"Er de bad luck w'at follers folks w'at 'sturbs dat trac' er Ian'. Dey
is snakes en sco'pions in dem woods. En ef you manages ter 'scape de
p'isen animals, you is des boun' ter hab a ha'nt ter settle wid,--ef you
doan hab two."

"Whose haunt?" my wife demanded, with growing interest.

"De gray wolf's ha'nt, some folks calls it,--but I knows better."

"Tell us about it, Uncle Julius," said my wife. "A story will be a
godsend to-day."

It was not difficult to induce the old man to tell a story, if he were
in a reminiscent mood. Of tales of the old slavery days he seemed indeed
to possess an exhaustless store,--some weirdly grotesque, some broadly
humorous; some bearing the stamp of truth, faint, perhaps, but still
discernible; others palpable inventions, whether his own or not we never
knew, though his fancy doubtless embellished them. But even the wildest
was not without an element of pathos,--the tragedy, it might be, of the
story itself; the shadow, never absent, of slavery and of ignorance; the
sadness, always, of life as seen by the fading light of an old man's
memory.

"Way back yander befo' de wah," began Julius, "ole Mars Dugal' McAdoo
useter own a nigger name' Dan. Dan wuz big en strong en hearty en
peaceable en good-nachu'd most er de time, but dange'ous ter aggervate.
He alluz done his task, en nebber had no trouble wid de w'ite folks, but
woe be unter de nigger w'at 'lowed he c'd fool wid Dan, fer he wuz mos'
sho' ter git a good lammin'. Soon ez eve'ybody foun' Dan out, dey did