“I hate ter hev ter turn ye out’n my house ’fore day,” Marvin remarked, “but ye know I’m hunted like a b’ar, or suthin’ wild, an’ I can’t be expected ter show manners like folks. Me an’ Jeb air a-goin’ ter take ye pretty fur off, so ez ye kin never find yer way back, an’ by daylight ye’ll be set in yer road. I’m hopin’ yer friends won’t git hyar; ef they does, I don’t want ’em ter kem in, an’ ef they hain’t got no reason ter stop I reckon they’ll go on. I’m powerful sorry ye kem along.”
“Though ye be toler’ble good com’p’ny, an’ we-uns ain’t got nuthin’ agin you-uns,” remarked “hongry Jeb,” politely.
“’Kase,” continued Marvin, in a sing-song fashion, as he sat down at his table, on which the corn-dodgers and bacon smoked, “’kase we-uns air hunted an’ driv by the law,—ez ’lows we sha’n’t still our own corn ef we air a mind ter,—we hev been afeard ye’d tell ’bout’n we-uns an’ whar we air hid.”
“What for?” demanded Harshaw, with an incidental manner. He too was seated at the board; one elbow was on it, and he passed his hand over his eyes and yawned as he spoke. “So as to be dead sure to get beat like hell the next time I run for anything? An informer is mighty unpopular, no matter what he has got to tell. And make the biggest kind of hole in my law practice?”
“That’s a fac’,” said Jeb, impressed with the logic of this proposition.
“The favor of Cherokee and Kildeer counties is the breath of my political life, and you don’t catch me a-fooling with it by letting my jaw wag too slack,” continued Harshaw.
Philetus, the only member of the family that had gone to bed, slumbered peacefully in a small heap under the party-colored quilts. The dancing firelight revealed his yellow head, and again it was undistinguishable in the brown shadow. The pullet and Mose sat on a bench at one side of the fire, and the moonshiners tilted their chairs back on the hind legs, and watched the bright and leaping flames, which were particularly clear, the fire being rekindled upon a warm hearth and in a chimney already full of hot air. The occasional yawning of the group gave the only indication of the hour. The sharp-faced woman sat in her chair, with folded arms, and ever and anon gazing at her guest, who had so strangely commended himself. His clever ruse to insure being followed by his friends had induced infinite admiration of his acumen.
“I reckon ef ye wanted ter go ter Congress or sech, thar wouldn’t be nuthin’ ter hender,” she said slowly, contemplating him.
She was a simple woman, and he a wise man. He flushed with pleasure to hear his cherished thought in another’s words. He bore himself more jauntily at the very suggestion. He toyed with his knife and fork as he protested.
“There’s a mighty long road to travel ’twixt me and Congress.”