"Good evenin', 'Zeki'l," said the man, mounting to the top of the fence, and sitting with his heels thrust through a crack in the lower rails.
"Howdy you do, Marshall? What's the news down your way?" 'Zeki'l inquired, drawing his shirt-sleeve across his face, and leaning on the plow-handles.
"I don't know as there's much to tell. Billy Hutchins an' Sary Ann McNally run away an' got married last night, an' old Mis' Gillis is mighty nigh dead with the ja'nders. A punkin couldn't look yallerer." He opened his knife, and ran his fingers along the rail in search of a splinter to whittle. "Old man Biggers has sold his place at last."
"Has he?"
"Yes; I met him down at the store, an' he said the trade had been made."
"He's bound to go to Texas."
"Yes; so he 'lows."
"Well, old Georgy is good enough for me," 'Zeki'l remarked, with a pleased glance at his sterile fields.
"An' for me," said Marshall, heartily. "Wanderin' 'round don't make folks rich. Biggers owns the best place in this settlement, an' he'd better stay on it. It won't do to believe all the tales they tell about these new States. I had a brother go to Louisiany before the war. Folks said, 'Don't take anything with you; why, money mighty nigh grows on bushes out there.' His wife took the greatest pride in her feather beds, but what would be the use o' haulin' them beds all the way across the Mississippi, when you could rake up feathers by the bushel anywheres? Well, they went, an' for the whole endurin' time they stayed they had to sleep on moss mattresses, an' my brother 'lowed it was about the meanest stuff to kill he ever struck. If you didn't bile it, an' bury it, an' do the Lord only knows what to it, it would grow an' burst out of the beds when you was sleepin' on 'em." 'Zeki'l's attention did not follow those reminiscent remarks. "Who bought the Biggers place?" he inquired, as soon as Marshall ceased speaking.
"A man he met in Atlanta when he went down the last time, a man from one of the lower counties, an' his name—why, yes, to be sure, it's Morgan, same as yours—'Lijy Morgan. May be you know him?" with a sharp, questioning glance.