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The Major closed an eye and with the other looked quizzically at Teeters, adding, "If it wa'nt for Starlight " "Starlight is shore some Injun," replied the cowboy, grinning understandingly. "Now what for an outfit's that?" The moving cloud of dust which the Major had forgotten in his keen interest in the conversation was almost upon them.
"Here it is, at last; just listen," he exclaimed, fully ten minutes afterward, and then he went on: "I met a man today that had just come up from down-river way. And he knows George Stormway well. He told me Bunny was getting on right well, and had three children. Last time I heard there wa'nt but two mouths to feed.
I know yuh must feel purty blew over it, fer yuh was always sech a hand t' be tearin' around the country on the dead run, seems like. I always told Mary 't you'n Weary always rode like the sheriff wa'nt more'n a mile b'hind yuh. An' I s'pose you feel it all the more, seein' the round-up's jest startin' out.
Then he looked at Nicholas, who was watching the apples spinning in the heat. "De po' white trash ain' set foot inside my do'," he added, "en de leetle gals ain' flirt roun' twell dar wa'nt no qualifyin' der legs f'om der arms." "I don't care!" said Eugenia, looking defiantly at Uncle Ish. "Lor', chile, don't teck on dat way," remonstrated Aunt Verbeny.
Non, non, I don't mak' no mo'. Po' Tante Marie get too ol'. Didele? She's one lil' gal I 'dopt. I see her one day in de strit. He walk so; hit col' she shiver, an' I say, 'Where you gone, lil' gal? and he can' tell. He jes' crip close to me, an' cry so! Den I tak' her home wid me, and she say he's name Didele. You see dey wa'nt nobody dere.
"Squar' er raound," she said incisively, "It's thu mizzable truth. Ef it wa'nt, yuh would take thu job offen Ken's ban's an' keep my lamb's heart from breakin'!" She could hear the beating of his heart in the absolute quiet that followed her audacious words. When she dared to raise her eyes he was very pale and wan but he met her pitying glance with a brave smile although his lips were twitching.
It wa'nt at all in my mind, some four or five years gone when I brought the little barefoot mite of a thing to my home, and when she was sick and e'en a'most dyin' in this very room, and I carried her in my arms night and day that her turn would come so soon. Ah!
"She got her training, likely, from that uncle in New York. He had the business head. The old man had no more contrivance than one of the bulls in his pastures. He could lock horns and stay there, but it wa'nt no trouble to outflank him. More than once his brother Jacob got to the windward of him in a bargain. He was made a good deal like his own land.
I doan know; dey wa'nt no hams on de plantation 'cep'n' w'at 'uz in de smoke-house, but I never see Henry 'bout de smoke-house.
Brent arched his brows as his informant continued, gathering headway in the interest of his narrative. "Old man McGivins he's done read a lavish heap of books an' he talks a passel of printed wisdom. He 'lowed thet Alexander wa'nt no common man's name but thet hit signified a hell-bustin' survigrous feller.
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