"Tom tole ye--WHAT?" asked the tanner, puzzled by Byers's grave,
anxious face, and Rufe's mysterious sneers.

Rufe broke into the liveliest cackle. "Tom, he 'lowed ter me ez he
war tucked up in the trundle-bed, fast asleep, that night when his
dad got home from old Mis' Price's house, whar he had been ter hear
her las' words. Tom, he 'lowed he war dreamin' ez his gran'dad hed
gin him a calf--Tom say the calf war spotted red an' white--an' jes'
ez he war a-leadin' it home with him, his dad kem racin' inter the
house with sech a rumpus ez woke him up, an' he never got the calf
along no furder than the turn in the road. An' thar sot his dad in
the cheer, declarin' fur true ez he hed seen old Mis' Price's harnt
in the woods, an' b'lieved she mus' be dead afore now. An' though
thar war a right smart fire on the h'a'th, he war shiverin' an'
shakin' over it, jes' the same ez ef he war out at the wood-pile,
pickin' up chips on a frosty mornin'."

And Rufe crouched over, shivering in every limb, in equally
excellent mimicry of a ghost-seer, or an unwilling chip-picker under
stress of weather.

"My!" he exclaimed with a fresh burst of laughter; "whenst Tom tole
me 'bout'n it I war so tickled I war feared I'd fall. I los' the
use o' my tongue. I couldn't stop laffin' long enough ter tell Tom
what I war laffin' at. An' ez Tom knowed I war snake-bit las' June,
he went home an' tole his mother ez the p'ison hed done teched me in
the head, an' said he reckoned, ef the truth war knowed, I hed fits
ez a constancy. I say--FITS!"