gittin 'at the
victuals, I reckon I'll do as I would be done by."

So he began to eat, and soon he heard a female voice, very close by,
sound down the stairs, as if reciting to another person.

"Aunt Patty says Aunt Betty's first husband, Captain Twiford, was a
sea-captain and a widower, and she was one of the beautiful Hanley
girls, brought up by old Ebenezer Johnson at his house across on Broad
Creek; and there Captain Twiford courted her, and brought her here to
live. He died early--all my aunties' husbands died early--and is buried
in the vault out here behind the pound, where you can go in and see him
in his shroud, lying by Aunt Betty. Her next husband, John Gillis, left
her, and then she lived with William Russell, a negro-trader. Aunt Patty
governed all her sisters and the Johnson boys, too. Oh, how I fear her
when she looks at me sometimes with her bold, black eyes: I can't help
it."

Another voice, not a woman's, yet almost as gentle, now seemed to ask a
question; but the cat-bird, behaving like a detective and a tale-bearer,
made such a furious screaming at seeing a stranger drinking the milk,
that Phoebus could not hear it well. The pleasant female voice spoke
again:

"Yes, he was killed in the room under this, before I was born, Aunt
Patty says; and sometimes she likes to tell such dark and bloody tales,
and laughs with joy to see me frightened at them. Aunt Betty got in
debt, and this house and farm were sold under executions and bought by a
Maryland man, who stole an opportunity when the men were away, and set
his goods in the house and set Aunt Betty's goods outside upon the lawn.
It's only a mile, or a little more, from here to Ebenezer Johnson's, and
the news of the seizure was sent there."

Jimmy tore off a piece of chicken with his teeth, listening voraciously.

"Did you hear anything?" continued the voice; "I thought I did. The dogs
are chained up in the smoke-house, and bad people are often coming here;
I will go turn the dogs loose."

"Be dogged if you do!" Jimmy reflected. "That's the meanest cat-bird
ever I see, fur now it's shut up a-purpose."

There sounded something familiar to the uninvited guest in the voice
which seemed to delay this intention; but the cat-bird, with his
unaccommodating mood, broke right in again. Then the female continued:

"While the men--who had come armed, expecting trouble--were removing
Aunt Betty's goods out of the room, throwing many of them out of the