Bang! in a loud voice, and the thing is done. And if people or things—whatever and whoever you shoot at—should be mean enough to remain unhurt, why, then, that is their fault, and much good may their meanness do them!

Well, Adelaide and Mr. Sanders took their lunch and were about to start on their dangerous expedition, when they bethought themselves of something that Lucindy had forgotten.

"Why, Lucindy!" cried Adelaide, "what is the matter with you?"

"Nothin' 't all dat I knows on, honey. I'm de same ol' sev'n an' six what I allers been."

Then Mr. Sanders came to Adelaide's support. "Well, your mind must be wanderin'," he said, "bekaze we ast you as plain as tongue kin speak for to put us up a couple of buttermilks."

Lucindy threw her hand above her head with a gesture of despair. "I know it, I know it! but I ain't got but one buttermilk. Dar's a jar full, but dat don't make but one; an' what I gwine do when dat's de case?"

"Why, ef you've got a jar full, thar must be mighty nigh a dozen buttermilks in it." And so, after much argument and explanation, Lucindy found a bottle and a funnel and poured two glassfuls in it, one after the other. Mr. Sanders, very solemn, counted as she filled the glass. "That makes one," he said, as she emptied the first glass, "an'," when she poured in the rest—"that makes two, don't it?"

"Yasser! La, yasser! you-all got me so mixified dat I dunner know which eend I'm a standin' on. Two! yasser, dey sho is two in dar!"

Having everything needful in hand, the hunters took their way toward the large garden. Don't think this garden bore any resemblance to the ordinary gardens that are to be found in cities and towns. No! it was so large that, standing at one end you had to shade your eyes—especially when the sun was shining—to be able to see the boundary fence at the other end. It held not only a supply of vegetables sufficient for fifty families, but it contained an abundance of old-fashioned flowers, the kind you see pictured in the magazines—roses, spice pinks, primroses, mint, with its little blue flowers, lavender—oh, and ever so much of everything! And it was all well kept, too, stingy as old Jonas was. In this wide garden the Whish-Whish Forest grew and flourished, and toward this the two hunters bent their steps.

At first they pretended they were not hunting. Nothing could have been more innocent than the careless way in which they made their way toward the home of the Boogerman. Hiding their cornstalk guns behind them as well as they could, they sauntered along examining the flowers, and no one would have supposed that they were after ridding the country of the cruel monster that had terrorised the children for miles around. In not less than seven or seventeen counties was his name spoken in whispers when the sun had gone to bed and tucked his cloud-quilts around him. If a child cried at night, or if a wide-awake little one uttered a whimpering protest when bed-time came, the nurses—not one nurse, but all the nurses—would raise their hands warningly, and whisper in a frightened tone, "Sh-sh! the Boogerman is standing right there by the window; if you make a noise, he'll know right where you are—and then what will happen?"

Presently Adelaide and Mr. Sanders (who was still the Bishop, be it remembered) came close in their saunterings to the edge of the Whish-Whish Woods, and then they began to creep forward, making as little noise as possible.