Aaron in the Wildwoods

by Joel Chandler Harris

"Desso! I wish you mighty well, honey." With that Uncle Andy backed the boat out into the river, headed it down stream, and aided the current by an occasional stroke of his oar, which he knew well how to use.

Standing on the hill above the river, Aaron saw that the red signal lights in the east had been put out, and it was now broad day. In the top of a pine a quarter of a mile away a faint shimmer of sunlight glowed a moment and then disappeared. Again it appeared and this time to stay. He stood listening, and it seemed to him that he could hear in the far-off distance the faint musical cry of hounds. Perhaps he was mistaken; perhaps it was a fox-hunting pack, or, perhaps—

He turned and moved rapidly to the Swamp, which he found wide awake and ready to receive him. So vigorous was the Swamp, and so jealous of its possessions, that it rarely permitted the summer sun to shine upon its secrets. If a stray beam came through, very well, but the Swamp never had a fair glimpse of the sun except in winter, when the glare was shorn of its heat, all the shadows pointing to the north, where the cold winds come from. At midday, in the season when the Swamp was ready for business, the shade was dense—dense enough to give the effect of twilight. At sunrise dawn had hardly made its way to the places where the mysteries wandered back and forth, led by Jack-o'-the-Lantern. But the Willis-Whistlers knew when dawn came in the outer world, and they hid their shrill pipes in the canes and disappeared; but the mysteries still had an hour to frolic—an hour in which they might dispense with the services of Jack-o'-the-Lantern. So Aaron found them there—all his old friends and a new one, the old brindle steer to whom he sometimes gave a handful of salt. The brindle steer was supposed to be superannuated, but he was not. He had the hollow horn, as the negroes called it, and this had made him thin and weak for a time, but he was now in fair trim, the Swamp proving to be a well-conducted hospital, stocked with an abundance of pleasant medicine. He was not of the Swamp, but he had been taken in out of charity, and he was the more welcome on that account. Moreover, he had introduced himself to the White Pig in a sugarcane patch, and they got on famously together—one making luscious cuds of the green blades and the other smacking his mouth over the sweets to be found in the stalks.

Aaron was glad to see the Brindle Steer, and Brindle was so glad to see Aaron that he must needs hoist his tail in the air and lower his horns, which were remarkably long and sharp, and pretend that he was on the point of charging, pawing the ground and making a noise with his mouth that was something between a bleat and a bellow. It was such a queer sound that Aaron laughed, seeing which Brindle shook his head and capered around the Son of Ben Ali as if trying to find some vulnerable point in his body that would offer small resistance to the long horns.

"You are well, Brindle," said Aaron.

"No, Son of Ben Ali, not well—only a great deal better," replied Brindle.

"That is something, Brindle; be glad, as I am," remarked Aaron. "You may have work to do to-day—with your horns."

Brindle drew a long breath that sounded like a tremendous sigh. "It is well you say with my horns, Son of Ben Ali. No cart for me. When the time comes for the cart I shall have—what do you call it?"

"The hollow horn," suggested Aaron.

"Yes, two hollow horns, Son of Ben Ali. No cart for me. Though there is nothing the matter with my horns, the people shall believe that both are hollow. When I was sick, Son of Ben Ali, something was the matter with all nine of my stomachs."