make anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me.  She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the Testament till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she looked glad; and before a body could think she grabbed me and give me a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell anybody.  She was mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it made her powerful pretty.  I was a good deal astonished, but when I got my breath I asked her what the paper was about, and she asked me if I had read it, and I said no, and she asked me if I could read writing, and I told her “no, only coarse-hand,” and then she said the paper warn't anything but a book-mark to keep her place, and I might go and play now. I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty soon I noticed that my nigger was following along behind.  When we was out of sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then comes a-running, and says: “Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll show you a whole stack o' water-moccasins.” Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday.  He oughter know a body don't love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for them. What is he up to, anyway?  So I says: “All right; trot ahead.” I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and waded ankle deep as much as another half-mile.  We come to a little flat piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines, and he says: “You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah's whah dey is. I's seed 'm befo'; I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'.” Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hid him.  I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little open patch as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying there asleep--and, by jing