“Hallo! the woodyard!”
“Hallo yourself!” answered a squeaking female voice, which came from a woman, with a petticoat over her shoulders in place of a shawl.
“What’s the price of wood?”
“I think you ought to know the price by this time,” answered the old lady in the petticoat; “it’s three and a qua-a-rter! and now you know it.”
“Three and the d——l!” broke in the Captain. “What, have you raised on your wood, too? I’ll give you three, and not a cent more.”
“Well,” replied the petticoat, “here comes the old man—he’ll talk to you.”
And, sure enough, out crept from the cottage the veritable faded hat, copperas-colored pants, yellow countenance and two-weeks’ beard we had seen the night before, and the same voice we had heard regulating the price of cotton-wood squeaked out the following sentence, accompanied by the same leer of the same yellow countenance:
“Why, darn it all, Capting, there is but three or four cords left, and since it’s you, I don’t care if I do let you have it for three—as you’re a good customer!”
After a quick glance at the landmarks around, the Captain bolted, and turned in to take some rest.
The fact became apparent—the reader will probably have discovered it some time since—that we had been wooding all night at the same woodyard!