PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narra- tive will be prosecuted;
persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to
find a plot in it will be shot.
Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the
extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike
County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not
been done in a hap- hazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with
the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would
suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
Scene: The Mississippi Valley
Time: Forty to fifty years ago
