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“Jes’ gib huh ’nubba dip, Pawson Demby; huh sins is cummin’ up fum huh in clustahs!”

The negroes on the shore thought salvation at last had struck Billy, and, the immersion over, they crowded about him.

Billy in a moment embraced his opportunity, and after a few remarks about the cold, wanted to know where he could buy another coon dog; expatiated upon the coon and ’possum tracks he had recently seen in Hayland meadows, and further said, apparently unconcerned:

“I kyant ondastan why dey don’ hunt dat branch mo’. Ef’n I had uh nubba dog (Jasper is foot-sore, an’ I gwine ter git one), I’d pestah dat lubly branch when ebnin’ cum, an’ ornless hit snow er rain, I’d hunt ev’y parf in it.”

Jes’ gib huh an-nubba dip, Pawson Demby, huh sins is cummin’ up fum huh in clusters!

Then and there the witch committee arranged for a hunt the next night. They asked Billy to go, but “he wuz gwine ter Kyarline County futto buy uh dog.”

The moon was new and went down about 11 o’clock, and Billy calculated they would be along about that hour. So, holding the grapevine in his hand, he climbed a witch-elm tree, threw the vine over its slippery limb, rested his pumpkin-face on the ground, and whilst he was “meddowtatin’” he heard the voice of Scipio say to his thoroughbred hound: “Put ’im up, Noahy!” and later, “I like de stile an’ rovin’ ub dat dog, don’ you, Uncle Stephen?”