"Hello!" says Bills, through the dark, "you're there, too, air
ye?" as old Ezry splashed up the bank agin. And "Cuss you!" he says
then, to the baby--"ef it hadn't be'n far your infernal squawkin' I'd
a-be'n all right; but you've brought the whole neighberhood out, and,
dam you, I'll jist let you swim out to 'em!" And we heerd a splash,
then a kind o' gurglin', and then Steve's voice a-hollerin', "Close in
on him, boys; I've got the baby!" And about a dozend of us bobbed off
the bank like so many bull-frogs, and I'll tell you the worter b'iled!
We could jist make out the shape o' the boat, and Bills a-standin'
with a' oar drawed back to smash the first head 'at come in range. It
was a mean place to git at him. We knowed he was despert, and far a
minute we kind o' helt back. Fifteen foot o' worter 's a mighty
onhandy place to git hit over the head in! And Bills says, "You hain't
afeard, I reckon--twenty men agin one!" "You'd better give your se'f
up!" hollered Ezry from the shore. "No, Brother Sturgiss," says Bills,
"I can't say 'at I'm at all anxious 'bout bein' borned agin, jist yit
awhile," he says; "I see you kind o' 'pear to go in far babtism; guess
you'd better go home and git some dry clothes on; and, speakin' o'
home, you'd ort 'o be there by all means--your house might catch afire
and burn up while you're gone!" And jist then the boat give a suddent
shove under him--some feller'd div under and tilted it--and far a
minute it throwed him off his guard and the boys closed in.
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