most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the
tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch. Then it begun to itch
on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn’t know how I
was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or
seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching
in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more’n a
minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then
Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore—and then I was
pretty soon comfortable again.
Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his
mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When
we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to
the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance,
and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t
got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some
more. I didn’t want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come.
But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles,
and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I
was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must
crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something
on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still
and lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden
fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other
side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and
hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t
wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him
in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under
the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And
next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans;
and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till
by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him
most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous
proud about it, and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the
other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it,
and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country