“ ‘Boys,’ said he ‘I’ll tell you what you do; you go and—’ ”
“In the name of goodness, old lady,” said we, “tell about your cloth; and let the sick child and Miss Stringer, Daddy Sikes, the boys, and the law-suit, go the Old Scratch. I’m in a hurry!”
“Gracious, bless your dear soul! don’t git aggravated. I was jist a tellin’ you how it come I didn’t weave no cloth last year.”
“Oh, well you didn’t weave any cloth last year. Good! We’ll go on to the next article.”
“Yes; you see the child hit begun to swell and turn yaller, and hit kept a wallin’ its eyes, and a moanin’, and I know’d—”
“Never mind about the child—just tell me the value of the poultry you raised last year.”
“Oh, well—yes—the chickens, you means. Why, the Lord love your poor soul; I reckon you never in your born days see a creetur have the luck that I did—and looks like we never shall have any good luck agin; for ever since old Simpson tuk that case up to the Chancery Court—”
“Never mind the case, let’s hear about the chickens, if you please.”
“God bless you, honey! the owls destroyed in and about the best half that I did raise. Every blessed night that the Lord did send, they’d come and set on the comb of the house, and hoo, hoo; and one night in particklar I remember, I had just got up with the nightshed salve to ’int the little gal with—”
“Well, well, what was the value of what you did raise?”