Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/104

94 to git supper; an' she picks up the kittle, an' findin it heavy, thinks it was full o' water, an' puts on the lid an' hung it over the fire. Then she clapped on some light- wood to hurry up things. Purty soon that kittle begun to warm; an' then, all uv a sudden, off pops the lid, an' out shoots Mister 'Coon like a rocket. An' ther' never was, in all this whole world, sich a frightened ole nigger as Aunt Hannah. She thought it was the debbil, sure, an' she giv' a yell that fetched ev'ry man on the place. That ere 'coon had more mischief in him than any live thing ye ever see. He'd pick pockets, hide ev'ry thing he could find, an' steal eggs. He'd find an egg ef the hen 'u'd sneak off an' lay it at the bottom uv the crick. One Sunday, Riley's wife went to all-day preachin' at Hornorsville, an' she put six mockin'-birds she was a-raisin' in one cage; an', fur fear the coon' 'u'd git 'em, she hung the cage frum a hook in the middle uv the ceilin' in the chamber. She had to git upon a chair to do it. Well, she went to preachin', an' that 'coon he got inter the house an' eat up ev'ry one o' them mockin'-birds. Ther' wasn't no tellin' 'xactly how he done it; but we reckoned he got up on the high mantel-piece an' made one big jump from thar to the cage, an' hung on till he put his paw through an' hauled out one bird. Then he dropped an' eat that, an' made anuther jump, till they was all gone. Anyway, he got all the birds, an' that was the last meal he ever eat.

"Well, as I tell ye, that 'coon he got inter the thickest tree in the whole woods; an' thar he sat a-peepin' at us from a crotch that wasn't twenty feet frum the