e frien' of her brother, Kunnel Tom
Buckner. An' I'se 'spec' Kunnel Tom an' Marse Prent McMakin would o'
settle' HIM ef dey evah had o' cotched him--dat dar David Ahmstrong!"

"Who?" says I.

"David Ahmstrong was his entitlement," says George, "an' he been gwine
to de same college as Marse Tom Buckner, up no'th somewhah. Dat's
how-come he been visitin' Marse Tom des befoh de weddin' trouble done
settle HIT se'f dat-away."

Well, it give me quite a turn to run onto the mention of that there
David Armstrong agin in this part of the country. Here he had been
jilting Miss Hampton way up in Indiany, and running away with another
girl down here in Tennessee. Then it struck me mebby it is jest
different parts of the same story I been hearing of, and Martha had got
her part a little wrong.

"George," I says, "what did you say Miss Lucy Buckner's gran-dad's name
was?"

"Kunnel Hampton--des de same as MY Miss Lucy befo' SHE done ma'hied
Marse Willyum."

That made me sure of it. It was the same woman. She had run away with
David Armstrong from this here same neighbourhood. Then after he got
her up North he had left her--or her left him. And then she wasn't
Miss Buckner no longer. And she was mad and wouldn't call herself Mrs.
Armstrong. So she moved away from where any one was lible to trace her
to, and took her mother's maiden name, which was Hampton.

"Well," I says, "what ever become of 'em after they run off, George?"

But George has told about all he knows. They went North, according to
what everybody thinks, he says. Prent McMakin, he follered and hunted.
And Col. Tom Buckner, he done the same. Fur about a year Colonel Tom,
he was always making trips away from there to the North. But whether he
ever got any track of his sister and that David Armstrong nobody knowed.
Nobody never asked him. Old Colonel Hampton, he grieved and he grieved,
and not long after the runaway he up and died. And Tom Buckner, he
finally sold all he owned in that part of the country and moved further
south. George said he didn't rightly know whether it was Alabama or
Florida. Or it might of been Georgia.

I thinks to myself that mebby Mrs. Davis would like to know where her
niece is, and that I better tell her about Miss Hampton being in that
there little Indiany town, and where it is. And then I thinks to myself
I better not butt in. Fur Miss Hampton has likely got her own reasons
fur keeping away from her folks, or else she wouldn't do it.