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Updated: May 1, 2025
"I'spect they got wind of somebody; most likely thet guide, an'll be back again. If they ain't, it's because they got switched off by some signs or tokens, skeered, perhaps, by the scent of the wind." Hardly had he ceased speaking when again the circle of light was invaded by stalking forms. "I thought so! Here comes the skulkin' varmints," whispered the teamster. But he was wrong.
They jes' took me in, an' did for me as kind as ef I'd been one of 'em; an' after they'd giv me supper, they took me into a room where there was a great, tall, white bed; an' they told me to sleep there. Well, honey, I was kind o' skeered when they left me alone with that great white bed; 'cause I never had been in a bed in my life. It never came into my mind they could mean me to sleep in it.
I guess I wuz 'bout 12 y'ars ole w'en I lef' mah Missis en mah mammy brought me ter Nashville en put me ter wuk. De mawnin' I lef' mah Missis, I went ter de Court House en met mah mammy; de Court room wuz jammed wid peeple. De Jedge tole me ter hold my right hand up, I wuz so skeered I stuck both hands up. Jedge sezs, "Frankie ez dat yo mammy?" I sezs, "I dunno, she sezs she ez."
"Yas, suh; I was a chile, too, but I wuz right in it, an' so I 'members mo' erbout it 'n you does. My mammy an' daddy lived 'bout ten miles f'm here, up de river. One night a crowd er w'ite men come ter ou' house an' tuck my daddy out an' shot 'im ter death, an' skeered my mammy so she ain' be'n herse'f f'm dat day ter dis.
'Pears 'twas like a leetle, soft voice, but I couldn't see nobody nowhar dat spoke, and it said, 'Lony, Lony, don't yer make dem boys swar no more, ef ye do, ye'll lose yer soul. I looked all roun and roun, for I was skeered a'most to deff, but I couldn't see nobody, and den I know'd 'twas a voice from heaben, for I'd heerd o' sich, and I says, 'No, Lord, no, I won't. I didn't know den what de SOUL was, or what a drefful ting 'twas to lose it; but I knowd it mus mean suffin orful.
If you believe me, I fell down out of dis very cheer, and when I got up, I gin one look at de winder, and thar was de red eyes glarin agin, so I fell head-foremost over de door step, tryin to get in quick, and then when I did get in, I locked de door. My soul, wasn't I skeered. I never looked no more. I seen nuff dat time."
He was still cracking his lash at the ground. There was a sudden, half-articulate remonstrance. Birt, who had turned away to the bark-mill, whirled back in a rising passion. "Did ye hit Tennessee?" he asked, with a dangerous light in his eyes. "No I never!" Nate protested. "I hain't seen her till this minute. She war standin' a-hint ye." "Waal, ye skeered her, then," said Birt, hardly appeased.
Amelia's alarm grew at the cat's persistence, and more than once she repeated her warning; but the American always laughed with amusement, till finally, seeing that she was beginning to be worried, he said: 'I say, ma'am, you needn't be skeered over that cat. I go heeled, I du! Here he slapped his pistol pocket at the back of his lumbar region.
"I heerd a good many conflictin' stories," he said, earnestly. "The village folks is all skeered an' there's no believin' their gossip. But I got what happened straight from Jake Evarts. The fight come off day before yestiddy. Your father's gang rode down to Isbel's ranch. Daggs was seen to be wantin' some of the Isbel hosses, so Evarts says. An' Guy Isbel an' Jacobs ran out in the pasture.
"Gosh," said one, removing his hat and fanning himself with it, for the evening was warm, "when Andy said they was four girls comin' from the city to visit us I was plumb skeered. But these here girls, they ain't no ordinary kind, no siree. An' they sho' does know how to ride."
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