“Oh, a bes’ frien’ is somebody you likes to be with all the time.”
“Oh, then Spring-keeper is a bes’ frien’.”
“But he is an old man. A bes’ frien’ must be young.”
“Then we uns’ll have to take the baby fox. Will that do?”
“Oh, yes, that’ll do if’n they ain’t no boys around.”
“We uns will keep the baby fox for one of them things until Josh gits larnin’ and then you kin be it,” and Tom Tit laughed for joy.
“Is you uns ever flew?” Tom Tit asked Bobby.
“No—my mother is so skittish like, she ain’t never let me. She’s ’bout one of the scaredest ladies they is.”
“We uns’ maw is done flew away herself and she didn’t mind when we uns went a bit. We uns useter think that when the men found maw they took her and hid her in a hole in the ground. Spring-keeper done tole me lots of times that she wasn’t in the ground but had flew up to heaven, but we uns ain’t never seed no one fly, so we uns just thought he was a foolin’. And you see,” he whispered, “Spring-keeper is kinder daffy sometimes, so the folks say, and we uns has to humor him. But now—but now—we uns done flewed away up in the air. If we uns kin fly, why maw kin do it, too. She ain’t in a hole in the ground no mo’. We uns almost saw her flyin’ way up over the mountain tops.”