more, but
I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over
there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I
says to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over there; anyway,
says I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain't seen
any smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he's gone, if it was him; but
husband's going over to see--him and another man. He was gone up the
river; but he got back to-day, and I told him as soon as he got here
two hours ago."

I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with
my hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading
it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman
stopped talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious
and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to
be interested--and I was, too--and says:

"Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get
it. Is your husband going over there to-night?"

"Oh, yes. He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to get a
boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They'll go over after
midnight."

"Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime?"

"Yes. And couldn't the nigger see better, too? After midnight he'll
likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt
up his campfire all the better for the dark, if he's got one."

"I didn't think of that."

The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit
comfortable. Pretty soon she says:

"What did you say your name was, honey?"

"M--Mary Williams."

Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I
didn't look up--seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of
cornered, and was afeard maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the
woman would say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier
I was. But now she says:

"Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?"

"Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some
calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."

"Oh, that's the way of it?"

"Yes'm."

I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I
couldn't look up yet.

Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor
they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the
place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was
right a