"I got it down in tol'able fa'r order,
too, alter de rain t'odder evenin'. Dunno ez I ebber handled a
barn thet, take it all round, 'haved better er come out fa'rer in
my life--mighty good color an' desp'ut few lugs. Yer see, I got it
cut jes de right time, an' de weather couldn't hev ben better ef
I'd hed it made ter order."
The sheriff stretched a leaf to its utmost width, held it up to
the sunshine, crumpled it between his great palms, held it to his
face and drew a long breath through it, rubbed the edges between thumb
and finger, pinched the stem with his thumb-nail till it broke in
half a dozen places, and remarked with enthusiasm, to the Northern
man, who stood rubbing and smelling of the sample he held, in
awkward imitation of one whom he recognized as a connoisseur:
"That's prime terbacker, Captain. If it runs like that through
the bulk and nothing happens to it before it gets to the warehouse,
it'll bring a dollar a pound, easy. You don't often see such
terbacker any year, much less such a one as this has been. Didn't
it ripen mighty uneven, Nimbus?" "Jest about ez it oughter--a
little 'arlier on the hilltop an' dry places 'long de sides, an'
den gradwally down ter de moister places. Dar wa'n't much ob dat
pesky spotted ripenin' up--jes a plant h'yer an' anodder dar, all
in 'mong de green, but jest about a good barnfull in tollable
fa'r patches, an' den anodder comin' right on atter it.
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