wouldn't feel like I kept my part of the agreement.'
An astonished look came over my father's face. 'Why, Billy,' he said, 'you can't stay down here without anything to eat and no sleep. Besides, it'll take at least two days to cut that tree down and that's hard work.'
'Please, Papa,' I begged, 'don't make me quit. I just have to get that coon. If I don't, my dogs won't ever believe in me again.'
Papa didn't know what to tell me. He scratched his head, looked over to my dogs and back at me. He started walking around. I waited for him to make up his mind. He finally reached a decision.
'Well, all right,' he said. 'If that's the way you want it, I'm for it even if it is only an agreement between you and your dogs. If a man's word isn't any good, he's no good himself.
'Now I have to get back and tell your mother that you're all right. It's a cinch that you can't do that kind of work on an empty stomach, so I'll send your oldest sister down with a lunch bucket.'
With tears in my eyes, I said, 'Tell Mama I'm sorry for not coming home last night.'
'Don't you worry about your mother,' he said, as he climbed on the mule's back. 'I'll take care of her. Another thing, I have to make a trip to the store today and I'll talk this over with your grandfather. He may be able to help some way.'
After Papa left, things were a little different. The tree didn't look as big, and my ax wasn't as heavy. I even managed to sing a little as I chopped away.
When my sister came with the lunch bucket, I could have kissed her, but I didn't. She took one look at the big tree and her blue eyes got as big as a guinea's egg.
'You're crazy,' she gasped, 'absolutely crazy. Why, it'll take a month to cut that tree down, and all for an old coon.'
I was so busy with the fresh side pork, fried eggs, and hot biscuits, I didn't pay much attention to her. After all, she was a girl, and girls don't think like boys do.
She raved on. 'You can't possibly cut it down today, and what are you going to do when it gets dark?'
'I'm going to keep right on chopping,' I said. 'I stayed with it last night, didn't I? Well, I'll stay till it's cut down. I don't care how long it takes.'
My sister got upset. She looked at me, threw back her small head, and looked up to the top of the big sycamore. 'You're as crazy as a bedbug,' she said. 'Why, I never heard of such a thing.'
She stepped over in front of me and very seriously asked if she could look in my eyes.
'Look in my eyes?' I said. 'What do you want to do that for? I'm not sick.'
'Yes, you are, Billy,' she said, 'very sick. Mama said when Old Man Johnson went crazy, his eyes turned green. I want to see if yours have.'
This was too much. 'If you don't get out of here,' I shouted, 'you're going to be red instead of green, and I mean that.'
I grabbed up a stick and started toward her. Of course, I wouldn't have hit her for anything.
This scared her and she started for the house. I heard her saying something about an old coon as she disappeared in the underbrush.
Down in the bottom of my lunch bucket I found a neat little package of scraps for my dogs. While they were eating I walked down to a spring and filled the bucket with cool water.
The food did wonders for me. My strength came back. I spit on my hands and, whistling a coon hunter's tune, I started making the chips fly.
The cut grew so big I could have laid down in it. I moved over to another side and started a new one. Once while I was taking a rest, Old Dan came over to inspect my work. He hopped up in the cut and sniffed around.
'You had better get out of there,' I said. 'If that tree takes a notion to fall, it'll mash you flatter than a tadpole's tail.'
With a 'no care' look on his friendly face, he gave me a hurry-up signal with a wag of his tail.
Little Ann had dug a bed in a pile of dead leaves. She looked as if she were asleep but I knew she wasn't.
