Presently he took up a newspaper that I had been reading, looked at it for a moment, then he told me he couldn't read. "Folks don't care much for edication round here; it would be better for 'em, I expect, if they did." He began then to question me closely about my circumstances—where I came from, whither I was going, etc.
When his curiosity was partially appeased he suddenly laughed in a silly manner, and said that the people he had been working with had watched me after I left them; they saw me ride up the hill and stop, ride on again, and finally take off my saddle, turn my horse loose and tote my saddle away, and they were much frightened, thinking I must be crazy at least. When he started to come toward me they told him he wouldn't dare to go to me, but he saw how it was, well enough—I was just resting myself.
"If I should run down hill now," said he, "they'd start right off and wouldn't stop for ten mile, reckoning you was arter me. That would be fun; oh, we have some good fun here sometimes with these green folks. There's an amazin' ignorant set round here."
I asked if they were foreigners.
'Oh, no; they are common, no account people; they used to live over the hill, here; they come right nigh starvin' thar, I expect."
They had not been able to get any work to do, and had been "powerful poor," until he got them to come here. They had taken an old cabin, worked with him, and were doing right well now. He didn't let them work in the vein—he kept that for himself—but they worked all around, and some days they made a dollar and a half—the man, woman, and children together. They had one other girl, but she had to stay at home to take care of the baby and keep cattle and hogs out of their "gardien." He had known the woman
