"Ploughin', ploughin'," he said. "Levin, I kin show you how to plough: I can't do it, but you're the man."
"Cyrus, Huldy don't hate you. She says you're the nighest to a friend she's got."
"Oh, I love her like sugar-cane," the lean, cymlin-headed servant said. "Tell her I'm goin' to be a great man. I'm goin' to spile the game. They lick me, but Cy Jeems has courage, Levin."
"Cyrus, tell Huldy all that's goin' on agin her. We don't know nothin'. You kin go and come an' nobody watches you. Huldy will be grateful fur it."
Putting his long arms on his knees and bending down, the scullion stared close to Levin's eyes and whispered, looking towards the field:
"Ploughin'! ploughin'!"
Then, turning partly, and gazing over the old tavern with a look of wisdom, Cy James whispered again:
"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! an' Pangymonum, too!"
"I reckon he's crazy," Levin thought, as the queer fellow turned and fled.
It was about three o'clock when the cavalcade was reviewed by Captain Van Dorn from the porch of the hotel, and it consisted of about twenty persons, white and black; some riding mules, some horses, and there was one wagon in the line—the same that had been driven to Cannon's Ferry—intended for Levin, Joe Johnson, and the Captain. Van Dorn stood blushing, pulling his long mustache of flax, and resting on his cowhide whip.