Dyce rose, knocked the ashes out of her pipe, and stood like a dusky image of an Ethiopian Bellona.

“Drat your servigerous tongue!  Now the fat’s in the fire, to be sho!  Ever since I tuck you for better for wuss, I have been trying to larn you ’screshun! and I might as well ’a wasted my time picking a banjo for a dead jackass tu dance by; for you have got no more ’screshun than old Eve had, in confabulating with the old adversary!  Why couldn’t you temperlize?  Sassing that white ’oman, is a aggervating mistake.”

Under ordinary circumstances, Bedney and Dyce prided themselves on the purity of their diction, and they usually abstained from plantation dialect; but when embarrassed, frightened or excited, they invariably relapsed into the lingo of the “Quarters.”

“Hush!  What’s that?  A screech owull!  Bedney, turn your pocket.”

With marvellous swiftness she plunged her hand into her dress pocket, and turned it wrong side out, scattering the contents—­ thimble, thread, two “scalybarks,” and some “ground peas” over the floor.  Then stooping, she slipped off one shoe, turned it upside down, and hung it thus on a horseshoe fastened to the mantel board.

“Just lem’me know when you have appinted to hold your sarching, and I will make it convenient to have bizness consarning that bunch of horgs and cattle, I am raising on shares in the ‘Bend’ plantation:  and you can have your sarching frolic,” said Bedney, too angry to heed the superstitious rites.

Dyce made a warning gesture, and listened intently.

“I am a-thinking you will be chief cook and bottle-washer at that sarching, for the appintment is at hand.  Don’t you hear Pilot baying the cunstable?”

She sank into her rocking-chair, picked up a gray yarn sock, and began to knit unconcernedly; but in a significant tone, she added, nodding her head: 

“Hold your own hand, Bedney; don’t be pestered about mine.  I’ll hoe my row; you ’tend to yourn.”

Then she leaned back, plying her knitting needles, and began to chant:  “Who will be the leader when the Bridegroom comes?”

Hearing the knock on the door, her voice swelled louder, and Bedney, the picture of perplexity, stood filling his pipe, when the bolt was turned, and a gentleman holding a whip and wearing a long overcoat entered the room.

“Good evening, Bedney.  Are you and Dyce holding a camp meeting all by yourselves?  I hallooed at the gate till your dog threatened to devour me, and I had to scare him off with my buggy whip.”

“Why, how’dy, Mars Alfred?  I am mighty glad to see you!  Seems like old times, to shake hands with you in my cabin.  Lem’me take off your overcoat, sir, and gim’me your hat, and make yourself comfortable, here by the jam of the chimbly.”

“No, Bedney, I can’t spare the time, and I only want a little business matter settled before I get back to town to my office.  Thank you, Dyce, this is an old-time rocker sure enough.  It is a regular ‘Sleepy Hollow.’”