"An' I'll hide close by with a good big hickory stick, an' I'll gin
him a larrupin' ez he won't furgit in a month o' Sundays," he
resolved, angrily.

He opened his clasp-knife, and walked slowly into the woods, looking
about for a choice hickory sprout. He did not at once find one of a
size that he considered appropriate to the magnitude of Birt's
wickedness, and he went further perhaps than he realized, and stayed
longer.

He had a smile of stern satisfaction on his face when he was lopping
off the leaves and twigs of a specimen admirably adapted for
vengeance. He was stealthy in returning, keeping behind the trees,
and slipping softly from bole to bole. At last, as the winding road
was once more in view, he crouched down behind the roots of the
great fallen oak.

"I don't want him ter git a glimge of me, an' skeer him off afore I
kin lay a-holt on him," he said.

He intended to keep the neighboring bush under close watch, and
through the interlacing roots he peered out furtively at it. His
eyes distended and he hastily rose from his hiding-place.

The blackberry bush was swaying in the wind, clothed only in its own
scant and rusty leaves. A wren perched on a spray, chirped cheerful
matins.