“`I say tu’key buzzard, I say,
     Who shall I see unexpected today?’

“If she flop her wings three times you goin’ to see yo’ sweetheart, but this-here buzzard ain’t flop no wings ’t all; she jes’ lean over an’ th’ow up on his head an’ he been bald ever sence; ev’y single hair come out.”

“Did you-all hear ’bout that ’Talian Dago that works on the section gang eating a buzzard?” asked Frances.

“Naw,” said Billy.  “Did it make him sick?”

“That it did,” she answered; “he sent for Doctor Sanford and tells him, `Me killa de big bird, me eat-a de big bird, de big bird make-a me seek."’

“Them Dagoes ’bout the funniest talking folks they is,” said Jimmy, “but they got to talk that way ’cause it’s in the Bible.  They ’sputed on the tower of Babel and the Lord say `Confound you!’ Miss Cecilia ’splained it all to me and she’s ’bout the dandiest ’splainer they is.”

“You may tell your tale now, Jimmy,” said Lina.

“I’m going to tell ’bout William Tell ’cause he’s in the Bible,” said Jimmy.  “Once they’s a man name’—­”

“William Tell isn’t in the Bible,” declared Lina.

“Yes, he is too,” contended the little boy, “Miss Cecilia ’splained it to me.  You all time setting yourself up to know more’n me and Miss Cecilia.  One time they’s a man name’ William Tell and he had a little boy what’s the cutest kid they is and the Devil come ‘long and temp’ him.  Then the Lord say, `William Tell, you and Adam and Eve can taste everything they is in the garden ’cepting this one apple tree; you can get all the pears and bunnanas and peaches and grapes and oranges and plums and persimmons and scalybarks and fig leaves and ’bout a million other kinds of fruit if you want to, but don’t you tech a single apple.’  And the Devil temp’ him and say he going to put his cap on a pole and everybody got to bow down to it for a idol and if William Tell don’t bow down to it he got to shoot a apple for good or evil off ’m his little boy’s head.  That’s all the little boy William Tell and Adam and Eve got, but he ain’t going to fall down and worship no gravy image on top a pole, so he put a tomahawk in his bosom and he tooken his bow and arrur and shot the apple plumb th’oo the middle and never swinge a hair of his head.  And Eve nibble off the apple and give Adam the core, and Lina all time ’sputing ’bout Adam and Eve and William Tell ain’t in the Bible.  They ’re our first parents.”

“Now, Billy, you tell a tale and then it will be my time,” said Lina with a savingthe-best-for-the-last air.

“Once they was a of witch,” said Billy, “what got outer her skin ev’y night an’ lef’ it on the he’rth an’ turnt herself to a great, big, black cat an’ go up the chim’ly an’ go roun’ an’ ride folks fer horses, an’ set on ev’ybody’s chis’ an’ suck they breath an’ kill ’em an’ then come back to bed.  An’ can’t nobody ketch her tell one night her husban’ watch her an’ he see her jump outer her skin