"The old lady is some mad," apologized Mr. Doggett, "though a body couldn't scurcely blame her, considerin'. I wuz myse'f ondoubtedly skeered: hit sorter wilted me down. But, sence hit wuzn't nothin', I don't see no use in takin' hit to heart. Hit makes a feller feel powerful good to thenk thar hain't no night riders over here, though. A body has a heap to be thankful fer, now, don't they?"

"I declar!" said Mr. Doggett, that afternoon, "I thenk I'll go a feeshin' this evenin': I believe I'll jest step down to the creek thar, and try to pull me out a sucker! I've been feelin' so unnarved sence this mornin' I hain't done no good at plowin'. Bein' pestered p'intedly will cut a feller down!"

"Yes, hit will," agreed Mrs. Doggett, "but I've got to hunt my old gray turkey hin, I can't holp how bad I feel. She's plumb gone off, the pesky theng! She's got hit in her mind not to lemme know whar she lays. You jest keep one eye on the house while I'm gone, will you?"

Miss Nancy James' largest yellow turkey hen, suffering from the same mental aberration as the gray hen of Mrs. Doggett, held to her determination to withhold a knowledge of the vicinity of her nest from her mistress, with a tenacity worthy of a better cause: thus it happened that Mrs. Doggett and Miss Nancy, in their search for their feathered properties, met in the Castle pasture field, back of the Doggett house.

"Actually and candidly, thar's more torment than profit in turkey raisin', hain't thar?" Mrs. Doggett mopped her warm face with her checked ap.r.o.n, and sank down beside Miss Nancy on the log which lay in convenient nearness to the spot of their meeting. "I believe I'll jest quit the turkeys and raise mostly chickens. Miss Nancy, do you reckon you could swap me some settin's o' hin aigs,--some your black 'Nockers?

My aigs is good as any to sell, but Eph says I've kept my chickens so long without no change of blood, they've got to be jest pincushions trimmed in feathers, with darnin' needles stuck in 'em fer legs,--no chickens at all!"

Miss Nancy, who was wearing an unusual expression of satisfaction, fanned herself with her faded sun-bonnet, and remarked that she would have plenty of eggs by the end of the week. Mrs. Doggett made a surrept.i.tious four seconds study of Miss Nancy's contented countenance.

"Mr. Lindsay," she remarked at the expiration of her scrutiny, "he's tuck his thengs away from your house."

"Yes, he has," said Miss Nancy in a noncommittal tone as she turned her head away from Mrs. Doggett and jabbed with the dead iron-weed stalk she had in her hand at an unoffending chickweed by her ragged shoe.

"He talked like he'd been treated outdacious mean by you all!"

Miss Nancy's face was still averted, but her ears turned crimson.

"I dunno what we've done to him!" she exclaimed.

"Well, he's a talkin' awful about you and your Pa anyway. He tuck you and him both up last night, and throwed off on you scandalous. I said to myse'f when he wuz a rantin', 'pore Miss Nancy, he hates her, the Lord goodness!' He jest called you ever'theng his tongue could lay to. Says you are a reg'lar rip-tearer, and fer all your pa jest sets and studies up meanness, he can't turn a wheel to you, when you git on one them highs o' your'n. He said ef your Ma'd 'a' saw fit to send you to the ejut-house when you wuz a child, and 'a' never 'a' brung you away 'tel you wuz a corpse, the world would 'a' had a little somethin' to be thankful fer in his opinion.

"I spoke up and says: 'Mr. Lindsay, you know you don't mean them thengs!

And he went on and said: 'Miss Lucy is as harmless as a rabbit, and she's got the disposition of a forgivin' angel, but that old Nancy is as bitter as quineirn and as ill as a copperhead! She's the devil's half-sister, ef not more nigh kin.'

"And he said you jest staid thar all the time, a reg'lar c.o.c.k o' the walk, and quarreled at Miss Lucy, and she had to mind you er you'd take the place! And he said Miss Lucy'd fattened ever' little n.i.g.g.e.r in town, tryin' to git a boy to stay to do your all's turns, and the reason none wouldn't stay, you made the time so hot fer 'em, they couldn't stand hit!

"And when I wuz a wonderin' how many more mean thengs he wuz goin' to say, he lit in on your _looks_."

Here there was a complete annihilation of the unoffending chickweed.

"He 'lowed," manufactured Mrs. Doggett, "that you wuz as ugly as the devil before day, and as old-lookin' as I dunno what: said fer all you wore big leather gloves night and day, your hands wuz as yaller as old bacon rind, and your mouth looked like a hollyhock, and your eyes like they wuz bound 'round with red thread!

"I says, 'Mr. Lindsay, I'd hush!' But he went on: 'She's the tightest human too, I ever knowed,--one o' them that'd skin a flea fer hit's hide and taller, and then dry the meat fer the dogs!' Said he happened in at your Pa's once when he wuz a workin' at Mr. Willises, and you had that little fool n.i.g.g.e.r Lish down on the kitchen floor, a lickin' up a little gob o' mola.s.ses he'd spilt, to save it!"

"I never thought of sech a theng!" Miss Nancy burst out.

"Well, that's _his_ tale," pacified Mrs. Doggett: "I know'd hit hadn't no acquaintance with the truth, but I'm jest a tellin' you. He said Miss Lucy'd put out nice bought Gran'pa tair soap fer him to wash his hands with, and you'd hide hit away, and put out a spoonful er two o' lye soap on a saucer."

Miss Nancy's face was furiously flushed, and her eyes gleamed steely.

"Did he tell any more lies on me?" she demanded, when Mrs. Doggett paused for breath.

"He said you bought a gobbler last year," went on her informer, in glib prevarication, "from Miss Maude Floss, on condition ef anytheng happened to her t'other one, you'd sell hit back to her, and hern died, and when you let her have hit back, you charged her three cents a week fer all the time you'd had hit, fer _turkey pasture_.

"And he said after all he'd done fer you all, last winter, when he come back on a friendly visit, he wuz ordered off the place. Then he lit out on your Pa, and I never heerd the like in my life.

"'Old Milton Jeemes,' he says, 'sets up to the world to be mighty religious, but he hain't got no Christianity, jest hypocrites before company. He's about as contrary and overbearin' as people gits to be in this world, a hard old party, a kind of a dog-man.'

"'He's a bloomin' fer h.e.l.l,' he says, 'and h.e.l.l's a gittin' ready fer him right _now_!'

"I says, 'Mr. Lindsay, somethin'll be sent on you fer that, and don't you fergit hit!' And I thought to myse'f ef I hated anybody like that, I'd have more respect'n to be a tryin' to talk to their daughter!"

"Now wouldn't you?" fleered Miss Nancy: "wouldn't you?"

"And talkin' about the brazen impudence o' men, he said: 'Ef I wuz to take a notion to Miss Lucy, they wouldn't be nothin' in my way thar--the old man couldn't keep her from havin' me--but I hain't tuck the notion yit. As fer old Nance--'" Mrs. Doggett had reached the climax of her narration, "'she'd jump at the chance o' me! Jest see how she does that old bachelor cousin of Archy Evans that lives there. He comes to see old man Jeemes sometimes, and you ort to see her fly about in her Sunday dress, a sayin', "Now Mr. Whitley," jest as fine as a bird twitterin'.

She thenks he's got money.'"

Miss Nancy could endure no more.

"I've got to go!" she announced in a freezing voice, as she stalked off, leaving all farewells unsaid.

Mrs. Doggett looked after her with a pleased expression.

"Ef ever Miss Lucy Jeemes gits sight o' Mr. Lindsay ag'in," she said happily to herself, "hit'll be when Miss Nancy is a corpse, not before!"

CHAPTER XI

"MORE NIGHT RIDERS"

"Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous."

One afternoon in the last week of March, Mr. Doggett came into his yard with six mysterious envelopes in his hand. Mrs. Doggett pounced curiously upon them.

"Diamont dyes! What you gona color with all them, Eph? You must be a thenkin' o' startin' up one them dyin' fact'rys!"

Mr. Doggett grinned. "Them's Mr. Castle's pertection ag'in night riders, Ann! He had the laugh on me when the boys skeered me, week afore last, and now I got the laugh on him a leetle. He says, 'Doggett, hit looks so bad, them beeg white beds a layin' right thar alongside the road. Ef they wuz colored now, they wouldn't show nigh so plain!'

"He 'lowed too, he didn't no ways expect no night riders in this County, on account o' this not bein' a regular terbaccer County, and the Equity not havin' tuck much holt here, but he'd feel safeter, ef them canvases wuz dyed! Yes, sir, old lady, he's skeered some. Hit tickled me to hear him talk, and I brung the dye along to please him, although I hain't no notion thar's any need o' usin' hit.

"Thar hain't no doubt about hit, though, a good many them Independent raisers that's refused to sign the agreement not to raise no terbaccer this year, _is_ a havin' their plant beds tore up and some their barns burnt. Thar's a heap in the papers about hit, hain't thar, Mr. Lindsay?"

Mr. Doggett appealed to Mr. Lindsay who had just come in.

Mr. Lindsay nodded. "I jest got a letter from my cousin over in Woodford, tellin' about the night ridin' there. She says the people there thenks the terbaccer trust is hirin' a good many tough fellers to burn barns,--and a layin' hit on the Equity, a tryin' to destroy the Equity's credit. He says the people think the trust men actually destroyed some of their own ware-houses, jest to discredit the Equity."

"Yes, sir," Mr. Doggett agreed, "and a heap o' the mischeef is a bein'

done by mean fellers that sees a chance to git in some spite work on other fellers they are enemies to, without bein' cotched up with, like hit wuz in time o' the war, when a heap o' devilment they never thought o' doin', wuz laid on the soldiers! Hain't that so, Mr. Lindsay? You remember them times, don't you?"

Mr. Lindsay signified that he did.

"Mr. Brock says that he don't believe they're a goin' to tech this County," broke in Mrs. Doggett: "he says ef they do though, they'll have to whoop him about three times a day before he'll quit! And, speakin' o'

angels,"--a look of intense pleasure enveloped Mrs. Doggett: "thar comes Mr. Brock, now. And what's he fetchin'? Hit's a newspaper, hain't hit, Eph?"