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"That's the reason, Samson. I was kinder skeered ter go through this country in the open." Samson met his eye steadily, and said slowly: "I reckon, Jim, hit moughtn't be half es risky fer ye ter walk upstandin' along Misery, es ter go a-crouchin'. Ye thinks ye've been a shadderin' me. I knows jest whar ye've been all the time. Ye lies when ye talks 'bout passin' through.
"And can you sweep?" said Patty. "Can I sweep? Law, chile, co'se I kin sweep! What yo' s'pose I want to hire out for, ef I can't do all dem things? Oh, dey won't be no trouble about sweepin'!" "Well, where will the trouble be, Mancy?" said Patty. "Dey moughtn't be any trouble, miss," said the black woman earnestly; "but if dey is, it'll be 'count o' my bein' spoke cross to.
"But Lord, young master, they do ha' used ye ill your poor face, all bruised and swole it be!" "Which it be!" nodded Roger. "Likewise cut! Which be ill for 'ee though like Godby here I won't say but what I moughtn't ha' took a heave at ye, had I been there, it being nat'ral-like to heave things at such times, d'ye see?" "Very natural!" says I.
We mought strike them girls in a minute and then again we moughtn't run across 'em in a thousand years. Lord knows I'm willin' to keep on, but I'm jest about tuckered out. And I put it to you Mr. Rose, wouldn't it be better to rest a bit, and then push on?" "Perhaps it would, Sam," and Mr. Rose's fingers worked nervously; "but I couldn't stay still, I'd go crazy.
Ye can't run the post-office thar an' a sawmill thirty mile away at the same time." Nehemiah was visibly disconcerted. His wrinkled face showed the flush of discomfiture, but his craft rallied to the emergency. "Moughtn't git the post-office, arter all's come an' gone. Nothin' is sartin in this vale o' tears."
"Why, I can't afford ter be a scoundrel an' sech, jes' 'kase Nate Griggs air a tricky feller an' hev fooled me. Ef Tennessee hedn't stepped up so powerful peart I moughtn't hev come ter my senses in time. I mought hev tore up Nate's grant by now. But arter this I ain't never goin' ter set out ter act like a scamp jes' 'kase somebody else does."
Thar war two of 'em, hidin' ahint that thar jagged aidge. An' ef yer back war turned they'd peep out at ye an' the Cunnel ridin'. But whenst ye would face round agin, they'd drap down ahint the aidge o' the rock. I 'lowed wunst ez I'd holler ter ye, but I war feared ye moughtn't keer ter know." Her voice fell in its deprecatory cadence. He stodd in silent perplexity.
"Don't tell me any more, Dale," she pleaded. "I know you must have ketched him." "Wall," he mused, "'twusn't right ter make no leetle feller take a oath like that, Miss Jane 'n' I moughtn't a-done hit, 'cept fer not knowin' no better. I wouldn't be tellin' ye, neither, but Ruth said ye'd want ter know afore takin' me in school.
"Hain't ye got no aim, ye durned sinner?" asked Stephen, furiously. "Bullet mought hev gone through him and struck inter the baby," expostulated Tim. "An' then agin it moughtn't!" cried Stephen. "Lawd, ef I hed hed the chance!" "Ye wouldn't hev done no differ," declared Tim. "Hyar!" Steve caught his brother's gun and presented it to Tim's lips. "Suck the bar'l. It's 'bout all ye air good fur."
"No, dey ain't; is yo' fren's gwine stay ter breakfus'?" "Oh, no, I'd want the bacon for the club-sandwiches. Don't worry, Mancy, they'll all come out right." "Dey mought and den again dey moughtn't," grumbled the old woman, but undaunted Patty went on measuring and weighing with a surety of success that is found only in the young and inexperienced.
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