Page:The Geranium.pdf/111

50 Tomorrer night they would stay here an' kill it. Now he want to sleep. He done tole 'em they couldn't get no wildcat in no woods. He the one tole 'em where it gonna be. They'd a listened to him, they'd done had it by now. When he die he want to be sleepin' in a bed; didn't want to be on no floor with a wildcat stuck in his face. Lord waitin'.

When he woke up, the darkness was full of morning things. He heard Mose and Luke at the stove and smelled the side meat in the skillet. He reached for his snuff and filled his lip. "What yawl ketch?" he asked trenchantly.

"Ain't caught nothin' las' night." Luke put the plate in his hands. "Here yo' side meat. How you bust that shelf?"

"Ain't busted no shelf," old Gabriel muttered. "Wind to' it down and waked me up in the middle of the night. It been due to fall. You ain't never built nothin' yet stayed together."

"We got a trap," Mose said. "We git that cat tonight."

"Yawl sho will, boys," Gabriel said. "It'll be right here tonight. Ain't it done kill a cow a half a mile from here las' night?"

"That don't mean it comin' this way," Luke said.