big oaks an' chestnuts wa' crowded clost an' no room for these here scrubby fiel' pines what air a takin' the country nowadays. The trees grew clost ter the river's aidge an' spread up over the hills plum ter the mountings. That there hub fact'ry ain't got in so much er its wuck a destroyin' of forests in those days, though it wa' a goin' even then—"
"And on that hot moonlight night—" suggested Rebecca.
"I ain't fergittin'. On that hot night when mammy done flew the coop in her yaller shift I started right arfter her—she a cropin' through the woods an' me a slidin' not so fur behind. At the fust beginning I wa' a thinkin' mammy wa' out a huntin' pappy, lak she done sometimes, but it come ter me that she' wa'n't a huntin' him nor no man, but wa' a makin' fer the boom-a-laddy-boom what got louder an' closeter. She made straight fer the river, where a great big oak tree had done felled acrost the water, makin' what we calls a coon bridge. On beyant this tree wa' a clearin' with only a few stragglin' trees. One er them trees wa' hollow, owin' ter some hunters havin' started a fire down at the bottom mos' lakly trying ter smoke out a coon or p'raps a possum. It stood in the clearin' dead and ga'nt an' black. Aunt Peachy
