An' we were dreadful scared--an' we hid in the ice house." She paused.

Her listener had leaned his elbow on the table, his hand across his eyes.
"Yes, dear.

Go on." The child had been standing opposite, with Susan Jemima and the acorn-coffee pot between them; but gradually she began to edge a little nearer, till presently she stood beside him, fingering a shiny button on his coat.
"An' the blue boys ate up everything we had--an' took our corn.

An' when they went away from our house, they--a man set it on fire.

But another man got real mad with him, an'-- an' shot him.