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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Ye kin bide with the tanyard an' finish this job yerse'f, of so minded. I'm goin' ter attend." "I reckon half the kentry-side will be thar, an' I wants ter see the folks," said Jubal Perkins, cheerfully. "Then Birt will hev ter bide with the tanyard, an' finish this job. It don't lie with me ter gin him a day off. I don't keer ef he never gits a day off," said Byers.
And he gave the mare the whip, and left Andy Byers, with his mouth full of rebukes, sitting motionless on the dozing old mule. The mare came back from the Settlement late that night under lash and spur, at a speed she had never before made. Day was hardly astir when Nate Griggs, wild-eyed and haggard, appeared at the tanyard in search of Birt.
Nevertheless, this bargain was annually struck. The poverty-stricken widow always congratulated herself upon its conclusion, and it never occurred to her that the amount of work that Birt did in the tanyard was a disproportionately large return for the few days that the tanner's mule ploughed their little fields.
Two of the men were in the shed examining a green hide by the light of a perforated tin lantern, that seemed to spill the rays in glinting white rills. As they flickered across the pile of bark where Rufe and Tennessee were sitting, he noticed how alert Birt looked, how bright his eyes were. For Birt's hopes were suddenly renewed.
He went on once more, absorbed in his dreary reflections and the fierce anger that burned in his heart. "I'll git even with Nate Griggs," he said, over and again. "I'll git even with him yit." When Birt reached the fence, he discovered that the bars were down. Rufe had forgotten to replace them that afternoon when he drove in the cow to be milked.
He told Birt that he was a professor of Natural Science in a college in one of the "valley towns," and that he was sojourning, for his health's sake, at a little watering-place some twelve miles distant on the bench of the mountain. Occasionally he made an excursion into the range, which was peculiarly interesting geologically. "But what I wish you to do is to dig for bones."
"Mebbe old Jube wouldn't want me round 'bout," he suggested. "Waal," said Birt, eager again to detail his plans, "he 'lowed when I axed him this mornin' ez he'd be willin' ef I could trade with another boy ter take my place wunst in a while." Nate affected to meditate on this view of the question.
"Ef that thar child don't quit that fool way o' stickin' her head a- twixt the rails ter watch fur her brother, she'll git cotched thar some day like a peeg in a pen, an' git her neck bruk." Birt overheard her. "Tennessee air too peart ter git herself hurt," he said, a trifle ashamed of his ready championship of his little sister, as a big rough boy is apt to be of gentler emotions.
"The assayer will need the 'philosopher's stone' to find gold in any samples from this locality." "Ye knowed then, all the time, ez this stuff warn't gold?" asked Birt. "All the time," rejoined the elder. "An' Nate hev got the steepest, rockiest spot in the kentry ter pay taxes on," resumed Birt, reflectively. "An' he hev shelled out a power o' money ter the surveyor, an' sech, a'ready.
He still gazed steadfastly at Rufe; the knife lay unheeded on the ground at his feet, and the hide was slipping from the wooden horse. At last he said slowly, "Birt tole ye 'bout'n it, eh?" "Naw, sir! Naw!" Rufe rocked himself fantastically to and fro in imminent peril of toppling off the wood-pile. "'Twar Tom Byers ez tole me." "TOM!" exclaimed Byers, with a galvanic start.
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