“He come to de place he wuz a-gwine to,” said Pumble.

“Did he, sho’ enough?” exclaimed Sam.  “I wuz kinder skeered he wudn’t nebber git dar at all.  Whut did he don nex’?”

“De nex’ t’ing he done,” said Pumble, impressively, “wuz to turn right ‘round an’ go back whar he come from.  An’ dat’s all!”

As was his invariable custom when deeply impressed Sam began to sing, Pumble joining in: 

     “Jay-bird a-settin
        On a swingin’ limb,
      He wink at Stephen,
        Stephen wink at him;
      Stephen pint de gun,
        Pull on de trigger,
      Off go de load—­
        An’ down come de nigger!”

Greatly refreshed and invigorated by the chanting of this touching ballad, Sam and Pumble returned to the consideration of their day’s programme.  A great many amusements were proposed, discussed, and rejected in their respective turns.  Almost any one of them would have been held entirely satisfactory on any ordinary occasion, but Sam thought none of them good enough for his birthday.  He required something extraordinary.

“Kaint you think up nuffin else?” he asked his friend, after a long pause.

“I done thinked plumb to de back o’ my head a’ready,” replied Pumble.

“Den I tell you what,” said Sam; “I heared my pappy say dis:  when a pusson want to think rale strong, he mus’ lay down on de flat ob his back and shet his eyes; an’ den, putty soon, he kin think anything he wants to.  Let’s try it.”

This plan was immediately experimented on.  Pumble instantly succeeded in thinking; but he only thought that he wished he could have a “buff-day” of his own.  Very soon afterward, he ceased to think at all.  As for Sam, his thoughts were for some time very ordinary—­of too commonplace a nature to be here recorded; but they gradually assumed such an odd and remarkable shape that they may fairly be described as a vision.  It seemed to Sam that the whole country around, as far as one could see, was transformed into one great field, in a perfect state of cultivation.  But the growing “crop” was not one of cotton, or corn, or cow-peas, or sorghum, or anything else that he had ever before seen in such a place.  Coming up out of the ground were long rows of very singular bushes, whereof the stalks were sticks of candy, and the leaves were blackberry pies, and over the whole field was falling a drenching rain of molasses.  Sam, however, was most astonished at the curious fruit that the bushes bore.  The twigs of some of them supported jew’s-harps and tin trumpets; others bent beneath a wealth of fire-crackers and Roman candles; others, again, were weighted with his favorite sardines; and so on in endless variety.  It is not at all surprising that the idea occurred to him that this crop ought to be “picked.”  He found himself becoming highly indignant at the negligence of the planter—­whoever he might be—­in leaving all these good things to spoil on the bushes;