That star was a lantern pendant from a chestnut limb; its light shone upon the man’s face. Why it was old man Sumter himself! and that log was the curly walnut, for it was the one highest on the hillside, and he was gashing it all along its length! And he was right mad at that curly too (just like gran’daddy said he was always mad at everything), for he kept talking right ugly to it!
“Hi!” the child sprang forward shouting to the full capacity of his sturdy lungs and caught the old man by the coat tails. “Wake up! oh, wake up! Don’t you see what you’re a-doin’!”
Grover Cleveland tugged and shouted, Dixie barked and leaped and growled and the echoes multiplied the tumult. Stunned by the suddenness of the attack the old man let the axe slip from his hand and backed round against the log. He was feeble, he had been exerting himself beyond his strength and he was frightened too—had it not been for Dixie’s very earthly performance he would have been sure he had met up with a ha’nt.
“What be you anyway?” he asked quaveringly, sinking to a seat upon the log.
“Why I’m Grover Cleveland, gran’daddy’s grandson.”
The boy looked the man over with a face full of compassion. Here was a big man afflicted just as he was, and that fellow-feeling that makes us all so wondrous kind enthralled him.
“Are you sure you’re broad awake now?” he asked coming very close and laying his hand upon the old man’s knee. “It’s awful to walk in your sleep; I feel mighty sorry for you.” He scrambled up on the log, wriggled himself as close to the night-walker as he could get, took a coarse, limp old hand in his, and patted it. “I certainly am sorry for you ’cause I know jes’ how it feels to be woked up in the dark, away off from home and not know how you got there. I walk in my sleep too—that’s how I come out yer to-night—but you’ve got it worse than me, you have; for I don’t do mischief when I’m took, but you—why-e-e-e!” twisting himself about and surveying the log—“you’ve done hacked your tree all to pieces and ’twon’t be no more good for veneerin’! Gran’daddy says they don’t want nary snag in it.
“‘What be you anyway?’ he asked quaveringly, sinking to a seat upon the log.”
“But maybe this ain’t the curly,” he peered eagerly into the woods; “it ain’t ’less it’s the furtherest one up.”