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Updated: June 16, 2025
She thought he was going to ask her to dance with him when he turned towards her, but he had decided to invite a little plain girl who sat next the wall, hemmed in by the crossed legs of Wambush. The girl flushed over the unexpected attention and rose at once.
The road, near the camp-ground, went through a dense wood, and was so narrow that vehicles could not pass one another on it. In the narrowest part of this road Westerfelt was forced to stop. A wagon filled with women and children, and driven by old John Wambush, had halted in front of him. "What's the matter?"
"Come on, Toot," urged the leader in a low tone. "You've settled yore man's hash; what more do you want? We've got you out o' jail, now let us put you whar you'll be safe from the law." Wambush had not taken his eyes from the girl. He now spoke as if his words were meant for her only. "If I go," he said, "will you come? Will you follow me? You know I'm not a-goin' to leave 'thout you, Harriet."
I've made it, and it is keeping warm at the fire. Will you take some?" "No, I thank you; I can wait till breakfast. Then I'll set up at the table and eat a square meal; somehow, I'm not hungry. Wambush objected mightily to being jailed, didn't he?" "You ought not to wait till breakfast," she said, looking at the fire; "you'd better let me give you some of this gruel."
"No, jest the reg'lar square dance. Only one or two know the lancers, an' they make a botch of it whenever they try to teach the rest. Uncle Mack cayn't play the music for it, anyway, though he swears he can." She glanced across the room at a pretty little girl with short curly hair, slender body, and small feet, and added, significantly, "Sarah Wambush is our brag dancer."
Then some o' the boys tuk Mis' Lumpkin's part, an' tol' 'im the hat would come off ur he'd go out. It 'ud be a treat to see Toot Wambush mad if you could feel sure you wouldn't get hit. He clamped his hands together behind 'im an' yelled to Uncle Mack to stop fiddlin'; then he 'lowed ef any man thar tried to oust 'im he'd put windows in 'im.
Toot led the Regulators down an' they took him out. I warned him, but he would not go in time and they took him to the mountain." "Good Heavens! what did they intend to do with him?" "Most of them meant only to frighten him and to whip him, but Toot Wambush will kill him if he gets a chance." "I don't believe they'll harm him," said Mrs. Floyd, consolingly.
"Whoo-ee!" shouted Frank, and the dance waxed faster and more noisy, till the exhausted fiddler brought it to an end by crying out: "Seat yo' pahtners." Jennie sat down in a row of girls against the wall, and Mrs. Bradley came to Westerfelt. "You must stir round," she said; "I want you to git acquainted. Come over here an' talk to Sarah Wambush." He followed her across the room.
"It's cool out here," said Westerfelt's partner as they were returning from the walk under the arbor of grape-vines. "They are all goin' inside." At about twelve o'clock the guests began to leave. Harriet Floyd, followed by Wambush, came in hurriedly after most of the others had gone. Westerfelt was near Mrs. Bradley when she came to say good-night.
They swung back and forth and from side to side, but they were well mated. Westerfelt suddenly threw his left leg behind Wambush's heels and began to force him backward. In an instant Wambush would have gone down, but seeing his danger he wriggled out of Westerfelt's grasp, drew something from his coat pocket, and sprang towards him. "Knife! knife! knife!" cried Luke Bradley in alarm. "Part 'em!"
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