And when he had finished they would
look significantly at one another, and chuckle incredulously.
The tanner seemed to earnestly wish to befriend him, and urged him
to confess. "The truth's the only thing ez kin save ye, Birt."
"I'm tellin' the truth," poor Birt would declare.
Then Jube Perkins argued the question: "How kin ye expec' ennybody
ter b'lieve ye when ye say Tennessee purvented ye from takin' the
grant--ennything the size o' leetle Tennie, thar."
And he pointed at the little sister, who was perched upon the wood-
pile munching an Indian peach.
Somehow Birt did not accurately define the moral force which she had
wielded, for he was untaught, and clumsy of speech, and could not
translate his feelings. And Jube Perkins was hardly fitted to
understand that subtle coercion of affection.
When he found that Birt would only reiterate that Tennie "kem along
unbeknown an' purvented" him, Jube Perkins gave up the effort at
last, convinced of his guilt.
And Andy Byers said that he was not surprised, for he had known for
some little time that Birt was a "most MISCHIEVIOUS scamp."
Only his mother believed in him, requiting his lack of confidence in
her with a fervor of faith in him that, while it consoled,
nevertheless cut him to the heart. It has been many years since
then, for all this happened along in the fifties, but Birt has never
forgotten how staunchly she upheld him in every thought when all the
circumstances belied him.
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