"And do you know, Beely, that little pet bear don't want to come on the house no more. You can't coax him on.
"And one time, Beely, I have one little coon; he was my own pet. We catch him when he was a little fellow, and I have to feed him with a spoon, and when he was big he was chuck full of trick, too. One day, when my ma she was milking the cow, she turn her head, and my coon she jump right in the milk. Then my ma gave him a taste of a stick, like this, Beely, whack, whack, whack. Then my ma say to my pa she won't have so much wild animal around, and next day I find my little coon asleep, and he never wake up."
"He died while he was asleep, did he, Antoine?"
"Look that way, look that way, Beely. Now I'm tole you about one time me and my brother start out to find what you call ging-seng; around here we call it shang."
"I never heard of it, Antoine, what is it?"
"It's a root, Beely, the Chinamen want. It used to grow on China, but now she's all gone. It grows wild on the wood here, and you can get four and five dollar a pound for it if you know where to send it. You have to know the wood pretty well, or you ain't know where to find it. Well, Beely, me and my brother know where there was a good patch of shang, so one time when we have a week to spare, we start out one afternoon.
"Before we have go a half-mile from home, my brother think he forget something. He go back to get it, and I walk on alone. We intend to stay all night in old log shanty. It is pretty near dark when I get there. I wait for my brother. He don't come. I'm pretty hungry, so I eat my supper, and look around the house where I'm to stay all night. Well, Beely, there was no door on the house, but that don't scare me. I am used to the wood, and I don't think nothing going to hurt me. But before I lay down and before it get dark, I put everything we bring to eat up on some high place, so the mouse and the squirrel can't get it. Then I go to sleep."
"Oh, my, weren't you afraid, Antoine?"
"What I be afraid of, Beely? I have my gun close beside me. I ain't know what time it is when I wake up. It is dark, and I think I hear a noise outside the shanty. Then I hear something walk in. Oh, Beely, my hair stand on one end, I'm so scare when I hear something go 'sniff—sniff.' I'm so scare I don't dare get my gun, and my teeth go like this, Beely." Antoine tried to make Betty, Billy, and Aunt Florence realize how his teeth chattered, accompanying the performance by gestures that were funny enough.
"Well, Beely, in a moment more I hear something walk, and I know a big bear has come to see me."