blaspheme at the intruder, but a wave of the man's pistol sent them
yelping under the floors again.

When the constable entered a house, Peter could hear him bumping and
rattling among the furnishings, while the black householders stood
outside the door and watched him disturb their housekeeping
arrangements.

Presently Bobbs came angling across the street toward the Siner cabin.
As he entered the rickety gate, old Caroline called out:

"Whut is you after, anyway, white man?"

Bobbs turned cold, truculent eyes on the old negress. "A turkey
roaster," he snapped. "Some o' you niggers stole Miss Lou Arkwright's
turkey roaster."

"Tukky roaster!" cried the old black woman, in great disgust. "Whut you
s'pose us niggers is got to roast in a tukky roaster?"

The constable answered shortly that his business was to find the
roaster, not what the negroes meant to put in it.

"I decla'," satirized old Caroline, savagely, "dish-heah Niggertown is a
white man's pocket. Ever' time he misplace somp'n, he feel in his pocket
to see ef it ain't thaiuh. Don'-chu turn over dat sody-water, white man!
You know dey ain't no tukky roaster under dat sody-water. I 'cla' 'fo'
Gawd, ef a white man wuz to eat a flapjack, an' it did n' give him de
belly-ache, I 'cla' 'fo' Gawd he'd git out a search-wa'nt to see ef some
nigger had n' stole dat flapjack goin' down his th'oat."