"Don't you sniff the 'simmons, Uncle Jeth?"
Instinctively he threw his nose into the air.
"G' 'way, boy; g' 'way fum yhere! I ain't seen no possum. I 's thinkin' 'bout dat las' camp-meetin' in de pines"; and he began to hum:
"Lawd, I wunda, who kilt John Henry,
In de la-ane, in de lane."
Half an hour later we were filing through the corn-stubs toward the creek. Uncle Jethro carried his long musket under his arm; I had a stout hickory stick and a meal-sack; while ahead of us, like a sailor on shore, rolled Calamity, the old possum-dog.
If in June come perfect days, then perfect nights come in November. There is one thing, at least, as rare as a June day, and that is a clear, keen November night, enameled with frost and set with the hunter's moon.
Uncle Jethro was not thinking of last summer's camp-meeting now; but still he crooned softly a camp-meeting melody:
"Sheep an' de goats a-
Gwine to de pastcha,
Sheep tell de goats, 'Ain't yo'
Walk a leetle fasta?'
"Lawd, I wunda, who kilt John Henry,
In de la-ane, in de lane.