, where he might
spit freely.

"I reckon you'd rather drop a word with yo' missus before you toted him
home?" suggested Yancy, who knew something of the nature of his friend's
domestic thraldom.

"A woman ought to be boss in her own house," said Crenshaw.

"Feelin' the truth of that, I've never married, Mr. John; I do as I
please and don't have to listen to a passel of opinion. But I was going
to say, what's to hinder me from toting that boy to my home? There are
no calico petticoats hanging up in my closets."

"And no closets to hang 'em in, I'll be bound!" rejoined Crenshaw. "But
if you'll take the boy, Bob, you shan't lose by it."

Yancy rested a big knotted hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Come, wake up, sonny! Yo' Uncle Bob is ready fo' to strike out home,"
he said. The child roused with a start and stared into the strange
bearded face that was bent toward him. "It's yo' Uncle Bob," continued
Yancy in a wheedling tone. "Are you the little nevvy what will help him
to hook up that old blind mule of hisn? Here, give us the spo'tin' rifle
to tote!"

"Please, sir, where is Aunt Alsidia?" asked the child.

Yancy balanced the rifle on his great palm and his eyes assumed a
speculative cast.

"I wonder what's to hinder us from loading this old gun, and firing this
old gun, and hearing this old gun go-bang! Eh?"

The child's blue eyes grew wide.

"Like the guns off in the woods?" he asked, in a breathless whisper.

"Like the guns a body hears off in the woods, only louder--heaps
louder," said Yancy. "You fetch out his plunder, Mr. John," he added in
a lower tone.

"Do it now, please," the child cried, slipping off the bench.

"I was expectin' fo' to hear you name me Uncle Bob, sonny; my little
nevvies get almost anything they want out of me when they call me
that-a-ways."

"Please, Uncle Bob, make it go bang!"

"You come along, then," and Mr. Yancy moved off in the direction of his
mule, the child following. "Powder's what we want fo' to make this old
spo'tin' rifle talk up, and I reckon we'll find some in a horn flask
in the bottom of my cart." His expectations in this particular were
realized, and he loaded the rifle with a small blank charge. "Now," he
said, shaking the powder into the pan by a succession of smart taps on
the breech, "sometimes these old pieces go off and sometimes they don't;
it depends on the flint, but you stand back of your Uncle Bob, sonny,
and keep yo' fingers out of yo' ears, and