"Mr. Lindsay, he holped Brock strip last year, and pack, too. Mr. Lindsay, he's got a good sleight at strippin' terbaccer: I've never seed him put a leaf out o' place, even when I've been a carryin' fourteen grades. He jest can't be beat in a strippin'-house. I'd back him ag'in anybody you might breng, I don't keer who: but, as I wuz a sayin', Mr. Lindsay, he told me, that's the way Brock packed his hogsheads.
"And Mr. Brock, he nestes his too, when he sells hit loose. He nested hit one year,—put all the bad in the middle o' his seven piles o' bulked down—and Mr. Castle sold hit to a buyer, and agreed to let the buyer prize hit in hogsheads at the barn, yes, sir. And afore the man come, Brock had to rebulk the whole theng to keep from bein' ketcht up with, yes, sir. I don't never nest none."
"Tain't no penitentiary refence, Pap, to sorter put your best wher' hit'll be saw first," remarked Jim Doggett, a tall man of twenty-eight.
"Ephriam bein' possessed frum experience of information o' what hit takes to constitute a penitentiary offence," gibed Gran'dad.
"Sorter throwin' off on you, ain't he, Mr. Doggett?" Bunch palliated.
"Yes, sir, Bunch," admitted Mr. Doggett pleasantly: "yes, sir, 'taint no use denyin' hit, I've shore been to the pen."
"Somethin' that happened a right smart while back when you'd had a dram too much?" suggested Trisler, who was eager for the tale, in a tone of apology.
"Yes, sir, Bunch, you've hit the nail on the head. Hit wuz when I lived in Bourbon, sixteen years ago, come two weeks afore Christmas."
"I'd love to hear you tell hit," Bunch invited.
"Hit's too late this evenin'": Mr. Doggett was mindful of the afternoon slowness of Bunch's hands, when his ears were actively employed: "less git done the terbaccer we got out, and come extry early in the mornin', and I'll tell you how 'twuz."