He stopped at the window and soberly looked out across the river. Then he walked to the other window, gazed over a long field of growing cotton, a verdant green punctuation of a new era, a new life to him and the whole section.
"An' you want me to stay an' let you go up there alone?" he asked in an injured tone, somewhat in the same manner as he had requested me to take him north five years before. I could see Mamma Purdue, out of stays, sound asleep in a steamer chair at the other end of the veranda, with Papa nearby examining critically the latest vital statistics of Wall Street.
"No, siree—ye got to lemme go this time. Do you 'spose I'm going to let any damn Cracker moonshiner get a drop on me with a long John, when I got a gun down here that shoots a dozen times while he's loadin'. Yes, I got guests, but you're the only one I can see now, and I ain't going ter let you enter that swamp with three ag'in' ye. No, sir, ye got to lemme go," he insisted vehemently.
"All right, Howard, get ready," I replied, seeing there was no use to object. "When's flood water? We've got to have it to get up that creek with a boat."
"She floods to-day at five. I know; for my schooner Canby will cross the bar then—inbound."
"As we will have less than two hours to get to the creek we must hurry," I said. "But keep mum. If Mamma Purdue hears of it she will think the whole family is going to be kidnapped or murdered," I added, hurrying preparations.
"We'll have to go in that little skiff of your'n. The Purdue man went out with the young wimmen a while ago in the other one."
"Get ready and be down at the mill as soon as you can."
"I'll be there in a jiffy," he said, hurrying away.