Only for a moment did he feel uncertain as to the ghost-maker’s identity. There was something singularly familiar to him in the plaid of the shawl - even in the appearance of the bonnet, although it was now limp and damp. He saw it at “meet’n” whenever the circuit rider preached, and he presently recognized it. This was Mrs. Dicey’s bonnet!
His face hardened. He set his teeth together. An angry flush flared to the roots of his hair.
Not that he suspected the widow of having set this trap to frighten him. He was not learned, nor versed in feminine idiosyncrasies, but it does not require much wisdom to know that on no account whatever does a woman’s best bonnet stay out all night in the dew, intentionally. The presence of her bonnet proved the widow’s
alibi
.
Like a flash he remembered Birt’s anger the previous day. “Told me he’d make me divide work mo’ ekal, an’ ez good ez said he’d knock me down ef he could. An’ I told him I’d hold the grudge agin him jes’ the same - an’ I will!”
He felt sure that it was Birt who had thus taken revenge, because he was kept at work while his fellow-laborer was free to go.
Byers thought the boy would presently come to take the garments home, and conceal his share in the matter, before any one else would be likely to stir abroad.
“An’ I’ll hide close by with a good big hickory stick, an’ I’ll gin him a larrupin’ ez he won’t furgit in a month o’ Sundays,” he resolved, angrily.
He opened his clasp-knife, and walked slowly into the woods, looking about for a choice hickory sprout. He did not at once find one of a size that he considered appropriate to the magnitude of Birt’s wickedness, and he went further perhaps than he realized, and stayed longer.