"Beca'se dey likes to hear 'emselves talk—eb'rybody wantin' to do all de talkin', an' nobody wantin' to do none uf de list'nin'—jes' like people."
"Don't you wish you had Betsy Grumbo out here, Burl? How she'd make their black feathers fly! And the woods are alive with squirrels. Just see how they are running up and down the trees and along the top of the fence."
"Ef I had Betsy Grumbo out here, de woods wouldn't be alive wid squirrels, an' dem black rogues up dar wouldn't be so near by—so easy an' sassy."
"Why wouldn't they?" inquired Bushie.
"Beca'se dey'd smell Betsy's breaf, an' make 'emselves scarce."
"What's the matter with Betsy's breath?"
"W'y, Bushie, if Betsy is always belchin' gunpowder, don't you know her breaf mus' smell uf gunpowder?"
"Burl," said Bushie, turning his eyes from the crows and fixing them wide open on his black chum's face, "I killed a rattlesnake yesterday, while I was out in the woods hunting May-apples—a rattlesnake as big as your leg."
"Now, Bushie, ain't you lettin' on?" said Burl with an incredulous grin. "Wusn't it a black-snake, big as your leg?"
"Do rattlesnakes always rattle with their tails when they poke out their heads to bite a man?"