"It's worth a quarter
to see Satan play his pranks."
A turn in the road, and there was a river, narrow, deep and as blue as
the sky. Wild spice bushes, shedding a sweet perfume, grew upon the
steep banks, and far below they saw a black bass leap to gulp a mouthful
of the sun. The hills stretched away, purple, blue, green; and through
the air shot a red bird, lightening from a cloud of flowers. A gaudy,
wild dragon, zouave-arrayed, stood guard over a violet nodding beside a
rock, and the milk-maidish white clover trembled in fear of the
lust-looking strawberry. Bold upon a high rock, with a fish in his claw,
sat a defiant eagle, and straight down the river flew a sand-hill
crane, like a fragment of gray mist.
They met a young fellow, carrying a tea-cup in his hand, with hair that
looked like hackled flax and with a grin that invited the confidence of
all mankind. It was Mose Blake, known to neighborhood fame as the
stutterer. He halted and attempted to say something, but Kintchin drove
on, muttering that he had no time for words that a fellow chewed all to
pieces.
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