And Rufe crouched over, shivering in every limb, in equally excellent mimicry of a ghost-seer, or an unwilling chip-picker under stress of weather.
“My!” he exclaimed with a fresh burst of laughter; “whenst Tom tole me ’bout’n it I war so tickled I war feared I’d fall. I los’ the use o’ my tongue. I couldn’t stop laffin’ long enough ter tell Tom what I war laffin’ at. An’ ez Tom knowed I war snake-bit las’ June, he went home an’ tole his mother ez the p’ison hed done teched me in the head, an’ said he reckoned, ef the truth war knowed, I hed fits ez a constancy. I say -
fits
!”
Once more the bewildered tanner glanced from one to the other.
“Why, ye never tole me ez ye hed seen su’thin’ strange in the woods, Andy,” he exclaimed, feeling aggrieved, thus balked of a sensation. “An’ the old woman ain’t dead, nohow,” he continued reasonably, “but air strengthenin’ up amazin’ fast.”
“Waal,” put in Rufe, hastening to explain this discrepancy in the spectre, “I hearn you-uns a-sayin’ that mornin’, fore ye set out from the tanyard, ez she war mighty nigh dead an’ would be gone ’fore night. An’ ez he hed tole me he’d skeer the wits out’n me, I ’lowed ez I could show him ez his wits warn’t ez tough ez mine. Though,” added the roguish Rufe, with a grin of enjoyment, “arter I hed dressed up the blackberry bush in mam’s apron an’ shawl, an’ sot her bonnet a-top, it tuk ter noddin’ and bowin’ with the wind, an’ looked so like folks, ez it gin
Me
a skeer, an’ I jes’ run home ez hard ez I could travel. An Towse, he barked at it!”
Andy Byers spoke suddenly. “Waal, Birt holped ye, then.”