"Want to make it more cheerful like."
Then he knelt down and blew the coals under the little porringer, which, like pine-coals in general, always sulked and looked black when somebody was not blowing them. He blew vigorously, regardless of the clouds of ashes which encircled him, and which settled even on the tips of his eyelashes, and balanced themselves on the end of his nose.
"Bress de Lord, I's dreadful strong in my breff! Lord, dey might have used me in blacksmissin! I's kep dis yer chimney a gwine dis many a day. I wonder, now, what keeps Miss Fanny out so long."
And Tiff rose up with the greatest precaution, and glancing every moment towards the bed, and almost tipping himself over in his anxiety to walk softly, advanced to the rude door, which opened with a wooden latch and string, opened it carefully, and looked out. Looking out with him, we perceive that the little hut stands alone, in the heart of a dense pine forest, which shuts it in on every side.
Tiff held the door open a few moments to listen. No sound was heard but the shivering wind, swaying and surging in melancholy cadences through the long pine-leaves,—a lonesome, wailing, uncertain sound.
"Ah! dese yer pine-trees! dey always a talkin'!" said Tiff to himself, in a sort of soliloquy. "Whisper, whisper, whisper! De Lord knows what it's all about! dey never tells folks what dey wants to know. Hark! da is Foxy, as sure as I'm a livin' sinner! Ah! dar she is!" as a quick, loud bark reverberated. "Ah, ha! Foxy! you'll bring her along!" caressing a wolfish-looking, lean cur, who came bounding through the trees.
"Ah, yer good-for-nothing! what makes yer run so fast, and leave yer missus behind ye? Hark! what's dat!"
The clear voice came carolling gayly from out the pine-trees,
"If you get there before I do—
I'm bound for the land of Canaan."