"Yu kno' wha da bird does say? 'E tell eberybody, 'Plant bittle fu' winta! Plant bittle fu' winta!"
Now we call the bird a chick-will-willo; it is a first cousin of the whip-poor-will and has a more cheerful note, but I had never heard any sense attributed to its incessant and insistent note before, and I was delighted with the darky version.
"Oh, Goliah," I said, "what a pity people will not mind him, there is so much land and so many idle people; if they only would plant victuals for winter what abundance there would be for everybody, man and beast."
At which he informed me that he had planted a corn crop himself before he came to me and as we passed his father's house he showed it to me with pride, the feeblest growth.
I am trying to teach him to read and I'm sure it would be easy if he could only learn his letters, but I cannot accomplish that. He says the alphabet off glibly, but the letters seem to look all alike to him and my efforts to describe them don't seem successful. I point to a letter and say that is T, it stands for "table" and looks like this table—showing him one with a leg in the middle and two leaves. S stands for "snake" and looks like one. A is like the step-ladder. But when I go over them he knows not one, unless he says the whole alphabet and stops at the letter. I try making him copy the letters on the slate, but nothing seems to impress them on him; and yet he is so clever in learning his catechism and hymns.
This village feels it has taken an immense step forward since the honk honk of the automobile can be heard here daily. Fortunately the owner is very considerate of horses and slows down and even stops if necessary, so that Ruth is getting quite over her fright about it. All she wanted was to understand what it was, and now she is beginning to recognize it as a new kind of horse of great speed. When it passes her on the road she tries her best to catch up with it.
CHAPTER XI
Peaceville, July 7.
It has been desperately hot and when I got a cordial invitation from Mrs. G. to spend a few days with her on Pawleys Island I was overjoyed. My old summer home was there, and since we had to sell the place ten years ago I have never been willing to see the beach again, but now I am just gasping for a breath of the sea and I made my arrangements to go to-day.