There came then a long drawn, lonesome sound from somewhere near the foot of Big Blackfern Mountain. It is no common thing to hear the mournful cry of a whip-poor-will in the daytime. Granny Wolfe rubbed her aching eyes and looked up in sudden anxious interest. Less than a week had passed since Sarah Wolfe had told her that Preacher Longley Thrash's wife's sister had said that her husband's uncle had said that the cry of a whip-poor-will when the sun was shining meant a death within three days unless the bird was killed promptly.
Granny Wolfe rose with a rheumatic groan, took down from its wooden hooks over the doorway an old, old rifle that her departed husband had loved next to her, and went toward the foot of the Big Blackfern.
"I'll git ye!" she mumbled to herself. "I'll git ye, drot ye!"
It came again when she had gone a hundred yards: "Whip-poor-will!"
"Plague on yore pickcher of ye!" she muttered, quickening her step so much that her little dog was forced to trot in order to keep up with her heels. "Ye imp o' Satan, ef I don't shoot a hole through ye wi' this here old rifle o' Sack's big enough fo' a bay hoss to jump through, I hope I may sink! Consarn ye to thunder! I hain't a-havin' enough bad luck, I reckon," bitterly, "and so you had to happen along."
Shortly afterward, she drew back the hammer of the old rifle and limped into the border of laurel. Something moved slightly on a log a few rods up the mountainside, and she saw it. She rested the long barrel in the fork of a sapling, and began to try for an aim, when a cracked old voice came down to her.
"Don't ye shoot me, Jane Wolfe!" half laughing, half afraid. "Heh! Don't ye shoot me, Jane Wolfe!"
"Ef it hain't Grandpap Bill Singleton, the Prophet!" Granny Wolfe cried, greatly relieved. "Why, Bill, 'at's jest the way you used to call me down to the big beech on the creek when you and me was both young and frolicsome, ain't it? My pap he didn't like it fo' you to come to see me, ye'll rickollect! Now I might ha' knowed, dang the luck, what it was when I fust heerd it!"
She went on soberly, "Now what'n the name o' goodness do ye want to see me about, Bill? You shorely hain't a-courtin'!"
"Heh! No, not a-courtin'," he said.