"Well, to tell you the truth, Ned, I don't hardly know how to advise you. I reckon about the best thing would be to sit tight one more year, try to pay out next fall, then find you another man. I know a Mister Taylor down on the State Line Road. He's looking for a good family with plenty of big boys, like yours. If we have another good year, and you don't owe Mister Ward too much, Mister Taylor might pay you out and move you down to his place."
Ned didn't answer. Instead, he eased over closer toward the counter so that he was standing right in front of Papa.
"I ain't telled you the worst, Mister Jodie."
"Yeah?"
"This mornin' Mister Ward show me how he gwine t' start makin' whiskey! Say I gotta help him! Say he gwine t' put in the biggest still you ever seen. I's plain a-feared, Mister Jodie! He say my chillens gwine to help chop and tote the wood!"
"He can't—"
"He say he shoot me 'tween the eyes iffen I tells hit, Mister Jodie! But Lawd, Mister Jodie, I's got to think 'bout my chiliens. Little Stray, too. He that pitiful one what's not mine. I calls him my chicken coop stray boy."
"Chicken coop?"
"Yes, suh, Mister Jodie. Years back I finds that chile—one freezin' mornin'—all scrooched up in my chicken house. He near 'bout starved to death and shakin' like a leaf—he can't talk. Me and my wife, we warms him up and feeds him. And we tries to take him back to his mammy. She don't want him. So we keeps him. That's 'fore I comes to Mister Ward's place, and—"
"Papa! Look! Yonder comes somebody to buy stuff!" I dropped my duster and ran to the door to get a better look at the man and horse up the road. "He ain't got no coal oil can, Papa. He's got a shotgun!"