"Loretta wouldn't ride with me this way."

"Loretty ain't got much sense," drawled June complacently.
"'Tain't no harm. But don't you tell me! I don't want to hear
nothin' 'bout Loretty noway." Again Hale laughed and June laughed,
too. Imp that she was, she was just pretending to be jealous now.
She could see the big Pine over his shoulder.

"I've knowed that tree since I was a little girl--since I was a
baby," she said, and the tone of her voice was new to Hale.
"Sister Sally uster tell me lots about that ole tree." Hale
waited, but she stopped again.

"What did she tell you?"

"She used to say hit was curious that hit should be 'way up here
all alone--that she reckollected it ever since SHE was a baby, and
she used to come up here and talk to it, and she said sometimes
she could hear it jus' a whisperin' to her when she was down home
in the cove."

"What did she say it said?"

"She said it was always a-whisperin' 'come--come--come!'" June
crooned the words, "an' atter she died, I heerd the folks sayin'
as how she riz up in bed with her eyes right wide an' sayin' "I
hears it! It's a-whisperin'--I hears it--come--come--come'!" And
still Hale kept quiet when she stopped again.

"The Red Fox said hit was the sperits, but I knowed when they told