game rooster for him, as he promised, Marster told him he was very sorry, but some rogue had done gone and burnt some sulphur the week before in his henhouse, and bagged that ’dentical rooster.  Presently Mr. Dunbar axed if Marster would let him have one of the blue hen’s roosters, if he would catch the rogue for him before midnight.  Of course Marster said he would.  Mr. Dunbar (Marse Lennox’ pa), he was practicing law then, had a pot full of smut on the bottom, turned upside down on the dining-room flo’, and he and Marster went out to the hen-’ouse and got a dominicker rooster and shoved him under the pot.  Then they rung the bell, and called every darkey on the place into the dining-room, and made us stand in a line.  I was a little gal then, only so high, but I followed my daddy in the house, and I never shall disremember that night, ’cause it broke up our home preachment.  Mr. Dunbar made a speech, and the upshot of it was, that every darkey was to walk past the pot and rub his finger in the smut; and he swore a solemn oath, that when the pusson that stole that fine game rooster, touched the pot, the dominicker rooster would crow.  As Marster called our names, we every one marched out and rubbed the pot, and when all of us had tried, the rooster hadn’t crowed.  Mr. Dunbar said there was some mistake somewhere, and he made us step up and show hands, and make prints on his hankcher; and lo, and behold! one darkey had not touched the pot; his forefinger was clean; so Mr. Dunbar says, ’Luke, here is your thief?’ and shore ’nuff, it was our preacher, and he owned up.  I never forgot that trick, and from that day ’till now, I have been more scared of a lie-yer, than I am of a mad dog.  They is the only perfession that the Bible is agin, for you know they jawed our Lord hisself, and he said, ‘Woe! woe! to you lie-yers.’  Now, Marse Alfred, if you have made up your mind you are gwine to have that hankcher, it will be bound to come; for if it was tied to a millstone and drapped in the sea, you lie-yers would float it into court; so Bedney, jest perduce what you found.”

“That is right, Dyce; I am glad your opinion of my profession has forced you to such a sensible conclusion.  Come, Bedney, no balking now.”

Perplexed by Dyce’s tactics, Bedney stood irresolute, with his half-filled pipe slipping from his fingers; and he stared at his wife for a few seconds, hoping that some cue would be furnished.

“Bedney, there’s no use in being cantankerous.  If you won’t perduce it, I will.”

Plunging her hand into the blue glass bowl, she pushed aside the tobacco, and extracted a key; then crossed the room, lifted the valance of the patriarchal bed, and dragged out a small, old-fashioned hair trunk, ornamented with stars and diamonds of brass tack heads.  Drawing it across the floor, she sat down near Mr. Churchill, and bending over, unlocked and opened it.  After removing many articles of clothing, and sundry heirlooms, she lifted from the bottom a bundle, which