"La, Mr. Sanders! how'd you know that? But it's the truth: I ain't never seen Ike sence that night."
"I know a heap more'n you think I do," Mr. Sanders remarked. "Hotchkiss was talkin' to you at the gate thar when he was shot. What was he sayin'?"
The woman was a bright mulatto, and, remembering her own designs and desires so far as Hotchkiss was concerned, her face flushed and she turned her eyes away. "Why, he wan't sayin' a word, hardly; I was doin' all the talkin'. I was settin' on the step there, an' I seen him passin', an' hollad at him. I ast him if he wouldn't have a drink of cold water, an' he said he would, an' I took it out to the gate, an' while I was talkin', they shot him. They certainly did."
"Did you ask Ike about it?" Mr. Sanders inquired.
"La! I ain't seen Ike sence that night," exclaimed Edie, flirting her apron with a coquettish air that was by no means unbecoming.
"Now, Edie," said Mr. Sanders, with a frown to match the severity of his voice, "you know as well as I do, that when you heard the pistol go off, and saw what had happened, you run in the house an' flung your apern over your head." It was a wild guess, but it was close to the truth.
"La, Mr. Sanders! you talk like you was watchin' me. 'Twa'n't my apern, 'twas my han's. I didn't have on no apern that night; I had on my Sunday frock."
"An' you know jest as well as I do that Ike come in here an' stood over you, an' said somethin' to you."
"No, sir; he didn't stand over me; I was here"—she illustrated his position by her movements—"an' when Ike come in, he stood over there."
"What did he say?"