tell you whut they'd do. They'd git out and tear up every foot of
this heah cussed railroad track, an' throw it back into the cane.
That's whut they'd do."

"Sho' now, would you?" said Jim Bowles.

"Shore I would. You got to do it if things keeps on this-away."

"Well, we couldn't, lessen Cunnel Blount said it was all right, you
know. The Cunnel was the friend of the road through these heah
bottoms. He 'lowed it would help us all."

"Help? Help us? Huh! Like to know how it helps us, killin' ouah cow
an' makin' us walk three mile of a hot mornin' to git a pail o' melk
to make up some co'hn bread. You call that a help, do you, Jim
Bowles? You may, but I don't an' I hain't a-goin' to. I got some
sense, I reckon. Railroad! Help! Huh!"

Jim Bowles crept stealthily a little farther away on his own side of
the board-pile, whither it seemed his wife could not quite so readily
follow him with her transfixing gaze.

"Well, now, Sar' Ann," said he, "the Cunnel done tol' me hit was all
right. He said some of ouah stock like enough git kilt, 'cause you
know these heah bottoms is growed up so close like, with cane an' all
that, that any sort of critters like to git out where it's open, so's
they kin sort o' look around like, you know. Why, I done seen four
deer trails whils' we was a-comin' up this mawnin', and I seen whah a
b'ah had come out an' stood on the track. Now, as fer cows, an' as
fer niggers, why, it stands to reason that some of them is shore