This grave, eager gaze Rufe returned with the gayest audacity.
“Been skeered by old Mis’ Price’s harnt lately?” he once more chirped out gleefully.
He was comical enough, as he sat on the top of the wood-pile, hugging his knees with both arms, his old, bent, wool hat perched on the back of his tow head, and all his jagged squirrel teeth showing themselves, unabashed, in a wide grin.
Jubal Perkins laughed lazily, as he looked at him.
Then, with that indulgence which Rufe always met at the tanyard, and which served to make him so pert and forward, the tanner said, humoring the privileged character, “What be you-uns a-talkin’ ’bout, boy? Mrs. Price ain’t dead.”
“
He
hev viewed old Mis’ Price’s harnt,” cried Rufe, pointing at Andy Byers, with a jocosely crooked finger. “
He
air so peart an’ forehanded a-viewin’ harnts, he don’t hev to wait till folkses be dead.