THE FATNESS OF THE EARTH. 217 



staggered his credulity. " Dis a hawg-in-amah yo' 

 done spoke of mus' a live long time 'fore slavery time, 

 sah, fo' um don' heah nuflBn' 'bout um from ole massa, 

 nor nobuddy. Ki ! what a t'ing dat a be toe meet in 

 de wood ob a da'k night ! " 



He could hardly accept the glyptodon, but he cher- 

 ished chimeras as gigantic as the fossil armadillo — a 

 legacy from his African ancestors. We had many an 

 argument over the existence of jumbies and were- 

 wolves, loup-garous^ blood-sucking vampires, and an- 

 thropophagous wild men. Thomas Ned was a good 

 Methodist, but he could not, from the very nature of 

 him, but believe in the African fetichism. 



As he had a good comfortable belief of his own, 

 being perfectly sure that everybody not believing as 

 he did was in danger of " de buhnin' fiah," and a 

 certain conviction that the doing of wrong always 

 entailed retribution in kind, I did not seek to com- 

 bat him in religious controversy. He never lied, I 

 never heard him swear, he was scrupulously honest, 

 and he was cleanly ; I don't think he will find the 

 balance greatly against him, when he comes to square 

 his last account. If the great essential be to become 

 as a little child, then Thomas Ned had almost at- 

 tained it, for his faith was simple and certain. 



Our lives glided along without many ripples, but 



there came a day, or a night, when the stream was 



changed almost in an instant to a turbulent flood. 



The summer months drew near their ending, and 



the hurricane season approached, about the last of 



August. 



16 



