I looked in the direction indicated. The skins of several species of animals, among which I recognised those of the painter, ’possum, and ’coon, along with a haunch or two of recently-killed venison, met my glance.
“Oh! you traffic in these?”
“Jess so, stranger. Sells the skins to the storekeeper an’ the deer meat to anybody as’ll buy it.”
“But I have never seen you in the town.”
“I never goes thar. I don’t like them stinkin’ storekeepers. They allers cheats me.”
“Who, then, does the marketing for you?”
“The ole ’oman thar. She kin manage them counter-jumpers better’n I kin. Can’t you, ole gurl?”
“Well, that I guess I can,” replied the partner of Old Zeb’s bosom, with an emphasis that left no doubt upon my mind that she believed herself to be speaking the truth.
I now recollected having more than once seen Mrs Stump in the streets of Grand Gulf, on her marketing errands, and having dined at an hotel upon a haunch of buck of her especial providing. Still more, I remembered purchasing from her a brace of white-headed eagles (falco-leucocephalus), which this good lady had brought in from the forest, and which I had forwarded to the Zoological Society of London.
Old Zeb’s shooting was something that to me at the time appeared marvellous. He could “bark” a squirrel among the tops of the tallest tree; or could equally kill it by sending his bullet through its eye. He used to boast, in a quiet way, that he never “spoilt a skin, though it war only that o’ a contemptible squ’ll.”