“’Tain’t any particular politeness to call my rel’tives names, is it?” he demanded. “Furdermore, uncle never said he see the rooster act’ly haul a log; he said it looked as if he had done it, ’cause the mist had been cast.”
“Ain’t nothin’ in it no one way or t’other,” persisted Uncle Buck doggedly. “’Tain’t reasonable, ’tain’t Christian, and whatever ’tis it’s works of Satan, and I, as a church member, ain’t goin’ to stand by and let things like that be said without aye, yes or no to ’em!” He thudded his fist on his knee.
“I’ll bet there is such things as magic and—aw—well, you can call it witchcraft,” cried Babb, rather hampered in argument by lack of terms. “Come now, I’ll bet you!”
“What do you propose to do—call up your Uncle Ben from Turtle Knoll graveyard or—or leave it out to old Wind-cutter, there?” queried Buck, sarcastically, with a hook of his thumb toward the Palermo human weather vane.
Babb was clearly nonplussed for a moment, but his face suddenly lighted up. He untangled his legs, crawled out of his chair and cried:
“I’ll leave it out to the man that P’lermo is always ready to leave out all questions to—and that’s Squire Phin Look, by thunder!”
He shook his skinny finger at the dingy windows over Brickett’s store.
“If he don’t know there ain’t nobody does,” observed Brickett, clicking his yellow teeth with decision.
“Why should he know? ’Tain’t law, nor nothin’ that goes with law,” persisted Buck.
“You see if he don’t know,” retorted Babb. “It wa’n’t lo’din’ a jackass with books when Squire Look went through college. Now let’s go up and ask him, boys—what ye say?”