"But mother says it is wrong for white men to take scalps," observed Bushie.
Whereat the Fighting Negro was somewhat taken aback, and for a full minute quite at a loss for an answer which would justify himself and Captain Kenton in their practice of taking scalps, and yet not gainsay Miss Jemima's disapprobation of the same. But after taking a bird's-eye view of the landscape before him, and with it a bird's-eye view of the subject, he was his collected self again. He began his answer by observing, in a general way, that Miss Jemima doubtless meant that the practice in question was wrong so far only as it concerned the duties and obligations of husbands and fathers, without intending her stricture to apply to bachelors, like himself and Captain Kenton. Having thus skillfully accommodated both sides of the matter in dispute, the Fighting Negro, with a persuasive gesture, wound up his vindication thus: "So, you see, Bushrod, Jemimy Rennuls wus right, an' Burlman Rennuls wus right. Dare's reason in all things. Now, when you grows up an' gits to be a married man, den comes I to you an' says, 'Cap'n Rennuls;' dat'll be you, you know, Bushie; 'Cap'n Rennuls,' says I, 'you's a married man now, got a wife, gwine to be a man of fam'ly, den it won't do fur you to take skelps. Jes' leab dat part uf de business to de bucks dat hain't got no do's, like me an' Cap'n Kenton. I say, Cap'n Rennuls, don't you take no skelps, yo' wife won't like it.'" And the Fighting Negro triumphantly crossed his legs. A delicate and difficult question had been settled, and to the entire satisfaction of at least one party concerned.
Now, between these two personages of our story, so widely different from each other in size, age, color, and condition, there existed, as doubtless has already been discovered, a sort of mutual-admiration understanding, which always kept them on the best of terms one with another, no matter how roughly they might be at rubs with the rest of the world: the black giant making a household idol, so to speak, of his little master; the little master a pattern, so to speak, of the black giant. So, when the pattern crossed his legs, the idol needs must cross his legs likewise. But in the act, the rail on which he was sitting, giving a sudden turn, marred the new attitude before it was fairly assumed; when, up with a flourish, flew the little naked heels, as high as the little coon-skin cap had been, and backward tumbled the household idol into a dense clump of pea-vines which, with a smart sprinkling of briers, grew in the fence-corner behind him. In an instant the little man had vanished, and there instead lay sprawling a yelling urchin; the yelling, however, considerably smothered by his coon-skin cap rammed down over his mouth, and by his two shirts turned up over his head. With a swing of his huge limbs that made the knitted panels shake and rattle, Burl had flung himself over the fence, and was now engaged in the ticklish task of extricating his little master from amongst the vines and briers, the latter being just sufficiently thick to spice the disaster. When he had succeeded in fishing him out, pulled down the shirts, and pushed up the cap, he began vigorously rubbing the bare young legs with the palm of his hand, spitting upon it, the better, as he said, to draw out the smarting and the stinging of the brier-scratches. Then setting his idol, still howling, upon his own panel of the fence, Burl began looking about him with wide-open eyes, as if in quest of something lost, wondering the while what could have become of his little man.