“Blood Camp, an’ I can lick every boy my size from Blood Camp to the mouth of this here gorge. By giggers, I can lick Cicero Tolson quicker than a bullfrog can snatch a fly off’n a grass-blade!” He turned the quid of tobacco over in his mouth, spat over the gray mare’s head and asked:
“But what’s your name, I said?”
“Well, my name is Waffington—Paul Waffington.”
“Well, I wisht I may drap ded! I thot I had seed you before. Oh yes, you air the feller what organized the Sunday-school up to Blood Camp ’bout two year ago. Well, I wisht I may die! I knowed thet I had seed you before. Well, Emeline Hobbs has shore kept thet school agoin’, an’ said she wuz agoin’ to keep it agoin’ until you cum back, ef it took a milun year. But I shore am glad thet you air agoin’ back up there. I’ve bin a tendin’ Sunday-skule every Sunday fur nine months ’cept two. Once I wint a chestnut huntin’ and tother I wint in swimmin’ with a passel of boys. But I decided to quit the ’skule next Sunday ef you didn’t come. I like the skule very well an’ I like the lessons middlin’ well; but every time I look out the door or spit, Emeline Hobbs jabs me on my shins with that wooden pin o’ her’n, an’ my legs air sore frum it; an’ ef she wuz a boy I’d a tanned ’er up fur it a long time ago. Now, I want you to git her to quit jabbin’ me on my shins, git another superintender or I’m quit already now.”
“Well, Boaz, you’re a better boy than many boys, I am sure. There are boys to be found who do not go to Sunday-school. I’m glad to know that you have made such a fine record in the matter of attendance. Now tell me, how are all the others at Blood Camp?”
“Well, about as usual. Uncle Laz still keeps the school-house swept for Emeline an’ his old woman still irons clothes fur people. The Allisons air still keepin’ tavern whin anybody comes along, Fen Green’s attendin’ a little patch of taters and corn upon his mammy’s place since she died. The old fiddler cum since you wuz here. He’s a fine ’ne too. They say he’s the finest fiddler in the world, an’ I wouldn’t be surprised. Fen Green goes to see Genie Filson every Sunday. He ’lows thet he will get Jase’s word to marry Genie about Christmus. Jase likes Fen mighty well. But I don’t see Genie any more. Jase stopped her frum comin’ to Sunday-skule. People say thet she don’t look as well as she used to. Some say thet Jase is aworkin’ her to deth, but Jase says she is agrievin’ herself to deth over her two brothers who wint west an’ wuz never heard fum any more, is what’s amakin’ her look so bad.”
He took a bit of tobacco from his pocket and added it to what he already had in his mouth, and then continued:
“But Fen Green ain’t no account fur Genie as a man. Fen Green ain’t worth shucks! He couldn’t set a goose on a hillside ’thout putting the rocks on the upper side. I could stick a gourd on the end of a fence rail and learn it more sense than Fen Green’s got. W’hoa, Moll! But by giggers, I got to go.”
“Well, I thank you for your information. And now I hope that you will be at Sunday-school next Sunday. You are a promising boy, Boaz. You might make a great man, perhaps a great preacher.”
“No, siree. I couldn’t learn to kote (quote) Scripture fast enough.”