Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/37

. "Take it up here, and you ain't thinking nothing, and first you know, something does happen. Down b'low, you're watching all the while, and you're all ready when anything does happen. That's why I say folks is better off down b'low than up here. Up here, you gets careless!"

"Yes, that's so," Mrs. Haney admitted. "But I don't know, I never cared much down b'low. You see, I'm out the Ohio, myself, and I kind of like the Upper Bottoms. Hit's purty lonesome down b'low. I bet that Delia girl'll think so 'fore she sees the last of this little old world of ourn! She's no river girl; notice her hands? They was slim and smallish"

"Some girls pulls a good stroke with little hands"

"But she didn't! She kind of crabbed them sweeps, and she swung into the head of the eddy 'stid of the foot. That dark feller—she'll keep a droppin' down, and droppin' down. She found us here, and she'll likely land into New Madrid shantyboat town, and then down to Carruthersville, and so on. Some day the wind'll take her into a lonesome bend, and then she'll have a visitor. Feller into a gasolene launch, with dark eyes and dark moustache—I bet she remembers her happy little home then."

"She's got that gun."

"She'd better use it first and ask no questions