Buck looked about as old as me – thirteen or fourteen or along there, though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn’t on anything but a shirt, and he was very frowsy-headed. He come in gaping and digging one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one. He says:

‘Ain’t they no Shepherdsons around?’

They said, no, ‘twas a false alarm.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘if they’d a ben some, I reckon I’d a got one.’

They all laughed, and Bob says:

‘Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you’ve been so slow in coming.’

‘Well, nobody come after me, and it ain’t right. I’m always kep’ down; I don’t get no show.’

‘Never mind, Buck, my boy,’ says the old man, ‘you’ll have show enough in good time, don’t you fret about that. Go ‘long with you now, and do as your mother told you.’

When we got up stairs to his room, he got me a coarse shirt and a roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him, he started telling me about a blue jay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle went out. I said I didn’t know; I hadn’t heard about it before, no way.

‘Well, guess,’ he says.

‘How’m I going to guess?’ says I, ‘when I never heard tell about it before?’

‘But you can guess, can’t you? It’s just as easy.’

‘Which candle?’ I says.

‘Why, any candle,’ he says.

‘I don’t know where he was,’ says I; ‘where was he?’

‘Why he was in the dark! That’s where he was!’

‘Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?’

‘Why, blame it, it’s a riddle, don’t you  see? Say, how long are you going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming times – they don’t have no school now. Do you own a dog? I’ve got a dog – and he’ll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do you like to comb up, Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet I don’t, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches, I reckon I’d better put ‘em on, but I’d ruther not, it’s so warm. Are you all ready? All right – come along, old hoss.’