MINERVA

we’ll do, and you won’t have to stay at Mr. Lothrop’s so long, nuther. How fur is it?” “A little short of four miles—right out in the country, back here.” “Well, that’ll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home again—tell them you’ve thought of something. If you get here before eleven put a candle in this window, and if I don’t turn up wait _till_ eleven, and _then_ if I don’t turn up it means I’m gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats jailed.” “Good,” she says, “I’ll do it.” “And if it just happens so that I don’t get away, but get took up along with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and you must stand by me all you can.” “Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha’n’t touch a hair of your head!” she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said it, too. “If I get away I sha’n’t be here,” I says, “to prove these rapscallions ain’t your uncles, and I couldn’t do it if I _was_ here. I could swear they was beats and bummers, that’s all, though that’s worth something. Well, there’s others can do that better than what I can, and they’re people that ain’t going to be doubted as quick as I’d be. I’ll tell you how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There—‘_Royal Nonesuch, Bricksville_.’ Put it away, and don’t lose it. When the court wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say they’ve got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some witnesses—why, you’ll have that entire town down here before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they’ll come a-biling, too.” I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says: “Just let the auction go right along, and don’t worry. Nobody don’t have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on accounts of the short notice, and they ain’t going out of this till they get that money; and the way we’ve fixed it the sale ain’t going to count, and they ain’t going to _get_ no money. It’s just like the way it was with the niggers—it warn’t no sale, and the niggers will be back before long. Why, they can’t collect the money for the _niggers_ yet—they’re in the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary.” “Well,” she says, “I’ll run down to breakfast now, and then I’ll start straight for Mr. Lothrop’s.” “’Deed, _that_ ain’t the ticket, Miss Mary Jane,” I says, “by no manner of means; go _before_ breakfast.” “Why?” “What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?” “Well, I never thought—and come to think, I don’t know. What was it?” “Why, it’s because you ain’t one of these leather-face people. I don’t want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your uncles when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never—” “There, there, don’t! Yes, I’ll go before breakfast—I’ll be glad to. And leave my sisters with them?” “Yes; never mind about them. They’ve got to stand it yet a while. They might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don’t want you to see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I’ll fix it with all of them. I