the time, and never said a word and never et a bite.

By and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was poked in at the
door again, and he said his Marse Brace was getting powerful uneasy about
Marse Jubiter, which hadn't come home yet, and would Marse Silas please
--He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there, like the rest of
his words was froze; for Uncle Silas he rose up shaky and steadied
himself leaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his
eyes was set on the nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his other
hand up to his throat a couple of times, and at last he got his words
started, and says:

"Does he--does he--think--WHAT does he think! Tell him--tell him--" Then
he sunk down in his chair limp and weak, and says, so as you could hardly
hear him: "Go away--go away!"

The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we all felt--well, I don't
know how we felt, but it was awful, with the old man panting there, and
his eyes set and looking like a person that was dying. None of us could
budge; but Benny she slid around soft, with her tears running down, and
stood by his side, and nestled his old gray head up against her and begun
to stroke it and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to go away, and
we done it, going out very quiet, like the dead was there.

Me and Tom struck out for the woods mighty solemn, and saying how
different it was now to what it was last summer when we was here and
everything was so peaceful and happy and everybody thought so much of
Uncle Silas, and he was so cheerful and simple-hearted and pudd'n-headed
and good--and now look at him. If he hadn't lost his mind he wasn't muck
short of it. That was what we allowed.