a man hain't more'n got his cote tail unhitched from a fence, fore he's over his head and ears in the water."

After gettin' out and feelin' about in the dark a little, they got together agin. After takin' another drink, they sot out for home, denouncin' the fences and the branches, and helpin' one another up now and then; but they hadn't got more'n twenty yards fore they brung up all standin' in the middle of another branch. After gettin' thro' the branch and gwine about ten steps, they was brung to a halt by another fence.

"Dad blame my pictur," ses Bill, "if I don't think we is bewitched. Who upon yearth would bild fences all over creation this way?"

It was but a ower's job to get over this one; but after they got on the top, they found the ground on tother side 'thout much trouble. This time the bottle was broke, and they come monstrous near having a fight about the catastrophy. But it was a very good thing, it was; for, after crossin' two or three more branches, and climbin' as many more fences, it got to be daylight, and they found out that they had been climbin' the same fence all night, not more'n a hundred yards from whar they first cum to it.

VOL. I.

K

Bill Sweeney ses he can't account for it no other way but that the licker sort o' turned their heads; and he says he does really believe, if it hadn't gin out, they'd been climbin' the same fence, and wadin' the same branch, till yet. Bill promised his wife to jine the Temperance Society, if she won't never say no more 'bout that coon-hunt.

XI.

A RIDE WITH OLD KIT KUNCKER.

OUR old friend, Kit Kuncker, as he put us to bed on the night of a big frolic at his house, exacted a promise that we would visit him again, shortly thereafter; promising us, on his part, that he would ride all over the settlement with us; and more especially, that he would go with us to the house of Jim Kent, whose sister, Beck, was so ugly "that the flies wouldn't light on her face," and about whose going to mill, he assured me, there was a very pleasant story to be told.

Poor old Kit! But the other day we saw him-and how altered by the lapse of a few years! His head has become white, his figure more bent, and his

laughing old face-merry still!-was furrowed with an hundred additional wrinkles. His eye, too, was dull-had lost the twinkle that used so mischievously to light up his countenance. And then, too, he walked with a staff; and when he went to mount "Fiddler Bill," he said, "Help me, Squire," instead of vaulting into the saddle, as of yore! "Thank you, Squire. God bless your Union heart -old Hickory and the Union for ever! I'm gittin’ old now, Squire, and can't git about, like I used to"-the old man sighed-" Fiddler Bill is old, too -notice how gray his face is-we're all gittin' old -yer Aunt Hetty as well's the rest; and, God bless yer soul, Squire," (here the old man warmed into animation), "she's uglier than ever-uglier than the devil-he! he! ya! ya! It's wuth while coming, jist to take a look at her! With that old long bonnet on "-here the old fellow bent down on his horse's neck, in a paroxysm of laughter—“he! he hea! ya ya! and her mouth skrootched up, ya! ya! the go-to-meetin' way; I'll be cust, ef she ain't so bad to look at, it's enuff to fotch sickness in the family! But," he added, wiping the tears from his eyes, 66 Squire, I'm old now, yer Aunt Fiddler Bill is old-all old! old!

Hetty's old, and

old! Ah, me!"

But we are digressing. It was of our Ride with old Kit, in 1840, that we began to write-and not of his chattering in 1849.

We went to old Kit's house on the day appointed, at a very early hour, and found the old fellow waiting for us, with "Fiddler Bill" hitched at the gate.

"You can't see yer Aunt Hetty, 'Squire," he said, "for she's laid up with a pain in her jaw. It's swelled mighty bad, enny how, and makes her look so much better, 'twouldn't be no curiosity to see her now-so we may as well ride. Another time when she's at herself-and her 'ugly' out in full bloom, I'll show her to you-he! he! yah! That bonnet o' hern, too, hit's some. 'Tain't like nothin' ever growed, except the baskets the Injin wimmin makes to tote their young ones in!" And the old rascal laughed at his wife and her bonnet, until the woods rang again.

Walking our horses leisurely along the road leading down the creek to the river, Uncle Kit, tapping his steed lightly across the neck with his switch, began, as he had promised, to tell us how he obtained him.

"You see, Squire, me and my Jim was a haulin' a load of whiskey up from Wetumpky, in the