“You might as well say it’s no use eating because you’ll only get hungry again,” Fred had told him. “I’ll bet you don’t believe that though, do you?”
“Nossuh,” said Mose, with a broad grin, “dat’s a diff’rent breed o’ cats, suh.”
Apparently convinced by Fred’s argument, he had fallen to with a will, with such good results that the motor boat now looked spick and span enough to go in some water festival.
“It sho looks nifty,” admitted Mose, “but mah elbow aches yet when Ah reflects how hard Ah had to dig befo’ Ah got it dat way.”
“Never mind,” said Lee, as he gave the flywheel a twist that set the motor to chugging in a business-like manner. “When we come back we’ll bring you some swamp chickens for supper, Mose.”
“Whut’s dem swamp chickums?” inquired the negro. “Cain’t seem to rec’lect no sech fowl no-how.”
“Oh, certainly,” said Lee, with every appearance of conviction. “They have black combs, red tail feathers, and blue eyes. You must have seen one, haven’t you?”
“Nossuh, an’ whut’s more, Ah don’ believe dey never was no sech a kind of a chickum,” said Mose.
“All right, then, just you wait till we bring you one back,” said Lee, and guided the boat out into the sluggish river, leaving Mose scratching his woolly head on the bank.
The river was perhaps a hundred feet wide at this point, and flowed so slowly that it was hard to believe that there was any current at all. The banks were covered with trees that grew right down to the water’s edge at this point, but as the little craft chugged its way upstream, the trees gave way to high, rank grass, with here and there a lofty cypress tree shooting up out of the rank vegetation.