"But I don't believe it was, though, 'cause Gwandma Pennybacker thes laughed the way she does when mama is fooling. But anyway he was a' awful bad man, 'cause he wanted to take the chilwuns from their mamas." He waited a moment for indorsement of this sentiment, and receiving none, asked, "Ain't that wicked, Unker Wichard?"
"Supposed to be—yes."
"Well—Moses's mother didn't want him to get her little boy, so she hid him—in the bulwushes. She did! I know she did, 'cause my mama said so. And-d, she set the basket down in the bulwushes at the edge of the wiver—Black Wiver—wight where the fwogs and the turkles was. Unker Wichard, once I was Moses!"
"Indeed? In a former incarnation, I suppose."
"No, sir. It wasn't in a carnation, at all. It was in a basket. And it was on a wiver."
"Philip, what are you talking about?"
"I was Moses. My mama said I was—her little Moses. We was on a boat, and there was a wicked man trying to get me, and my mama put me in a basket, and—"
Richard began to listen with interest. He had never known how that feat had been accomplished. Smeltzer had not dilated on it much.
"—and she covered me up in the basket—thes like Moses—and that woman my mama hugged that day said maybe they would think I was soiled clothes—but I wasn't any soiled clothes! Gwandma Pennybacker said I wasn't even clean clothes, and I kept thes as still, 'cause mama said that wicked man would get me if I made a noise."
"What did they do with you?"