as goin' to come along an' kill us both!"

"Sho! Sar' Ann," said her husband, with superiority. "It ain't time for
the train yit--leastwise I don't think it is." He looked about uneasily.

"That's all right, Jim Bowles. One of them ingines might come 'long most
any time. It might creep up behine you, then, biff! Thah's Jim Bowles!
Whut use is the railroad, I'd like to know? I wouldn't be caught a
climbin' in one o' them thar kyars, not for big money. Supposin' it run
off the track?"

"Oh, well, now," said her husband, "maybe it don't, always."

"But supposin' it _did_?" The front of the telescope turned toward him
suddenly, and so burning was the focus this time that Mr. Bowles shifted
his seat, and took refuge upon another board at the other end of the
board-pile, out of range.

"Whut made you vote for this yere railroad?" said Sarah Ann, following
him mercilessly with the bonnet tube. "We didn't want no railroad. We
never did have one, and we never ought to a-had one. You listen to me;
that railroad is goin' to ruin this country. Th' ain't a woman in these
yeah bottoms but would be skeered to have a baby grow up in her house.
Supposin' you got a baby; nice little baby, never did harm no one. You
a-cookin' or somethin'--out to the smoke-house, like enough; baby alone
for about two minutes. Baby crawls out on to the railroad track. Along
comes the ingine, an' biff! Thah's baby!" Mrs. Bowles shed tears at this
picture which she had conjured up, and even her less imaginative consort
became visibly affected, so that for a moment he half-straightened up.

"Well, I dunno," said he, vaguely, and sighed softly; all of which
irritated Mrs. Bowles to such an extent that she flounced suddenly
around to get a better gaze upon her master. In this movement, her foot
struck the pail of milk which had been sitting near, and overturned it.

"Jinny," she called out, "you, Jinny!"

"Yassam," replied Jinny, from some place on the gallery.

"Come here," said Mrs. Bowles. "Git me another pail o' melk. I done
spilled this one."

"Yassam," replied Jinny, and presently returned with the refilled
vessel.

"Well, anyway," said Jim Bowles at length, rising and standing with
hands in pockets, inside the edge of the shade line of the evergreens,
"I heard that there was a man came down through yere a few days ago. He
was sort of taking count of the critters that done got killed by the
railroad kyahs."

"That so?" said Sarah Ann, somewh