This was too much for poor Bill, who went off into one of his specialties.
"I'd ruther to laugh like that than sing like Robinson Crusoe in the victrola," said Bobby. "I kin holler real loud but I ain't nothin' of a big laugher. Josh, he don't make no noise 'tall when he laughs. He jist shakes his innards. He was shakin' em this morning 'cause Susan said she had a bee sting on her toe, the reason she is a-limpin' so."
Helen and Douglas exchanged glances with the young men, whom they had informed of their suspicions regarding the humorous Josh.
"Douglas," said Miss Somerville, "I can't see why Bobby should use the language of a negro. He is quite old enough to begin to speak properly."
"Well, you see, Cousin Lizzie, he is really nothing but a baby, and Mother and Father have never corrected him because Father said he would drop it soon enough and he thinks it is so amusing."
"Baby, your grandmother! I am 'most a man an' Josh is goin' ter learn me how to say we uns an' you uns like he does. He says his teacher an' Gwen is tryin' to make him talk properer, but he ain't goin' to talk no way but what his four bears talks. I wish I had four bears what could talk. I forgot to ask Josh to tell me about them bears but I will, some time."
"Josh," said Lewis to the mountain boy, whose blue eyes had an extra twinkle in them that morning as he hitched his mule to a nearby pine tree, waiting for orders, "are you afraid of hornets?"
"Not if we uns kin git some kerosene smeared on in time."
"Well, you smear on some kerosene in time and go get that hornet's nest out of Susan's room."
"Well, bless Bob! How did you uns know we uns put it thar under her bed?"
"Never mind how I knew it. You just go and get it and take it far from the camp and then come back here and report for work."
Josh winked at Josephus and went to do Mr. Somerville's bidding.
"He don't look mad," thought Josh. "I hope he ain't mad with we uns." Josh had met his idol in Lewis Somerville. Boylike he admired strength more than anything in the world, and could not this young giant lift a log and place it on his shoulders and carry it to the desired spot as easily as he himself could carry a twig? There was a poetical streak in this mountain boy, too, that saw in Lewis the young knight. "'Tain't nothin' to fool a nigger," he comforted himself by saying.