Org reached for it with a disinterested hand. He held the pipe listlessly and gazed out dreamily upon the level meadow with eyes which saw little and comprehended less and were not interested in that. Then the pipe dropped from his hands, and Org opened his eyes wide, as he suddenly beheld the entire pasture with all its grazing cattle, the fence with the trees at the far end—everything, in fact, rise up in the air and dance high above his head!
Org leaned back so far to behold the last of this phenomenon that he fell off the log and lay prone upon the ground.
“Whut ails you, Marse Org?” Little Bit asked solicitously. “Is de worl’ done turned down-side up fer you, too?”
Little Bit arose with the intention of helping his white companion, the entire earth tipped and rolled over on him and pushed him over the log, where he lay holding to the ground to keep from being pitched off.
One hour later the two boys crawled up on the log and sat down, trembling, weak, beyond any weakness they had ever experienced.
“I guess we got poisoned with something, Little Bit,” Org remarked. “I feel pretty bad.”
“Dar ain’t been many cullud folks as sick as I wus an’ lived through it,” Little Bit replied with weak boastfulness. “Niggers is like a mule: dey don’t git sick but one time an’ atter dat, dey die. I wus wuss off in de last hour dan I ever is been. It muss hab been somepin I et.”
“I been heap sicker than you were,” Org declared. “You lived through it—you say so yourself. But me, I’m dying now!”
“Dis ain’t no fitten place to die, Marse Org,” Little Bit protested. “De buzzards will eat us up out here all unbeknownst to nobody. Less mosey back to town whar people kin see us die an’ keep de buzzards off.”
“Less hurry. I ain’t got long to live,” Org declared.