beholding two
upheld ruddy peaches, she catches her breath, and says: "Oh, oh!" and
she starts back and throws up her hands. "Oh, the pretty, pretty
peaches!"

"Here, take 'em both, Carrie--I ain't hungry now."

"No, I don't want but one, Stumps--one 's enough. Why, how you tore your
pants; and your shin 's a bleeding, too. Why, poor Stumps!"

Stumps, looking back, cries:

"Shoo! Thar war a dog--yes, thar war a dog! And what do you think! Shoo!
I thought I heard somethin' a comin'. Carats, old Miss Logan, the Injun
woman, seed me!"

"Why, Stumps! No?"

"Yes, she did. When I clim' the fence, and slid down that sapling in the
yard, there she laid on the porch on her shuck-bed a-shaking with the
ager. And, Carats, she was a-looking right straight at me--yes, she was;
so help me, she was."

"Why, Stumps; and what did she do! Didn't she holler, and say 'Seek 'em,
Bose?'"

"Carats, she didn't; and that's what's the matter--and that's why I
don't want to eat any peaches, Carats. Carats, I wish she had--I do, I
do, so help me. Let's not eat 'em--let's take 'em back--Carrie, sister
Carrie, let's take 'em back."

Carrie thoughtfully and tenderly gazes in his face.

"Let's take 'em to old Forty-nine, Johnny. There ain't nothing he can
eat, you know; an' then he's been a-shakin' since melon-time,--an'
Johnny, I don't think we are very good to him, anyhow."

Stumps, scratching his bleeding shin with his foot, exclaims:

"I've barked my shin, and I've tore'd my pants, an' I don't care! But I
won't take him a peach that I've stoled. Why, what would he think,
Carats? He'd die dead, he would, if he thought I'd stoled them peaches
from the poor old sick Injun woman; yes he would, Carats."

"Johnny, I'll tell him we found 'em," as Stumps looks doubtingly at her,
"tell him we found 'em in a tree, Stumps. Yes tell him we found 'em away
up in the top of a cedar tree."

"But I don't want to tell no lie, nor do nothin' bad no more, and I want
to go home, I do."

"Well, Stumps--Johnny, brother Johnny, what will we do with them? We
can't stand here all day. I want to go home, too. Oh, this hateful,
hateful peach! I want to go right off!" and the girl, hiding her face
in her hands, begins to weep.

"Oh, sister Carrie--sister, don't, don't; sister, don't, don't!"

"Then let's eat 'em."

"I don't like peaches."

"I don't like peaches either!" cries Carrie, throwing back her hair,
wiping her eyes, and trying to be bright an