"Well, Lucindy, it's mighty hard for to make a young hoss stand in one place. He's uther got to go back'ards or forrerds, or jump sideways. I've jest begun to live good. I feel a heap better sence I was born in the country whar Miss Adelaide spends her time an' pleasure."
"Now, Bishop, tell me, please, if you were really talking to Miss——Miss——"
"Frierson—Miss Susan-Sue Frierson." Mr. Sanders supplied the name to Adelaide. He seemed to be filled with astonishment. "Did you hear me talking?" he asked in a confidential whisper. "Why, I—I didn't know you could hear me! Now, don't go and tell ever'body. She lives in our country, an' she come for to see Cally-Lou."
"Well, I'm sorry Cally-Lou didn't see her. I had to punish her to-day, and she's not feeling so well."
"Well, I reckon not!" exclaimed Mr. Sanders; "'specially ef you used a cowhide, or a barrel-stave. What have you got to do to-day, and whar are you gwine? I had a holiday comin' to me, an' so I thought I'd come down here an' take you to the Whish-Whish Woods an' hunt for the Boogerman."
At once Adelaide was in a quiver of excitement. "Shall we camp out? Must we take guns? How long shall we stay?"
"Guns! why, tooby shore," replied Mr. Sanders, with an expression of ferociousness new to his countenance; "as many as we can tote wi'out sp'ilin' our complexions; an' we'll stay ontel we git him or his hide. Lucindy'd better fix up a lunch for two—a couple of biscuits an' a couple of buttermilks. Thar's no tellin' when we'll git back."
Now, old Jonas Whipple had the largest and the finest garden in town. It was such a fine garden, indeed, that the neighbours had a way of looking at it over the fence, and wondering how Providence could be so kind to a man so close and stingy, and so mean in money-matters. And as your neighbours can wonder about one thing as well as another, old Jonas's wondered where all the vegetables went to. It was out of the question that old Jonas should use them all himself; and yet, as regularly as the garden was planted every year, as certainly as the vegetables always grew successfully, let the season be wet or dry, just as regularly and just as certainly, the various crops disappeared as fast as they became eatable—and that, too, when nearly everybody in the community had gardens of their own. It was a very mild mystery, but in a village, such as Shady Dale was, even a mild mystery becomes highly important until it is solved, and then it is forgotten. Only Mr. Sanders had solved it thus far, and this was the main reason why he "neighboured" with old Jonas. He had discovered that the vegetables went to the maintenance of a small colony of "tackies" that had settled near Shady Dale—"dirt-eaters" they were called. They were so poor and improvident that the men went in rags and the women in tatters; and only old Jonas's fine garden was free to them. In the early morning twilight they would slip in with their bags and their baskets, and were gone before anybody but themselves had shaken off the shackles of sleep.
Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight seemed to be very pale when Adelaide and I found it under the honeysuckle vine, but in old Jonas's garden it was particularly brilliant in its colours of green. Green is the admiration of summer, and it has more beautiful shades than the rainbow. Observe the marked difference between the cabbage and the corn, between the squash and watermelon vines, between the asparagus and the cucumber, between the red pepper plants and the tomato vines! These variations are worth more than a day's study by any artist who is ambitious of training his eyes to colour.