"You go home now, an' look after things there. You's got nine good hogs to kill this fall an' your wife's a feedin' 'em on apples. Your wife's purty, Edgar, an' her ways is pleasin', but she ain't got the sense she was borned with. She mixes the strippin's with the milk jes' as ef strippin's wa'n't purty nigh the same as cream, an' she hitches a horse to the body of a tree, 'stead of a swingin' limb, so's the beast can break the halter an' go home, leavin' her to walk. She done that at church only two weeks ago come nex' Sunday. An' now she's a feedin' hogs on apples when she orter be a givin' 'em corn to harden the meat fer killin' time. So you better go home an' fix things. I'll ten' to the rest."
Edgar was grievously disappointed. He had confidently hoped to be himself Judy's messenger to Boyd Westover, but Judy was much too sagacious to permit that.
"Boyd'll ax questions," she reflected, "'cause he'll be full o' wonderment 'bout this here thing, an' Edgar mout let the right answers slip out. Theonidas can't do that, 'cause he don't know nothin' 'bout the answers."
She expected Theonidas to visit her that evening to secure a bag of corn meal that she knew he and Boyd sorely needed. She would send her message by Theonidas, therefore, and would leave the message to take the place of the meal.
It was supper time when Theonidas arrived, bringing a wild turkey gobbler and a dozen squirrels on his back.
"Them's all right," said Judy, feeling of the game. "Tell Boyd he'd orter 'a' saved 'em to take to Wanalah to-morrow. He'll be a entertainin' folks there an' it 'ud 'a' been handy to have some game in the house."
"He ain't a thinkin' o' comin' down the mounting yit," replied the boy in open eyed wonder.
"I know he ain't," Judy replied. "But when you git back up there to-night—an' you's a goin' to start back soon's you git yer supper—he'll be a thinkin' about it, an' 'twon't take much thinkin' to set them legs o' his'n a movin'. You come an' git your supper, an' then mosey up the mounting as fast as yer feet kin foller one another. An' you're to tell Boyd that they's the devil to pay an' no funds, down Wanalah way. Tell him I says he's got to git down thar' quick an' face the music."
"What's it all about, Mammy?" asked Theonidas with not unnatural curiosity.
"That ain't none o' your business," Judy replied, "an' ef you don't know nothin' you can't git it wrong in tellin' it. You jes' say what I's tole you to say, an' by midnight he'll be a stumblin' down the mounting to find out what's the matter. But tell him—now mind, Theonidas, an' listen to what I's a sayin'—" for the boy was reaching across the table for a second helping of some dish he specially relished, and Judy feared that he was not attending to her instructions—"listen to what I's a sayin'—"