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Updated: May 14, 2025
"Ah ain't said nothin' an' Ah ain't a-goin' to say nothin'. An' yo' bettah be a-gittin' offen this heah land of mine afo' " "Before what, swamper?" Red was taking a hand in the game. "Yo' can't fright'n me with that gun," came calmly enough from Jeems. "Yo' ain't a-goin' to risk shootin' " "There ain't no witnesses here, kid. And there ain't no law back in these swamps.
"Ah'm good but they won't le' me up." "The Doc says you're in for a couple of days," Val told him. Somehow Jeems looked smaller, shrunken, as he lay in that oversized bed. And he had lost that air of indolent arrogance which had made him seem so independent in their swamp and garden meetings. It was as if Val were looking down upon a younger and less confident edition of the swamper he had known.
"Well, sar! Look here! You fin' you'self so blame indifferend s'pose you so indifferend not to say nothing 'bout this, when my swamper fellah git in. I don' wish to go snac' wis him. I don' feel oblige'. See?" "What you want to pester me about this money for!" The old man was weary. "I didn't come here, lookin' for money, and I don't expect to take none away with me. So I'll say good-night to ye."
The swamper he buried by the way with stones upon him to keep the coyotes from digging him up, and seven years later I read the penciled lines on the pine head-board, still bright and unweathered.
Erickson, the Swede, while not a star cant-hook man, was nevertheless sure and reliable. Radway placed him in Stratton's place. But now he must find a swamper. He remembered Thorpe. So the young man received his first promotion toward the ranks of skilled labor.
The swamper stood up with his own eyes full, but his voice was firm. "Bonaventure, I don't got much. I got dat li'l' shanty on Bayou des Acadiens, and li'l' plunder inside few kittle', and pan', cast-net, fish-line', two, t'ree gun', and my wife' grave, yond' in graveyard. But I got Claude, my boy, my son. You t'ink God want me give my son to whole worl'?"
She kept her head down and her mouth shut; but when I shrieked at her to ask how she was standing it, she plucked her dusty veil from between her lips and smiled for answer. We two have the back seat, Tom sits in front with Billings, and the "swamper" sits anywhere on the lumps and bumps which our baggage makes, covered by the canvas wagon-sheet.
And by the steps lay something else, a slight brown figure. Painfully the boy got to his feet and lurched across to Jeems. The swamper was lying on his back, his eyes closed. From a great purple welt across his forehead the blood oozed sluggishly. When Val touched him he moaned faintly. "Val! Are you hurt? What's the matter?" Ricky was upon them like a whirlwind out of the bush.
"Just let him try," said his sister sweetly. The swamper grinned but made no move to stir from his chair. Jeems had become as much a part of Pirate's Haven as the Luck, which Val could see from his cot glimmering dully in its niche in the Long Hall. The swamper's confinement in the sick-room had paled his heavy tan and he had lost the sullen frown which had made him appear so old and bitter.
There was no immediate answer from the swamper, but Ricky touched Val's arm and nodded toward the bushes. She had decided that it was time for her to leave. He agreed eagerly. She dropped lightly to the ground and he watched her crawl away unnoticed by those in front who were so intent upon the baiting of their quarry. "Three minutes, swamper!" Ricky was gone, free from whatever might develop.
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