It was a natural and an innocent question, but it presented a difficulty. Sweetest Susan looked at Buster John for an answer, and Buster John looked at Sweetest Susan and Drusilla, but made no reply.
“Kaze ef he ain’t,” remarked Drusilla, pursuing the subject, “you’ll des hatter count me out. I’ll stan’ off som’ers whar I kin run an’ holler when dat ar wil’ hog git mad an’ rip you up, but when it comes ter gwine right whar he is when Unk A’on ain’t wid us, I ain’t gwine ter do it. So dar you got it, flat an’ plain. I ain’t gwine. I watch his eye yistiddy, an’ time I see it lookin’ red on de eye-ball, I know’d dat ar hog was rank pizen when he git mad.”
Finally Buster John said he would find Aaron, but Aaron was not to be found. He had gone off with the plow hands early in the morning, and wouldn’t be back before night. Thereupon Buster John declared that he was going to the plum thicket, if he had to go by himself.
“I’m most afraid,” said Sweetest Susan.
“I’m wuss’n dat,” exclaimed Drusilla. “I’m skeered des dry so.”
“Then both of you stay where you are,” cried Buster John. He started off very boldly, but not without some misgivings. Looking back without pretending to do so, he saw Sweetest Susan coming, though very slowly, while Drusilla was dragging along and bringing up the rear, quarreling, and begging Sweetest Susan to turn back. Buster John stopped and told his sister to come on, and waited for her.
“I’ll go whar I kin see how dat wil’ hog do when he eats folks, but hosses can’t drag me in dat ar plum thicket whar he hidin’,” remarked Drusilla.
Sweetest Susan was not much afraid, seeing Buster John so bold, and Buster John was made bolder by the fact that his sister seemed willing to go. So they went, Drusilla bringing up the rear and protesting.
The plum thicket grew on each side of a gully that had washed in the lower part of the orchard. The plum trees were small and grew very close together, and the gully was filled with a season’s growth of weeds that had not been uprooted by the rains. So that, taken altogether, the plum thicket was a very convenient hiding-place for the White Pig, or for any other creature not larger than a horse.