THE " PAINTEK " IN THE PIG PEN. 331 



fancied I heerd a painter screech. I was wide awake in 

 a minnit. 'Holy Moses!' sez I. The Doctor hadn't 

 heerd the painter, so he thought I was getting grace, 

 and he right away buckled into me with all sorts of Bible 

 sayin's, and my wife jined in, but I jist riz up and went 

 to the cabin wall, where there was a little winder that I 

 had cut to look out toward the woods. I pulled out the 

 shutter and put my head through, but yer might as well 

 have looked into the Kentucky cave, it was so dark. 

 The wind come in, too, so strong and chill-like, that it 

 made the Doctor and my old woman draw up a little 

 closer together. I listened a while to see if I could make 

 out any signs of the critter, but it war no use. What 

 between the surf a hammerin' on the bar, and the 

 branches crackin' in the woods, and the squalling of the 

 gulls that had blowed in from the sea, you couldn't a 

 heerd a neighbor asking you to take a drink, and I reckon 

 that is what a man hears quickest. Once in a while one 

 of the big water-oaks would topple over in the woods. I 

 knowed it had blowed over, for it made such a smashin' 

 of little branches when a hull tree come over, and then a 

 short tug or two as the roots broke. Then agin yer 

 could hear one of them tall pines on the ridge break. 

 There was no give there ; it would break short off with 

 a crack like four or five rifles. I would have bet I could 

 have told the very trees that snapped, I knew 'em all so 

 well. Then agin the wind would die away, and you 

 didn't hear nothin' but the rain. 



" * Jist the night fur them varmints,' says I, drawin* 



