"What is your name?" I asked, reassuringly.
"My name, suh, is Howard Byng."
"That's a good name. You ought to be called 'Fighting' Byng. Better go and find that mule or you may lose him. We will soon be straightened out here," I added, smiling, also taking closer inventory of the boy. Without further words he started down the old road to recover Jeff Davis and put him back to work.
Jake, having been thoroughly disabled, quit his job and left me short-handed. The next morning I saw Howard Byng in the adjoining wood, with the gray mule drawing the sled. There was a barrel on it. He had been gathering turpentine sap, and sledding it to a "still." He was glad to see me, and at once offered me a chew of dog-leg natural-leaf tobacco.
"How do you like this kind of work?" I asked, casually.
"Waal—only tolerable, suh," he drawled, taking a liberal chew of the leaf. "But I'm doggoned tired of dis heah country."
"This country is all right—isn't it?"
"Yes, suh," he replied slowly, leaning back against the sap barrel, "I reckon de country's all right, but here lately it seems just lak God made it de las' thing he done and used up what poor stuff he had left."
"I thought Georgia was a pretty good state," I suggested.
"Oh, yes, suh, Georgia is a good enough state, an' I reckon Atlanter, Augusta, an' Savannah are big cities with mighty fine, rich people, but dis heah pa't ain't no good 'tall—do you-all know just what dis yellah land an' swamp heah is good fur?" he asked solemnly, ruefully contemplating his great toe wrapped in a cotton rag.