put them and the pewter spoon in
his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's
notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a
corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how
it would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit into it it most
mashed all his teeth out; and there warn't ever anything could 'a'
worked better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it
was only just a piece of rock or something like that that's always
getting into bread, you know; but after that he never bit into nothing
but what he jabbed his fork into it in three or four places first.

And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a
couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on
piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room
in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that
lean-to door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered "Witches" once, and
keeled over onto the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like
he was dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's
meat, and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself
and back again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the other
door too. Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting
him, and asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again. He
raised up, and blinked his eyes around, and says:

"Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a
million dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in
dese tracks. I did, mos' sholy. Mars Sid, I _felt_ um--I _felt_ um,
sah; dey was all over me. Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my
han's on one er dem witches jis' wunst--on'y jis' wunst--it's all I'd
ast. But mos'ly I wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I does."

Tom says:

"Well, I tell you what _I_ think. What makes them come here just at
this runaway nigger's breakfast-time? It's because they're hungry;
that's the reason. You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for
_you_ to do."

"But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie? I doan'
know how to make it. I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'."

"Well, then, I'll have to make it myself."

"Will you do it, honey?--will you? I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo'
foot, I will!"

[Illustration: TOM ADVISES A WITCH PIE]

"All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been g