CHAPTER VI. JUNE
Judge Briscoe smiled grimly and leaned on his shot-gun in the moonlight by the veranda. He and William Todd had been trampling down the elder-bushes, and returning to the house, found Minnie alone on the porch. “Safe?” he said to his daughter, who turned an anxious face upon him. “They'll be safe enough now, and in our garden.”
“Maybe I oughtn't to have let them go,” she returned, nervously.
“Pooh! They're all right; that scalawag's half-way to Six-Cross-Roads by this time, isn't he, William?”
“He tuck up the fence like a scared rabbit,” Mr. Todd responded, looking into his hat to avoid meeting the eyes of the lady. “I didn't have no call to toller, and he knowed how to run, I reckon. Time Mr. Harkless come out the yard again, he was near out o' sight, and we see him take across the road to the wedge-woods, near half-a-mile up. Somebody else with him then—looked like a kid. Must 'a' cut acrost the field to join him. They're fur enough towards home by this.”
“Did Miss Helen shake hands with you four or five times?” asked Briscoe, chuckling.
“No. Why?”
“Because Harkless did. My hand aches, and I guess William's does, too; he nearly shook our arms off when we told him he'd been a fool. Seemed to do him good. I told him he ought to hire somebody to take a shot at him every morning before breakfast—not that it's any joking matter,” the old gentleman finished, thoughtfully.
“I should say not,” said William, with a deep frown and a jerk of his head toward the rear of the house. “He jokes about it enough. Wouldn't even promise to carry a gun after this. Said he wouldn't know how to use it. Never shot one off since he was a boy, on the Fourth of July. This is the third time he's be'n shot at this year, but he says the others was at a—a—what'd he call it?”