Nigger Dick was singin':

Nicodemus was a slave of African birth,
Who was bought for a purse full of gold,

and beatin' carpets, and doin' whatever ma told him. She kept changing her mind and would say: "Here, Dick, help me with this picture. Now you can leave that and set out this geranium. Here, Dick, that can go for a while, go down to the barn and bring up that barrel there and put this stuff in it."

Dick knew ma, and bein' disorderly himself, didn't care what he did, or whether he finished anything. So he kept saying, "Yes'm," "Yes'm," and workin' away. So every time Dick got near us, we'd talk to him and get him to tell us about his father which was a slave, or about Kentucky. Little Billie was playin' near us, for Mitch was makin' him a little onion bed, and Dick was ridin' Little Billie on his shoulder, and he was as gay as a jay-bird and singin'. One of his songs was:

Oh, said a wood-pecker settin' on a tree,
I once courted a fair ladee.
She proved fickle and from me fled,
And ever since then my head's been red.

And "Babylon is Fallin'" was another of his songs, and "Angel Gabriel." Mitch would rather be around where Nigger Dick was than any one. He almost laughed himself sick that mornin'.

Well, we told Nigger Dick about catchin' Doc Lyon; and we took him around to where I had been let down by the sheet, and showed him how I had run and jumped the fence to get away. Nigger Dick began to act awful mysterious and say, "You can't fool this nigger," and he kept goin' back and forth from the window to the fence, lookin' at the ground. And by and by he went and asked ma if he could go down town. He wanted to see my pa about somethin'. So he went off, and Mitch and I went on makin' garden, till ma came and set us to work buildin' a flower bed. That was one trouble with ma, you no sooner got started on one thing than she changed her mind and wanted you to do somethin' else. "Never mind," said Mitch, "we're havin' fun, whatever it is. But what do you suppose your pa meant by sayin' that that hill above the Old Salem mill had given up more treasure than any place in the world? Who got it? Now pa says that Linkern lived there onct and kept store, but he didn't get it. He was so poor that he used to have welts on his legs from wearin' the same buckskin pants. That's what pa says. So if he didn't get the treasure, who did? It couldn't be Mr. Branson, for he got his start raisin' onions and peddlin' 'em here in town. All the same, your pa must have meant somethin'. But I tell you, Skeet, we've lost this Saturday, and it's too far to go after school. So I say let's go out there next Saturday—start early and prospect around as they say—look the land over. And keep goin' till we clean the place up, like we did Montgomery's woods."

Just then pa and Nigger Dick drove up. Pa had a shoe in his hand and went and began to put the shoe in the prints where Doc Lyon had run from the window to the fence. "It fits," says Dick, and laughed, and I said to pa, "What you got, Doc Lyon's shoe?" And pa said, kind of gruff and absent minded, "Yes." "Well," says I, "You don't need any shoe to tell it was Doc Lyon that chased me." Pa didn't answer me. He said, "Come on, Dick," and they started for the buggy. Ma came runnin' to the door and said, "Where you goin', Dick? The carpets must be cleaned and laid." "I don't know," says Dick, "I'm in the hands of the law." "Back after while," said pa, as he gave the horse a tap with the whip and drove off.

Ma stood in the door and said: "No order, no system, never anything done. It's just too discouraging. Just as I get Dick and have him well started at work, your pa comes and takes him off." Then she turned to us and said, "Don't work any more on the flower bed. Come with me. I want you boys to build a chicken coop. The old hen must be shut up to-night, and you must hurry." Mitch smiled a little, but we went into the back yard and got some lath and made the coop.

Well, after while Nigger Dick came back. They had driven out to Bender's place and put the shoe in the footprints out there, and sure enough they fit and pa had gone to the jail and quizzed Doc Lyon about the fire and he had confessed and told everything. And that wasn't all. "Why," said Nigger Dick, "that Doc Lyon is the devil himself. He killed Nancy Allen—Yes, he did. He says so. And that ain't all. He killed your dog, Mitch. And even that ain't all; all these cows that got cut so they couldn't give milk, he cut 'em—yes sir, that devil cut 'em. And your pa is goin' to have him hanged. And that ain't all. If he'd got up-stairs last night, he'd a killed your ma. Yes, sir. He's the awfulest devil in this county. And you see when he used to go to Sunday School and walk the streets readin' the Bible, he was just playin' possum. He'd sold himself to the devil and he was tryin' to hide it."