“Oh, very well,” I said, “I shall go by myself.”
“That you won’t, look you,” he cried. “I heard you promise your father you wouldn’t go alone. You’re not much of a boy, but you’re too good to feed alligators with, or let the rattlesnakes and ’cassins try their pyson on.”
“But they wouldn’t, I should take care.”
“Take care? Do you know, there’s ’gators big as trees in these swamp-holes. I shouldn’t wonder if there’s some of the old open-countenanced beauties big round as houses. Why, Master George, I believe there’s fellows out there as old as the river, and as could take you as easy as I do a pill.”
“Don’t believe it.”
“Ve-ry well then; only mind, if one does take you across the middle, give you a pitch up in the air, and then catch you head-first and swallow you, don’t you blame me.”
“Why, how could I, if he swallowed me?” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know. You might holler or knock, if you had a stick in your hand.”
“What stuff!”
“Oh, is it! There’s plenty of room in ’em, and they’re as hard as horn. But you take my advice, and don’t try.”