name, that it won't gross two thirds as much as Benson's next Western, and in that they'll cry their eyes out when he kisses his horse good-bye. See if they don't. Or see if they don't bawl at the next old gray-haired mother with a mop and a son that gets in bad. "Why, if you give 'em hokum they don't even demand acting. Look at our own star, Mercer.
"'Maybe it's old silver plate from some o' them old West Indian grandees, says another. "'Wal, whatever it is, says Mother Hokum, 'I want to be into it, says she. "'Wal, Sam, won't you jine? says they. "'Wal, boys, says I, 'I kind o' don't feel jest like j'inin'. I sort o' ain't clear about the rights on't: seems to me it's mighty nigh like goin' to the Devil for money.
"Wal, they begun, and they dug and he scraped, and sure enough they come to a gret iron pot as big as your granny's dinner-pot, with an iron bale to it. "Wal, then they put down a rope, and he put the rope through the handle; then Hokum and Toddy they clambered upon the bank, and all on 'em began to draw, up jest as still and silent as could be.
"Wal, Wiggin he said he hadn't no objection to havin' the nigger do the diggin, it was sherin' the profits he objected to. "'Wal, says Hokum, 'you can't get him without, says he. 'Primus knows too much, says he: 'you can't fool him. Finally they 'greed that they was to give Primus twenty dollars, and shere the treasure 'mong themselves.
A sallow, drawn face, burning eyes, bloodless lips and skinny hands that fumbled among the wares on his board. He was young. Heroic sentences come to me. "Jim's Store " Good hokum, effective advertising. And a strange pathos, a pathos that my beggar with one leg and a pleading face never had. I do not like cynics. I like Jim better.
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