"Did you kill 'em?"
"No, I never let myself go too fur. Bein' so stout, I have to be kind o' careful."
After a moment's pause he went on:
"A man threatened to lick me up to Seaver's t'other day. You couldn't blame him. He didn't know me from a side o' sole leather. He just thought I was one o' them common, every-day cusses that folks use to limber up on. But he see his mistake in time. I tell ye God was good to him when he kept him away from me."
Aunt Deel called us to supper.
"Le's go in an' squench our hunger," Mr. Purvis proposed as he rose and shut his jackknife.
I was very much impressed and called him "Mr. Purvis" after that. I enjoyed and believed many tales of adventure in which he had been the hero as we worked together in the field or stable. I told them to my aunt and uncle one evening, whereupon the latter said:
"He's a good man to work, but Jerusalem—!"
He stopped. He always stopped at the brink of every such precipice. I had never heard him finish an uncomplimentary sentence.
I began to have doubts regarding the greatness of our hired man. I still called him "Mr. Purvis," but all my fear of him had vanished.