eek bank just then, she was too much
interested in the barbecue to care very much for "Marse Fofer July."

The children all had their fishing-lines and hooks, and as soon as they
were on the ground started to find a good place to fish. Dilsey got some
bait from the negro boys, and baited the hooks; and it was a comical
sight to see all of the children, white and black, perched upon the
roots of trees or seated flat on the ground, watching intently their
hooks, which they kept bobbing up and down so fast that the fish must
have been very quick indeed to catch them.

They soon wearied of such dull sport, and began to set their wits to
work to know what to do next.

"Le's go 'possum-huntin'," suggested Dilsey.

"There ain't any 'possums in the daytime," said Diddie.

"Yes dey is, Miss Diddie, lots uv 'em; folks jes goes at night fur ter
save time. I knows how ter hunt fur 'possums; I kin tree 'em jes same ez
er dog."

And the children, delighted at the novelty of the thing, all started off
"'possum-hunting," for Mammy was helping unpack the dinner-baskets, and
was not watching them just then. They wandered off some distance,
climbing over logs and falling into mud-puddles, for they all had their
heads thrown back and their faces turned up to the trees, looking for
the 'possums, and thereby missed seeing the impediments in the way.

At length Dilsey called out, "Hyear he is! Hyear de 'possum!" and they
all came to a dead halt under a large oak-tree, which Dilsey and Chris,
and even Diddie and Dumps, I regret to say, prepared to climb. But the
climbing consisted mostly in active and fruitless endeavors to make a
start, for Dilsey was the only one of the party who got as much as three
feet from the ground; but _she_ actually did climb up until she reached
the first limb, and then crawled along it until she got near enough to
shake off the 'possum, which proved to be a big chunk of wood that had
lodged up there from a falling branch, probably; and when Dilsey shook
the limb it fell down right upon Riar's upturned face, and made her nose
bleed.

"Wat you doin', you nigger you?" demanded Riar, angrily, as she wiped
the blood from her face. "I dar' yer ter come down out'n dat tree, an'
I'll beat de life out'n yer; I'll larn yer who ter be shakin' chunks
on."

"In vain did Dilsey apologize, and say she thought it was a "'possum;"
Riar would listen to no excuse; and as soon as Dilsey reached the ground
they had a rough-a