"I'll hire a wagon and have these things taken over to the house," said Lyman. "You tell her, bless her old heart, that I'm coming out there pretty soon with enough stuff to smother both of you. Warren, get those cigars."
"Sure. Is there anything else we want? Uncle Buckley, don't you want something to drink?"
"Well, if you've got some right good buttermilk handy I mout take a glass. But I don't want no licker, young man. I never touched it but once, and then I swapped a fine young mare for an old mule, and I swore then that I'd never tech it again. Go on and get your segyars and I'll make a shift of burnin' one of 'em."
Warren went out. Lyman feasted his eyes on the old man. "How are they all, Uncle Buckley?"
"Jest about the same. Jimmy killed the biggest black snake yistidy—I think it was yistidy. Let me see. I know in reason it was yistidy, for I was a splittin' some wood when he fotch the thing along, draggin' it by the tail. Though that mout have been day before yistidy. I believe it was day before yistidy. Anyhow it was the biggist black snake ever killed out there since the war, but of course in my day they killed bigger ones. He found him out in a blackberry patch and mauled him to death. Oh, he was a snorter. That's about the biggest piece of news I've got. Let me see. Lige met a pole-cat somewhere in the woods and socity ain't been hankering after Lige since then. I seen him this mornin' as I was comin' in, and I yelled at him to keep his distance, and he did or I would have hit him. Yes, sir, I can't stand a pole-cat. You ricollect Mab Basey, I reckon. She run away with a feller that come to help cut wheat and they ain't seen her sense. Oh, he married her and all that, but they don't know where she is. Luke Brizentine didn't git over it."
"What, Mab's running away?"
"Oh, no, not that. Didn't I tell you? Why, Jeff Sarver filled him so full of shot that his hide looked like a nutmeg grater. Yes, sir. They got into a difficulty over a steer that had been jumpin' into a field, and he tried to stab Jeff and Jeff shot him. Made a good deal of a stir at the time and Luke didn't live but two days, but how he could live that long was more than we could see, and it caused a good deal of surprise. Now, wait a minit. It was day before yistidy that Jimmy killed the snake. Sammy, where is that man that was your partner?"
"He has an office on the other side of the square."
"Yes, but are you sure, Sammy, that he ain't your partner?"
"Absolutely certain, Uncle Buckley."