s interlocutor laughed softly at the statement and argument. "Did you
ever know any body to be cursed in such a manner that it was plain he
was under a ban of unintermitting vengeance?"

"Ef you mean did I ever know a man as was cussed, I ken say I did, onct.
He was a powerful mean man--a nigger-driver down in Tennessee. He was
orful to swear, and cruel to the niggers, an' his wife besides. One day
she died an' left a mite of a baby; an' he was so mad he swore he
'wouldn't bury her; the neighbors might bury her, an' the brat, too, if
they liked.' As he was a-swearin' an' a-tearin' with all his might, an'
a-callin' on God to cuss him ef he didn't do so an' so, all of a
suddent, just as his mouth opened with a oath, he was struck speechless,
an' never has spoke a word till this day!--leastways, not that I ever
heard ov."

"That is what I should call a special example of Divine wrath," said
Gentleman Bill, deftly dealing the cards for a new game. "What I meant
to ask was, whether any one, yourself especially, had ever known one man
to curse another man so as to bring ruin upon him, in spite of his will
to resist it."

"Waal, I've heern tell of sech things; can't say as I know such a man,
without it's Bob Matheny. _He_ says he's cussed; an' I reckon he _is_.
Everybody in Wilson's Bar has heern about that."

"Not everybody, for I am still ignorant of his story. Was that why Mr.
Davis objected so strongly to his marriage? I begin to be interested.
Count me another game, partner. I should like to hear about Mr.
Matheny."

"You may tell the story, Davis," said Kentuck, magnanimously. "I want
ter chaw terbacker fur awhile, an' I can't talk an' chaw."

Tom Davis gladly took up the theme, as it gave him an opportunity to
display his oratorical and rhetorical abilities, of which he was almost
as proud as he was of his skill in hiding cards in his sleeves, his hat,
his hair, his boots.

"Gentlemen," he began, hesitating an instant--while, attention being
fixed on what he was about to say, he stocked the cards--"gentlemen,
it's one of the curusest things you ever heerd in yer life. It seems
thar was a woman at the bottom of it--I believe thar allers is at the
bottom of everything. Waal, he stole another man's sunflower--I've heerd
Bob say so, hisself--an' the other feller got mad--as mad as
thunder--an', when he found his gal had vamosed with Bob, he cursed him;
an' his curse was this: that as long as he lived all that he did