240 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 



for a day or a night, but as he never made any remark on 

 what he saw or did, no one seemed to take any note of 

 his incomings or outgomgs. One evening, after he had 

 returned from one of these lonely excursions, I was sit- 

 ting by the willow copse on the shore, castmg with my 

 line into the channel after some large fish I had noticed 

 were breaking the- water very near the shore. The 

 negroes were getting sujDper ready, and Lou Jackson 

 came walking down to the beach, where Mike joined her, 

 and they came toward the boats on the other side of 

 the willows, and so near I could hear their conversa- 

 tion. 



" Miss Lou, I've been a wantin' to see you." 



A pause followed. 



" That is, you don't see me every day." 



" Yes, oh ! yes ; but then it aren't every time that a 

 man wants to see. I mean it aren't — I mean sometimes 

 a man wants mighty bad to see some 'un, and talk to 'em, 

 an' sometimes I want to see you more an' others." 



" Well !" said Miss Jackson, moving on slowly toward 

 the boat-landing. 



" End ef I was the Doctor, I could say anything, and 

 talk right through a board fence ; he's oncommon nice at 

 talkm', he is," said Mike, looking earnestly at his partner's 

 face, who looked seaward, but did not reply to this expres- 

 sion of opinion. " Thar's somethin' I want to say. Miss 

 Lou," contuiued Mike, "end I'd a leetle reether say it 

 to you than to any o' them folks there, for they wunt 

 believe it, they wunt." 



