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"Ye see," Birt presently continued, "I dunno when I kin git shet o' the tanyard this year. Old Jube Perkins 'lows ez he air mighty busy 'bout'n them hides an' sech, an' he wants me ter holp around ginerally. He say ef I do mo' work'n I owes him, he'll make that straight with my mother.
He set out at a brisk pace. He had no mind to be long alone in the woods since his strange adventure down the ravine, or he might have hid in the underbrush, as he had often done, until other matters usurped his mother's medicinal intentions. When Rufe reached the tanyard, Birt was still at work. He turned and looked eagerly at the juvenile ambassador.
The puny boy in the hand-carriage was filled with admiration for the manly bearing of the poor lad. The rain at length gave promise of ceasing, and Mr. Fletcher, pulling out his great silver watch, never known to be wrong, said, "Twenty-three minutes lost by this shower. Phineas, my son, how am I to get thee home? Unless thee wilt go with me to the tanyard "
He himself was surprised that he did not rejoice in Nate's mortification and defeat. But somehow he had struck a moral equilibrium; in mastering his anger and thirst for revenge, he had gained a stronger control of all the more unworthy impulses of his nature. Meantime there was woe at the tanyard. Jube Perkins had been anxious to have Birt resume his old place on the old terms.
The village was never free from fever, and there was boggy mud there even in the summer, especially under the fences over which hung old willow-trees that gave deep shade. Here there was always a smell from the factory refuse and the acetic acid which was used in the finishing of the cotton print. The three cotton factories and the tanyard were not in the village itself, but a little way off.
"An' I can't git away from the tanyard at all ef ye won't holp me, 'kase old Jube 'lowed he wouldn't let me swop with a smaller boy ter work hyar; an' all them my size, an' bigger, air made ter work with thar dads, 'ceptin' you- uns." Nate heard, but he hardly looked as if he did, so busily absorbed was he in fitting this fragment of fact into his mental mosaic.
"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.
Go to the next County; go to Kaintucky, Injianny, Ohio, Illinoy, Kamskatky, New Guiney, Jericho, or Polkinhorn's tanyard if you like." "Afo' God, I don't know what tuh do, or wha tuh go," said the negro despairingly. "If yo' leab me here, I know dat ole mas'r 'll fin' me an' done kill me daid." "Niggers is like mules," remarked Groundhog savagely.
"Waal," said Byers, leaning back against the wall of the smoke- house, and holding the knife idly poised in his hand, "I kem down ter the tanyard betimes that mornin' arter the storm. Both ye an' Birt war late. I noticed Nate Griggs's coat hangin' thar in the shed, with a paper stickin' out'n the pocket, ez I started inter the smoke-house ter tend ter the fire.
For a time I hoped this noble poet would again inspire me to get a real hold on the language, but the hope was vain. I had not chosen the right teacher, and, moreover, his sitting-room in which we pursued our studies looked out on a tanyard, the repulsive odour of which affected my nerves so strongly that I became thoroughly disgusted both with Sophocles and Greek.
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