Birt Dicey rose suddenly and walked away silently into the dense,
dark woods.
"Stop, Tennessee! ye can't go too!" exclaimed Mrs. Dicey, appearing
in the doorway just in time to intercept the juvenile excursionist.
"Ketch her, Rufus! Ef she wouldn't hev followed Birt right off in
the pitch dark! She ain't afeared o' nothin' when Birt is thar.
Git that pomegranate she hed an' gin it ter her ter keep her from
hollerin', Rufe; I hed a sight ruther hear the squeech-owEL."
Tennessee, overpowered by disappointment, sobbed herself to sleep
upon the floor, and then ensued an interval of quiet. Rufe, a
towheaded boy of ten, dressed in an unbleached cotton shirt and
blue-checked homespun trousers, concluded that this moment was the
accepted time to count the balls in his brother's shot-pouch. This
he proceeded to do, with the aid of the sullen glare from the embers
within and the fluctuating gleams of the lightning without. There
was no pretense of utility in Rufe's performance; only the love of
handling lead could explain it.
"Ye hed better mind," his mother admonished him. "Birt war powerful
tried the t'other day ter think what hed gone with his bullets.
He'll nose ye out afore long."
"They hev got sech a fool way o' slippin' through the chinks in the
floor," said the boy in exasperation. "I never seen the beat! An'
thar's no gittin' them out, nuther. I snaked under the house
yestiddy an' sarched, an' sarched!--an' I never fund but two.
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