ays:

"You been down cellar?"

"Yes'm."

"What you been doing down there?"

"Noth'n."

"_Noth'n!_"

"No'm."

"Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?"

"I don't know 'm."

"You don't _know?_ Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what
you been _doing_ down there."

"I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if
I have."

I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I
s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a
sweat about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she
says, very decided:

"You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You
been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what
it is before _I'm_ done with you."

So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the
setting-room. My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and
every one of them had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a
chair and set down. They was setting around, some of them talking a
little, in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying
to look like they warn't; but I knowed they was, because they was
always taking off their hats, and putting them on, and scratching
their heads, and changing their seats, and fumbling with their
buttons. I warn't easy myself, but I didn't take my hat off, all the
same.

I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me,
if she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone
this thing, and what a thundering hornet's nest we'd got ourselves
into, so we could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with
Jim before these rips got out of patience and come for us.

At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I _couldn't_
answer them straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because
these men was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start
right _now_ and lay for them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a
few minutes to midnight; and others was trying to get them to hold on
and wait for the sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the
questions, and me a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my
tracks I was that scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, and
the butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears;
and pretty soon, when one of them says, "_I'm_ for going and getting
in the cabin _first_ and