"How's the kids makin' out, Mis' Birnie?" Frank inquired
politely when he had swallowed the last drop and had wiped
his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's right warm and
dusty t'day."

"They're asleep at last, thank goodness," she answered,
glancing back at a huddle of pink calico that showed just
over the crest of a pile of crumpled quilts. "Buddy has a
hard time of it. He's all man in his disposition, and all
baby in size. He's been teasing to walk with the niggers and
help drive the drag. Is my husband calling?"

Her husband was, and Frank rode away at a leisurely trot.
Haste had little to do with trailing a herd, where eight
miles was called a good day's journey and six an average
achievement. The fallen ox was unyoked by the mellow-voiced
but exasperated Ezra, and since he would not rise, the three
remaining oxen, urged by the gad and Ezra's upbraiding, swung
the wagon to one side and moved it a little farther after the
slow-moving herd, so that the exhausted animal could rest,
and the raw recruit be yoked in where he could do the least
harm and would the speediest learn a new lesson in
discomfort. Mrs. Birnie glanced again at the huddle of pink
in the nest of quilts behind a beloved chest of drawers in
the wagon, and sighed with relief because Buddy slept.

An ambitious man-child already was Buddy, accustomed to
certain phrases that, since he could toddle, had formed
inevitable accompaniment to his investigative footsteps.