"Bandershanks, I don't know when Mama and Papa are gonna start you to school, but you're big, all right! You're just about too big for your britches, I think!"
I lifted up the bottom of my dress and looked at my bloomers. They weren't too tight!
During supper Walker and Clyde asked questions and questions. Clyde said he'd like to know everything that had happened in Drake Eye Springs while he was off in the army.
"There's not been much going on," Papa told him, "except my knock-down-drag-out fight with Ward and the store burning. Then the kidnapping! And we've already told you how bad all that was. 'Course the fight and losing the store was nothing compared with that ordeal last week. Me and Nannie aged ten years apiece Saturday night while the baby was gone."
"I can imagine."
"Yeah, what a time! Every soul in the settlement came, trying to help, all night long. The women, in the house with Nannie, crying and praying! The men, out in the woods with me, searching and cussing! Reckon I ought not say it that way. We was praying, too. But we was all disgusted with ourselves for letting a snake like Ward live among us."
"Papa, what was Ward wanting so much money for?"
"To get him a automobile! The man was obsessed with the notion of buying one. That's what started the whole trouble. You see, first, he took it in his head he could make big money with moonshine whiskey. The fool, he came to me wanting money to buy a copper drum. That's when we had the fight! Then—out of pure spite—he burned down my store! Next thing you know, he had his whiskey still in operation. But I reckon money wasn't coming in fast enough to suit him, so he got this fellow Hicks's automobile and carried off Bandershanks!"
"He figured Jodie would pay a fortune to get her back alive. He would have, too!"
"Yes, Pa, I'd 've paid. A man will do most anything to save his young'un. I just thank the Good Lord things didn't turn out no worse than they did. Doctor Elton and the schoolteacher say that if Ward's not dead and if the Law ever finds him, he could be locked up for over twenty years, but I can't help that. Oh, well, let's try to forget the whole business for tonight. Pass me some more of that 'possum."