n the world live in
Injianny. Settled by scalawags that we'uns run outen Tennessee bekase
they'uns wuz too onery to live heah."

"Citizen!" echoed the woman. "They'uns heap sight wuss'n the soldjers.
Teamsters, gamblers, camp-followers, thieves, that'll steal the coppers
off en a dead man's eyes. I had a sister that married a man that beat
her, and then run off to Injianny, leavin' her with six children to
support. All the mean men go to Injianny. Cl'ar out. We don't want
nobody 'round heah, and specially no Injiannians. They'uns is a pizun
lot."

"Yes, cl'ar out immejitly," commanded the old man. "I'm a Jestice of the
Peace, and ef you don't go to wunst I'll find a way to make yo'. We've a
law agin able-bodied vagrants. Cl'ar out, now."

"Come, have a little sense," said the Deacon, not a little roiled at
the abuse of his State. "I'm just as respectable a man as you dare be.
I never stole anything. I've bin all my life a regler member o' the
Baptist Church strict, close-communion, total-immersion Baptists. All I
want o' you is to buy some o' them chickens there, and I'll give you a
fair price for 'em. No use o' your flaring up over a little matter o'
bizniss."

"I don't believe a word of hit," said the woman, who yet showed that
she was touched by the allusion to the Baptist Church, as the Deacon had
calculated, for most of the people of that section professed to be of
that denomination. "What'll yo' gi' me for them chickens?"

The bargaining instinct arose in the Deacon's mind, but he repressed it.
He had no time to waste. He would make an offer that at home would be
considered wildly extravagant, close the business at once and get back
to Chattanooga. He said: "I'll give you a dollar apiece for five."

[Illustration: "HE TOOK ANOTHER LOOK AT HIS HEAVY REVOLVER." 254]

"Humph," said the woman contemptuously. "I don't sell them for no dollar
apiece. They'uns 's all we got to live on now. If I sell 'em I must git
somethin' that'll go jest as fur. You kin have 'em at $5 apiece."

"Betsy," remonstrated the old man, "I'm afeard this 's wrong, and as a
Magistrate I shouldn't allow hit. Hit's traffickin' with the inemy."

"No, hit hain't," she asserted. "He's not a soljer. He's a citizen, and
don't belong to the army. Besides, he's a Baptist, and hit hain't so bad
as ef he wuz a Presbyterian, or a shoutin' Methodist. Most of all, I'm
nearly dead for some coffee, and I know whar I kin git a pound o' rayle
coffee for