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 anythin’. Are you him?” She recited the whole ritual carefully, leaving out none of the allegations which she had heard in her grandmother’s discussions of the tragedy. She was rather showing off and parading her intimate knowledge of his life and character.

Angus, in travail of spirit, uttered no sound, but Bishwhang, feeling that information should be forthcoming, bobbed his scrubby head and said solemnly, “This is him, Miss.”

“Well, I don’t care a bit who you are, nor how shif’less a lot all your ancestors was,” she spoke the word “ancestors” proudly because of the size of it, “nobody’s goin’ to pick on you in my yard.” Her eyes flashed and she looked at Angus scornfully, but curiously. “Now you better tell me why you didn’t just up and go for Mal Crane yourself.”

“He hain’t very smart,” explained Bishwhang with another bob of his head, “but he knows more’n he uster…. I’m teaching him,” he finished proudly.

There was a constrained silence for a moment and then Lydia turned toward the house. “My grandma says little girls like me mustn’t ever speak to and not play with or anything little boys like you, she says….” Then, with acumen which would have been startling to her elders could they have overheard it, “’Tain’t