"M-m-m--y-e-e-s," admitted Mr. Pinson. "But," he added, darkly, after a
meditative pause, "Sissy Cullum is a wife, an' the women o' Jim-Nez, _ez
wives_, air liable to conniptions."
Mrs. Cullum jogged slowly along the brown, wheel-rifted road which followed
the windings of the creek. It was late in November. A brisk little norther
was blowing, and the nuts dropping from the pecan-trees in the hollows
filled the dusky stillness with a continuous rattling sound. There was a
sprinkling of belated cotton-bolls on the stubbly fields to the right of
the road; a few ragged sunflowers were still abloom in the fence corners,
where the pokeberries were red-ripe on their tall stalks.
"I must lay in some poke-root for Tobe's knee-j'ints," mused Mrs. Cullum,
as she turned into the lane which led to her own door-yard. "Pore Tobe!
them j'ints o' his'n is mighty uncertain. Why, Tobe!" she exclaimed, aloud,
as her nag stopped and neighed a friendly greeting to the object of her own
solicitude, "where air you bound for?"
Mr. Cullum laid an arm across the horse's neck. He was a big, loose-jointed
man, with iron-gray hair, square jaws, and keen, steady, dark eyes.
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