HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 35 



done well. With the unfamiliar night about 

 us, Omaha seemed just then very far away. I 

 threw an armful of dry wood on the fire, to 

 make it blaze up more cheerfully. 



We heard the voices of people coming up 

 the lane. They went through our camp pres- 

 ently, staring with curious interest three sol- 

 emn-faced hill folk, each with a gun hanging 

 in the crook of his elbow. They didn't stop, 

 but passed with a drawled "Ha-owdy!" The 

 inflection can't be set upon paper. They went 

 up to our tenant's house on the hill; and after 

 a half hour or so they returned not through 

 the camp this time, but through the thicket on 

 the far side of the hollow. When they were 

 across from us a voice called: 



"You-uns git that nigger out of hyar! Git 

 him out to-morry, too, or he'll git killed!" 



Wouldn't that have dashed you? Lee was 

 rolled in a blanket, lying on the grass beyond 

 the fire. 



"Did you hear that, Lee?" I asked. 



Lee chuckled. He was certainly a master 

 hand at finding things to chuckle about. "If 

 a nigger got killed," he said, "every time a pore 

 white trash talks biggity, this worl' would be a 



