"My son," shrilly piped out Old Daddy,—"my son hev got the peartest boys in Tennessee."
"I'll gin ye that up, Old Daddy," cheerfully agreed the miller, whose family consisted of two small "daughters."
The fathers of other "peart boys" cleared their throats uneasily, but finally subsided without offering contradiction.
A jay-bird alighted on a blackberry bush outside, fluttered all his blue and white feathers, screamed harshly, bobbed his crested head, and was off on his gay wings.
"My son," shrilly piped out Old Daddy,—"my son hev been gifted with the sight o' what no other man on this mounting hev ever viewed."
The group sat amazed, expectant. But the old man preserved a stately silence. Only when the storekeeper eagerly insisted, "What hev Jonas seen? what war he gin ter view?" did Old Daddy bring the fore legs of the chair down with a thump, lean forward, and mysteriously pipe out like a superannuated cricket,—
"My son,—my son hev seen a harnt, what riz up over the bluff a-purpose!"
"Whar 'bouts?" "When?" "Waal, sir!" arose in varied clamors.
So the proud old man told the story he had journeyed three laborious miles to spread. It had no terrors for him, so completely was fear swallowed up in admiration of his wonderful son, who had added to his other perfections the gift of seeing ghosts.
The men discussed it eagerly. There were some jokes cracked—as it was still broad noonday—and at one of these Old Daddy took great offense, more perhaps because the disrespect was offered to his son rather than to himself.