Cold, stormy weder;
I want my true love all de day.
Whar shall I find him? Whar shall I find him?"
The distant singer stopped his song, apparently to listen, and, while Tiff kept on singing, they could hear the crackling of approaching footsteps. At last Dred emerged to view.
"So you've fled to the wilderness?" he said.
"Yes, yes," said Tiff with a kind of giggle, "we had to come to it, dat ar woman was so aggravating on de chil'en. Of all de pizin critturs dat I knows on, dese yer mean white women is de pizinest! Dey an't got no manners, and no bringing up. Dey doesn't begin to know how tings ought to be done 'mong 'spectable people. So we just tuck to de bush."
"You might have taken to a worse place," said Dred. "The Lord God giveth grace and glory to the trees of the wood. And the time will come when the Lord will make a covenant of peace, and cause the evil beast to cease out of the land; and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and shall sleep in the woods; and the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and they shall be safe in the land, when the Lord hath broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hands of those that serve themselves of them."
"And you tink dem good times coming, sure 'nough?" said Tiff.
"The Lord hath said it," said the other. "But first the day of vengeance must come."
"I don't want no sich," said Tiff. "I want to live peaceable."