Billy was at the christening, of course, and wanted the ghost story to flourish, as it kept Talbot coon hunters from the branch. So he told his Mars Pinckney that “niggahs cum fum Kyarline an’ Queen Anne’s County ter hunt dat mash an’ branch, an’ ’skusin’ de Talbot hunters, he wouldn’ be s’prised ef dey som’ time, when dey hongry, teck de oysters fum de cove;” (Billy did)—“an’, young Marster, won’ you qualify me ter say dat de branch hanted pow’ful?”
His Mars’ Pinckney said with sternness: “Billy, that is not the truth! I want, however, to keep rogues and intruders out, and I will make and give you something that will scare every nigger out of my meadow from this day forward forevermore.”
So his Mars Pinckney, full of youth and deviltry, took a big pumpkin, cut a hole through the top and bottom, and through the latter pushed a tallow candle with a big wick. He cut eyeholes and a mouth, and, at Billy’s suggestion, tacked on a medium-sized cucumber for a nose, and on the sides or cheeks of the pumpkin, put sheepskin for whiskers, as Billy said, “ter meck hit look sassy;” and then a grapevine was trimmed up and tied through the top, and Billy was instructed what to do.
Parson Phil Demby was to baptize some sisters the next day—Sunday—and Billy thought that a good time to consummate his plans.
It was very cold. The boys were skating, and the sisters were dipped where the farmers had been cutting ice the day before. When Tilly Mink was shoved under she had one of her pockets full of apples. The water shocked her so, she immediately commenced to throw her arms around, pawed the bottom, pawed Parson Demby overturned an’ thoroughly drenched him (it was an honest dip) and pawed and tore the pocketful of apples; and when Little Billy saw the apples come popping up, bobbing like net-corks, and the Parson’s haste to get on dry land, he called out:
“Jes’ gib huh ’nubba dip, Pawson Demby; huh sins is cummin’ up fum huh in clustahs!”
The negroes on the shore thought salvation at last had struck Billy, and, the immersion over, they crowded about him.
Billy in a moment embraced his opportunity, and after a few remarks about the cold, wanted to know where he could buy another coon dog; expatiated upon the coon and ’possum tracks he had recently seen in Hayland meadows, and further said, apparently unconcerned: