"
"What, Jodie?"
"Our friend is in business now!"
"Where you reckon he got the money?"
"Beats me. You know, he's made a batch and hauled it off in
the middle of the night."
By that, I knew Papa was telling Mama that Mister Goode or
somebody had cooked a batch of ribbon cane syrup in the nighttime
instead of the daytime. I never cared a thing about syrup, except
when it was poured on a hot biscuit or batter-cakes, so I turned
my face toward the wall and snuggled farther down under the
covers.
"Ned told me, Nannie," Papa said. "That poor Negro is scared
to death of Ward! He was sitting there on my store porch,
shaking, when I got there this morning."
"What'd Ned say?"
"You remember this fellow Hicks that drove his automobile
through here a while back?"
"Yeah. That was the only automobile we saw the whole summer."
"Ned told me he came riding up on that automobile and got the
whiskey around midnight last night, and Ward went off with him."
"Did Ned actually see them?"
"They had him and his boys loading the kegs and jugs into the
automobile.
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