"When I come down stairs ag'in I says, 'Miss Nancy, you needn't 'a' been skeered about Miss Lucy,--you don't thenk I'd eat her ef I happened to ketch her by herse'f, do you?'"

"Now, Mr. Lindsay," put in Mr. Doggett, "maybe 'tain't so much meanness in the old man as you thenk. He hain't the worst man in the world when all's said: I thenk he's got some mighty clever streaks."

"I fail to see 'em," said Mrs. Doggett.

"Well, yes, old lady, but' he's suffered a heap, and maybe his mind hain't exactly all thar!"

"Naw you needn't tell me that old creeter's anytheng but mean!" Mrs.

Doggett's voice was a snort of apparent jeering disbelief. "Old age and disease hain't got nothin' to do with hit. That old man's inbred mean!"

"I wonder what's the matter with Miss Nancy?" Dock ventured, raising his tousled head off the bed.

"I jest tell you, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Doggett observed in a whisper to Mr.

Lindsay, "hit's jest as plain as the nose on a man's face, when all's considered: Miss Nancy wuz a hankerin' to be Mrs. Lindsay--she wanted you herse'f!"

CHAPTER X

"NIGHT RIDERS"

"A jest and by-word are they grown."

"O Ma! Come here, Ma, quick!"

It was Monday morning, and this peremptory summons for Mrs. Doggett came from the direction of the tobacco barn, in Joey's voice, hoa.r.s.e and unnatural. Mrs. Doggett's hands were in the bread-tray, but she tore the dough from her fingers, and heedless of the milk pitcher that crashed to the floor under the impetus of her rush, ran at top speed in the direction of the call.

"Lord, I jest know some of 'em's killed plumb dead!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed as she ran. "I didn't have bad dreams last night fer nothin'! I been a lookin' fer them tier-poles to fall on some of 'em at feedin' time! I told 'em a terbaccer barn wasn't no fitten place to stable hosses! They ort to 'a' kept 'em a while longer in that old piece o' barn out here, ef hit did leak!"

Mrs. Doggett was suffering from a corn, which necessitated the use of a carpet slipper. When she reached the middle of the plowed field, her slipper came off, throwing her violently. She rose groaning, and with her mouth full of dirt, but continued her run with unaccelerated speed.

"What is the matter, Joey? Who's killed?"

Mrs. Doggett's throat was dry with apprehension and fear when she reached the barn, but she managed to gasp out the question.

"Hain't n.o.body hurt, Ann." Mr. Doggett, pale and dazed, sitting flat on the dirt floor inside the barn, his back to one of its pillars, answered her in a voice that was weak and faint. "I bagged Joey not to holler and skeer you, but he would do hit!"

"Thar's what's the matter, Ma!" Joey, ashy white under his tan, pointed to the wagon. On the side board was tacked a great sheet of white wrapping paper covered with writing in big red letters. Against one of the rear wheels leaned an enormous bundle of ten-foot switches, newly cut from osage orange trees,--the wicked thorns left on, and the whole bound with a piece of white cotton rope, ravelled at its end, and saturated with blood.

From the switches dangled a big bunch of matches, and a necklace made of a twine string and two dozen loaded cartridges of thirty-eight caliber.

Mrs. Doggett looked at these menacing articles in amazement.

"Whar'd that blood come from?" she gaped, "and who put them thengs thar?"

"Don't ast me ner Joey who put 'em thar," Mr. Doggett answered her, "all we know is they're _thar_! When I fust come in, I ketched sight o' them hedge switches, and them matches and ca'tridges layin' ag'in the waggin.

I says, 'Joey, come here!' Joey, he tuck up the paper and I seed a change come over him. He turned pale and says, 'Pap, they're a gona git you!'"

"Hit's got 'Night Riders' signed to hit," Joey informed his mother, pointing to the big printed words that adorned the lower part of the paper. "And hit means they're a gona whoop Pap in a inch o' his life fer a startin' to raise a terbaccer crop this year,--and ef a whoopin' don't stop him, they're a gona tear up his waggin' and plows, and then burn up the house! And ef he hain't burnt up, they're a gona shoot him!"

"Man alive! You know that hain't so, Joey!" Mrs. Doggett's face would have served for a model of unbelieving horror.

"Jes' read the paper and see what hit says!" Joey spoke in the tone of the convinced.

Mrs. Doggett took a reluctant hold of the paper of warning. "You read hit, Joey. I hain't got my specs."

Joey obeyed.

"Ephriam Doggett," the paper read, "you are hearbye notifide not to plant, grow or cut a crop of tobaco this year, 1908. If you do not obey this notification, you will be ferst, whipt,--then if this does not convinse you, your tools and farming impliments will be destroide: then your dwelling will be burnt even with the grounde, and last, you will be riddeled with bullits. In proof of your willingness to abide by these orders, you will have your plant beds destroid by yourse'f or somebody under your directions before our next vissit, which will be soone.

"NIGHT RIDERS."

"Holy Powers!" quavered Mrs. Doggett. "Eph, I told you, you wuz a takin'

too much resk a puttin' out them plant beds! I felt like you wouldn't be 'lowed to raise no terbaccer!"

"Why, Ann," Mr. Doggett remonstrated, "I didn't 'low thar'd be no night ridin' across the River, away over here in the aidge o' the Burley, you might call hit! Anyway, wouldn't hit be better fer a feller to have his beds sowed and ready, ef he did git to raise a crop, than not to have no plants ready?"

"I guess you won't throw off no more now on the Texas kin fer writin'

all skeered up fer fear somepin'd be done to you!" Mrs. Doggett, when fiercely moved, always maligned Mr. Doggett.

"Eph, you wuz the very gentleman that said Uncle Josh had been a readin'

the papers, and a swallerin' all that wuz in 'em, like a duck a swallerin' down dough!"

"Well, a body wouldn't 'a' never thought hit!" Mr. Doggett rose weakly, as unsteady on his feet, as a day old calf, and rubbed his forehead.

"We'd jest as well as go on and feed the hosses, Joey. Big Money's been a nickerin' fer his breakfast fer an hour, and I'll need him to go to town and see what Mr. Castle says. Mr. Castle told me a while back I needn't to plant no terbaccer: he wuz afeerd I wouldn't git to raise hit, and I ort to 'a' listened."

At this moment there were four bursts of laughter from the roof of the barn. The three on the floor looked up to see j.a.ppy and Marshall, who had not come home the evening before,--Dock, who was supposed to be yet in bed, and Bunch Trisler, sitting in acrobatic fashion across the tier poles, in a high state of glee.

"Pap, who's a gona git you?" called out Dock, giving vent to a howl that endangered the safety of his position.

"'Some people swaller down ever' theng they see on a paper, like a duck does dough,'" quoted Marshall, facetiously, as the four clambered down from their perch. "We 'lowed they would when we fixed up that notus."

Mr. Doggett and Joey grinned feebly as the perpetrators of the joke, still laughing, swung themselves to the ground. But Mrs. Doggett was full of reproach.

"Whar'd that blood come from, I'd like to know?" she asked angrily.

"That's my old Dominecker hin's blood, Ma," Dock informed her. "Me and Bunch jeet killed her about a hour ago."

Mrs. Doggett turned on Bunch. "You're a nice un, Bunch Trisler," she inveighed. "You, a married man, with chillern, a puttin' up them boys to play off sech a caper on their parents! Here I am, wore to a plumb frazzle, a pullin' through that plowed ground, a runnin', thenkin' Eph, er one the boys, wuz sh.o.r.e killed! You outdacious scamp, somepin will be sent on you fer that!"

"Don't be too hard on the boys, Ann," interposed Mr. Doggett, who had partially regained his spirits: "they didn't mean no great harm,--jest wanted to have a leetle fun, you might say."

"Fun!" mimicked Mrs. Doggett. "I don't see no fun in no sich jokes, Eph Doggett, ner n.o.body else would, with a quarter of a pint o' brains! A little taste o' jail boardin'd improve the quality o' the little spoonful you've got in your head, Bunch Trisler! Your recollection sh.o.r.ely hain't good, er you'd remember about Jake Wilson a bein' give nine months in jail fer playin' a night rider joke, er two, in _this_ County!"

"But, Ma," argued Dock, "this hain't like sendin' letters through the Nuniter State's mail! And Jake wouldn't a never been done nothin' to, ef he hadn't 'a' writ that letter fer that feller that 'tended like he couldn't write,--that thar Gover'ment 'Tecter that wuz out a runnin'

down the feller that sent them night rider letters to the big men. This hain't no sendin' through the mail!"

"Hit's the same principle anyhow!" Mrs. Doggett contended, as she started off, her progress somewhat impeded by the lack of one shoe, "and hit ort to be paid with some them bread and water rations I've heerd they have at the jail-houses! Joey and Eph can come to the house d'reckly, when I ring the bell fer breakfas', but as fer the rest of you, you c'n fill up on matches and ca'tridges and hedge tree bark fer all I keer! Thar'll be nothin' on _my_ table for you!"