"Wa'al, you don't owe us no thanks. I'm of an inquirin' turn of mind,
an' whenever I see a man or boy floatin' along in the river I always
fish him out, just to see who an' what he is. My curiosity is pow'ful
strong, colonel, an' it leads me to do a lot o' things that I wouldn't
do if it wasn't fur it. Set an' take a bite with us. This air is
nippin' an' it makes my teeth tremenjous sharp."
"We're with you," said the colonel, who was adaptable, and who saw at
once that Jarvis was a man of high character. "It's cool on the river
and that coffee will warm one up mighty well."
"It's fine coffee," said Jarvis proudly. "Aunt Suse taught me how to
make it. She learned, when you didn't git coffee often, an' you had to
make the most of it when you did git it."
"Who is Aunt Suse?"
"Aunt Susan, or Suse as we call her fur short, is back at home in the
hills. She's a good hundred, colonel, an' two or three yars more to
boot, I reckon, but as spry as a kitten. Full o' tales o' the early
days an' the wild beasts an' the Injuns. She says you couldn't make up
any story of them times that ain't beat by the truth. When she come up
the Wilderness Road from Virginia in the Revolution she was already a
young woman.
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