plenty while you're
a-gittin' says I. I could see, you know, they was a powerful sight of
money in Congress land. That's what made me say, 'Git a plenty while
you're a-gittin'.' And Jack, he's wuth lots and gobs of money, all made
out of Congress land. Jack didn't git rich by hard work. Bless you, no!
Not him. That a'n't his way. Hard work a'n't, you know. 'Twas that air
six hundred dollars he got along of me, all salted down into Flat Crick
bottoms at a dollar and a quarter a' acre, and 'twas my sayin' 'Git a
plenty while you're a gittin'' as done it." And here the old ogre
laughed, or grinned horribly, at Ralph, showing her few straggling,
discolored teeth.

Then she got up and knocked the ashes out of her pipe, and laid the pipe
away and walked round In front of Ralph. After adjusting the chunks[13]
so that the fire would burn, she turned her yellow face toward Ralph,
and scanning him closely came out with the climax of her speech in the
remark: "You see as how, Mr. Hartsook, the man what gits my Mirandy'll
do well. Flat Crick land's wuth nigt upon a hundred a' acre."

This gentle hint came near knocking Ralph down. Had Flat Creek land been
worth a hundred times a hundred dollars an acre, and had he owned five
hundred times Means's five hundred acres, he would have given it all
just at that moment to have annihilated the whole tribe of Meanses.
Except Bud. Bud was a giant, but a good-natured one. He thought he would
except Bud from the general destruction. As for the rest, he mentally
pictured to himself the pleasure of attending their funerals. There was
one thought, however, between him and despair. He felt confident that
the cordiality, the intensity, and the persistency of his dislike of Sis
Means were such that he should never inherit a foot of the Flat Creek
bottoms.

But what about Bud? What if he joined the conspiracy to marry him to
this weak-eyed, weak-headed wood-nymph, or backwoods nymph?

If Ralph felt it a misfortune to be loved by Mirandy Means, he found
himself almost equally unfortunate in having incurred the hatred of the
meanest boy in school. "Hank" Banta, low-browed, smirky, and crafty, was
the first sufferer by Ralph's determination to use corporal punishment,
and so Henry Banta, who was a compound of deceit and resentment, never
lost an opportunity to annoy the young school-master, who was obliged to
live perpetually on his guard against his tricks.

One morning, as Ralph walked toward the