“And that’s all there was to it, so fur’s Zene could see. The mist wasn’t cast on him, you understand, for he wasn’t there at the start-off.”
There followed an interval of meditative silence, broken at length by the slow voice of Amazeen, beginning another chronicle.
“I’ve heard tell,” he droned, “of Rudd bettin’ ten bushels of oats down to the old blacksmith shop that used to set where the curry shop sets now, that he would put his head right against the butt of a hemlock log that laid in the yard and crawl right through it lengthwise and come out o’ the little end. They took him up—the three or four that was there—and he got down on his hands and knees, and they all swear to a man that he went right out o’ sight into that log. Up come a man that the mist wasn’t over, and when they told him what kind of a hen was on he vowed and declared that he couldn’t see nothin’ out o’ the way but old Rudd Goff crawlin’ along the top of the log, and then the man up and gave Rudd a jeerously old swat with his gad-stick, and Rudd come hopping off that log in a hurry, now, I tell you. And all could see him then. He laid his hands on the tingly place and he let into that man hot and heavy, so fur’s language would take him. If Rudd’s tongue had been a horsewhip that man would have ridges all over him. But as it was they haw-hawed old Rudd off’n the premises. He could cast a mist, though, there ain’t no doubt about that! And there was lots of old sirs that could.”
Babb retwisted his legs with a nervous snap as he concluded.
The little group in the shade gazed on the solitary figure bathed in the beating August sunshine. For a moment he ceased to be in their eyes merely old “Hard-Times” Wharff. They stared at him with a bit of superstitious respect, as they always did when they remembered how the blood of old Rudd Goff was in him.
“You’ve got to own up that there are queer things in this world.” mumbled Amazeen.
The old man on the platform revolved slightly on his single leg of support. He slowly swung his head from side to side, his eyes still on the horizon line.
“They’ve lit five times and ris’ five times and circled five times and now lit again,” he cried.
“Who’s lit?” demanded Uncle Buck snappishly.
“Crows.”