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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Minerva and William Green Hill
+by Frances Boyd Calhoun
+
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+
+Title: Miss Minerva and William Green Hill
+
+Author: Frances Boyd Calhoun
+
+Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5187]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 31, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS MINERVA ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MISS MINERVA AND WILLIAM GREEN HILL
+
+BY FRANCES BOYD CALHOUN
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        MISS MINERVA and
+                       WILLIAM GREEN HILL
+
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER I
+
+                    A SCANDALIZED VIRGIN
+
+
+The bus drove up to the gate and stopped under the electric
+street-light.  Perched on the box by the big, black negro driver
+sat a little boy whose slender figure was swathed in a huge rain
+coat.
+
+Miss Minerva was on the porch waiting to receive him.
+
+"Mercy on me, child," she said, "what on earth made you ride up
+there?  Why didn't you get inside?"
+
+"I jest wanted to ride by Sam Lamb," replied the child as he was
+lifted down.  "An' I see a nice fat little man name' Major--"
+
+"He jes' wouldn' ride inside, Miss Minerva," interrupted the
+driver, quickly, to pass over the blush that rose to the
+spinster's thin cheek at mention of the Major.  "Twan't no use
+fer ter try ter make him ride nowhars but jes' up by me.  He jes'
+'fused an' 'fused an' 'sputed an' 'sputed; he jes' tuck ter me
+f'om de minute he got off 'm de train an' sot eyes on me; he am
+one easy chile ter git 'quainted wid; so, I jes' h'isted him up
+by me.  Here am his verlise, ma'am."
+
+"Good-bye, Sam Lamb," said the child as the negro got back on the
+box and gathered up the reins.  "I'll see you to-morrer."
+
+Miss Minerva imprinted a thin, old-maid kiss on the sweet,
+childish mouth.  "I am your Aunt Minerva," she said, as she
+picked up his satchel.
+
+The little boy carelessly drew the back of his hand across his
+mouth.
+
+"What are you doing?" she asked.  "Are you wiping my kiss off?"
+
+"Naw 'm," he replied, "I's jest a--I's a-rubbin' it in, I
+reckon."
+
+"Come in, William," and his aunt led the way through the wide
+hall into w big bedroom.
+
+"Billy, ma'am," corrected her nephew.
+
+"William," firmly repeated Miss Minerva.  "You may have been
+called Billy on that plantation where you were allowed to run
+wild with the negroes, but your name is William Green Hill and
+I shall insist upon your being called by it."
+
+She stooped to help him off with his coat, remarking as she did
+so, "What a big overcoat; it is several sizes too large for you."
+
+"Darned if 'tain't," agreed the child promptly.
+
+"Who taught you such a naughty word?" she asked in a horrified
+voice.  "Don't you know it is wrong to curse?"
+
+"You call that cussin'?" came in scornful tones from the little
+boy.  "You don't know cussin' when you see it; you jest oughter
+hear ole Uncle Jimmy-Jawed Jup'ter, Aunt Cindy's husban'; he'll
+show you somer the pretties' cussin' you ever did hear."
+
+"Who is Aunt Cindy?"
+
+"She's the colored 'oman what 'tends to me ever sence me an'
+Wilkes Booth Lincoln's born, an' Uncle Jup'ter is her husban'
+an' he sho' is a stingeree on cussin'.  Is yo' husban' much of
+a cusser?" he inquired.
+
+A pale pink dyed Miss Minerva's thin, sallow face.
+
+"I am not a married woman," she replied, curtly, "and I most
+assuredly would not permit any oaths to be used on my premises."
+
+"Well, Uncle Jimmy-Jawed Jup'ter is jest nach'elly boon' to
+cuss,--he's got a repertation to keep up," said Billy.
+
+He sat down in a chair in front of his aunt, crossed his legs
+and smiled confidentially up into her face.
+
+"Hell an' damn is jest easy ev'y day words to that nigger.  I
+wish you could hear him cuss on a Sunday jest one time, Aunt
+Minerva; he'd sho' make you open yo' eyes an' take in yo' sign.
+But Aunt Cindy don't 'low me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln to say
+nothin' 't all only jest `darn' tell we gits grown mens, an'
+puts on long pants."
+
+"Wilkes Booth Lincoln?" questioned his aunt.
+
+"Ain't you never hear teller him?" asked the child.  "He's ole
+Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline's boy; an' Peruny
+Pearline," he continued enthusiastically, "she ain't no ord'nary
+nigger, her hair ain't got nare kink an' she's got the grandes'
+clo'es.  They ain't nothin' snide 'bout her.  She got ten
+chillens an' ev'y single one of 'em's got a diff'unt pappy,
+she been married so much.  They do say she got Injun blood
+in her, too."
+
+Miss Minerva, who had been standing prim, erect, and stiff, fell
+limply into a convenient rocking chair, and looked closely at
+this orphaned nephew who had come to live with her.
+
+She saw a beautiful, bright, attractive, little face out of which
+big, saucy, grey eyes shaded by long curling black lashes looked
+winningly at her; she saw a sweet, childish, red mouth, a mass of
+short, yellow curls, and a thin but graceful little figure.
+
+"I knows the names of aller ole Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny
+Pearline's chillens," he was saying proudly: "Admiral Farragut
+Moses the Prophet Esquire, he's the bigges'; an' Alice Ann Maria
+Dan Step-an'-Go-Fetch-It, she had to nuss all the res.'; she say
+fas' as she git th'oo nussin' one an' 'low she goin' to have a
+breathin' spell here come another one an' she got to nuss it.
+An' the nex' is Mount Sinai Tabernicle, he name fer the church
+where of Aunt BlueGum Tempy's Peruny Pearline takes her
+sackerment; an' the nex' is First Thessalonians; Second
+Thessalonians, he's dead an' gone to the Bad Place 'cause he skunt
+a cat,--I don't mean skin the cat on a actin' role like me an'
+Wilkes Booth Lincoln does,--he skunt a sho' 'nough cat what was a
+black cat, what was a ole witch, an' she come back an' ha'nt him
+an' he growed thinner an' thinner an' weasler an' weasler, tell
+finely he wan't nothin' 't all but a skel'ton, an' the Bad Man
+won't 'low nobody 't all to give his parch' tongue no water, an'
+he got to, ever after amen, be toast on a pitchfork. An' Oleander
+Magnolia Althea is the nex'," he continued, enumerating Peruny
+Pearline's offspring on his thin, well molded fingers, "she got
+the seven year itch; an' Gettysburg, an' Biddle-&-Brothers-Mercantile-Co.;
+he name fer the sto' where ole Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline
+gits credit so she can pay when she fetches in her cotton in the
+fall; an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln, him an' me's twins, we was borned
+the same day only I's borned to my mama an' he's borned to his 'n
+an' Doctor Jenkins fetched me an' Doctor Shacklefoot fetched him.
+An' Decimus Ultimus,"--the little boy triumphantly put his right
+forefinger on his left little one, thus making the tenth, "she's
+the baby an' she's got the colic an' cries loud 'nough to wake
+up Israel; Wilkes Booth Lincoln say he wish the little devil
+would die.  Peruny Pearline firs' name her `Doctor Shacklefoot'
+'cause he fetches all her chillens, but the doctor he say that
+ain't no name fer a girl, so he name her Decimus Ultimus."
+
+Miss Minerva, sober, proper, dignified, religious old maid unused
+to children, listened in frozen amazement and paralyzed silence.
+She decided to put the child to bed at once that she might
+collect her thoughts, and lay some plans for the rearing of this
+sadly neglected, little orphaned nephew.
+
+"William," she said, "it is bedtime, and I know you must be
+sleepy after your long ride on the cars.  Would you like
+something to eat before I put you to bed?  I saved you some supper."
+
+"Naw 'm, I ain't hongry; the Major man what I talk to on the
+train tuck me in the dinin'-room an' gimme all I could hol'; I
+jest eat an' eat tell they wan't a wrinkle in me," was the reply.
+"He axed me 'bout you, too.  Is he name' Major Minerva?"
+
+She opened a door in considerable confusion, and they entered a
+small, neat room adjoining.
+
+"This is your own little room, William," said she, "you see it
+opens into mine.  Have you a nightshirt?"
+
+"Naw 'm, I don' need no night-shirt.  I jest sleeps in my unions
+and sometimes in my overalls."
+
+"Well, you may sleep in your union suit to-night," said his
+scandalized relative, "and I'll see what I can do for you
+to-morrow.  Can you undress yourself?"
+
+Her small nephew wrinkled his nose, disdainfully.  "Well, I
+reckon so," he scornfully made answer.  "Me an' Wilkes Booth
+Lincoln been undressin' usself ever sence we's born."
+
+"I'll come in here after a while and turn off the light.
+Good-night, William."
+
+"Good-night, Aunt Minerva," responded the little boy.
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER II
+
+                THE RABBIT'S LEFT HIND FOOT
+
+
+A few minutes later, as Miss Minerva sat rocking and thinking,
+the door opened and a lean, graceful, little figure, clad in a
+skinny, grey union suit, came into the room.
+
+"Ain't I a-goin' to say no prayers?" demanded a sweet, childish
+voice.  "Aunt Cindy hear me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln say us
+prayers ev'y night sence we's born."
+
+"Why, of course you must say your prayers," said his aunt,
+blushing at having to be reminded of her duty by this young
+heathen; "kneel down here by me."
+
+Billy looked at his aunt's bony frame and thought of Aunt Cindy's
+soft, fat, ample lap.  A wistful look crossed his childish face
+as
+he dropped down in front of her and laid his head against her
+knee, then the bright, beautiful little face took on an angelic
+expression as he closed his eyes and softly chanted: "`Now I lays
+me down to sleep, I prays the Lord my soul to keep, If I should
+die befo' I wake, I prays the Lord my soul to take.
+
+"`Keep way f'om me hoodoo an' witch, Lead my paf f'om the
+po'-house gate, I pines fey the golden harps an' sich, Oh, Lord,
+I'll set an' pray an' wait.' "Oh, Lord, bless ev'ybody; bless me
+an' Aunt Cindy, an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln, an' Aunt Blue-Gum
+Tempy's Peruny Pearline, an' Uncle Jimmy-Jawed Jup'ter, an'
+ev'ybody, an' Sam Lamb, an' Aunt Minerva, an' alley Aunt
+Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline's chillens, an' give Aunt
+Minerva a billy goat or a little nanny if she'd ruther, an'
+bless Major Minerva, an' make me a good boy like Sanctified
+Sophy, fey Jesus' sake.  Amen."
+
+"What is that you have tied around your neck, William?" she
+asked, as the little boy rose to his feet.
+
+"That's my rabbit foot; you won't never have no 'sease 't all an'
+nobody can't never conjure you if you wears a rabbit foot.  This
+here one is the lef' hin' foot; it was ketched by a red-headed
+nigger with crosseyes in a graveyard at twelve er'clock on a
+Friday night, when they's a full moon.  He give it to Aunt Cindy
+to tie 'roun' my nake when I's a baby.  Ain't you got no abbit
+foot?" he anxiously inquired.
+
+"No," she answered.  "I have never had one and I have never been
+conjured either.  Give it to me, William; I can not allow you to
+be so superstitious," and she held out her hand.
+
+"Please, Aunt Minerva, jest lemme wear it to-night," he pleaded.
+"Me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln's been wearin' us rabbit foots ever
+sence we's born."
+
+"No," she said firmly; "I'll put a stop to such nonsense at
+once.  Give it to me, William."
+
+Billy looked at his aunt's austere countenance and lovingly
+fingered his charm; he opened his mouth to say something, but
+hesitated; slowly he untied the string around his neck and laid
+his treasure on her lap; then without looking up, he ran into his
+own little room, closing the door behind him.
+
+Soon afterward Miss Minerva, hearing a sound like a stifled sob
+coming from the adjoining room, opened the door softly and looked
+into a sad, little face with big, wide, open eyes shining with
+tears.
+
+"What is the matter, William?" she coldly asked.
+
+"I ain't never slep' by myself," he sobbed.  "Wilkes Booth
+Lincoln always sleep on a pallet by my bed ever sence we's born
+an'--'I wants Aunt Cindy to tell me 'bout Uncle Piljerk Peter."
+
+His aunt sat down on the bed by his side.  She was not versed in
+the ways of childhood and could not know that the little boy
+wanted to pillow his head on Aunt Cindy's soft and ample bosom,
+that he was homesick for his black friends, the only companions
+he had ever known.
+
+"I'll you a Bible story," she temporized.  "You must not be a
+baby.  You are not afraid, are you, William? God is always with
+you."
+
+"I don' want no God," he sullenly made reply, "I wants somebody
+with sho' 'nough skin an' bones, an'--n' I wants to hear 'bout
+Uncle Piljerk Peter."
+
+"I will tell you a Bible story," again suggested his aunt, "I
+will tell you about--"
+
+"I don' want to hear no Bible story, neither," he objected, "I
+wants to hear Uncle Jimmy-Jawed Jup'ter play his 'corjun an'
+sing:
+
+  "'Rabbit up the gum tree, Coon is in the holler
+  Wake, snake; Juney-Bug stole a half a dollar."'
+
+"I'll sing you a hymn," said Miss Minerva patiently.
+
+"I don' want to hear you sing no hymn," said Billy impolitely.
+"I wants to see Sanctified Sophy shout."
+
+As his aunt could think of no substitute with which to tempt
+him in lieu of Sanctified Sophy's shouting, she remained silent.
+
+"An' I wants Wilkes Booth Lincoln to dance a clog," persisted
+her nephew.
+
+Miss Minerva still remained silent.  She felt unable to cope
+with the situation till she had adjusted her thoughts and made
+her plans.
+
+Presently Billy, looking at her shrewdly, said:
+
+"Gimme my rabbit foot, Aunt Minerva, an' I'll go right off to
+sleep."
+
+When she again looked in on him he was fast asleep, a rosy
+flush on his babyish, tearstained cheek, his red lips half
+parted, his curly head pillowed on his arm, and close against his
+soft, young throat there nestled the left hind foot of a rabbit.
+
+Miss Minerva's bed time was half after nine o'clock, summer or
+winter.  She had hardly varied a second in the years that had
+elapsed since the runaway marriage of her only relative, the
+young sister whose child had now come to live with her.  But on
+the night of Billy's arrival the stern, narrow woman sat for
+hours in her rocking chair, her mind busy with thoughts of that
+pretty young sister, dead since the boy's birth.
+
+And now the wild, reckless, dissipated brother-in-law was dead,
+too, and the child had been sent to her; to the aunt who did not
+want him, who did not care for children, who had never forgiven
+her sister her unfortunate marriage.  "If he had only been a
+girl," she sighed.  What she believed to be a happy thought
+entered her brain.
+
+"I shall rear him," she promised herself, "just as if he were a
+little girl; then he will be both a pleasure and a comfort to me,
+and a companion for my loneliness."
+
+Miss Minerva was strictly methodical; she worked ever by the
+clock, so many hours for this, so many minutes for that.
+William, she now resolved, for the first time becoming really
+interested in him, should grow up to be a model young man,
+a splendid and wonderful piece of mechanism, a fine, practical,
+machine-like individual, moral, upright, religious.  She was glad
+that he was young; she would begin his training on the morrow.
+She would teach him to sew, to sweep, to churn, to cook, and when
+he was older he should be educated for the ministry.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Minerva; "I shall be very strict with him just
+at first, and punish him for the slightest disobedience or
+misdemeanor, and he will soon learn that my authority is not to
+be questioned."
+
+And the little boy who had never had a restraining hand laid upon
+him in his short life?  He slept sweetly and innocently in the
+next room dreaming of the care-free existence on the plantation
+and of his idle, happy, negro companions.
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER III
+
+                     THE WILLING WORKER
+
+"Get up, William," said Miss Minerva, "and come with me to the
+bath-room; I have fixed your bath."
+
+The child's sleepy eyes popped wide open at this astounding
+command.
+
+"Ain't this-here Wednesday?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Yes; to-day is Wednesday.  Hurry up or your water will get
+cold."
+
+"Well, me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln jest washed las' Sat'day.  We
+ain't got to wash no mo' till nex' Sat'day," he argued.
+
+"Oh, yes," said his relative; "you must bathe every day."
+
+"Me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln ain't never wash on a Wednesday
+sence we's born," he protested indignantly.
+
+Billy's idea of a bath was taken from the severe weekly scrubbing
+which Aunt Cindy gave him with a hard washrag, and he felt that
+he'd rather die at once than have to bathe every day.
+
+He followed his aunt dolefully to the bath-room at the end of the
+long back-porch of the old-fashioned, one-story house; but once
+in the big white tub he was delighted.
+
+In fact he stayed in it so long Miss Minerva had to knock on the
+door and tell him to hurry up and get ready for breakfast.
+
+"Say," he yelled out to her, "I likes this here; it's mos' as
+fine as Johnny's Wash Hole where me and' Wilkes Booth Lincoln
+goes in swimmin' ever sence we's born."
+
+When he came into the dining-room he was a sight to gladden even
+a prim old maid's heart.  The water had curled his hair into
+riotous yellow ringlets, his bright eyes gleamed, his beautiful,
+expressive little face shone happily, and every movement of his
+agile, lithe figure was grace itself.
+
+"I sho' is hongry," he remarked, as he took his seat at the
+breakfast table.
+
+Miss Minerva realized that now was the time to begin her small
+nephew's training; if she was ever to teach him to speak
+correctly she must begin at once.
+
+"William," she said sternly, "you must not talk so much like a
+negro.  Instead of saying `I sho' is hongry,' you should say,
+`I am very hungry.'  Listen to me and try to speak more
+correctly."
+
+"Don't! don't!" she screamed as he helped himself to the meat
+and gravy, leaving a little brown river on her fresh white
+tablecloth.  "Wait until I ask a blessing; then I will help you
+to what you want."
+
+Billy enjoyed his breakfast very much.  "These muffins sho' is--"
+he began; catching his aunt's eye he corrected himself--"
+
+"These muffins am very good."
+
+"These muffins are very good," said Miss Minerva patiently.
+
+"Did you ever eat any bobbycued rabbit?" he asked.  "Me an'
+Wilkes Booth Lincoln been eatin' chit'lins, an' sweet 'taters, an'
+'possum, an' squirrel, an' hoecake, an' Brunswick stew ever sence
+we's born," was his proud announcement.
+
+"Use your napkin," commanded she, "and don't fill your mouth so
+full."
+
+The little boy flooded his plate with syrup.
+
+"These-here 'lasses sho' is--" he began, but instantly
+remembering that he must be more particular in his speech,
+he stammered out:
+
+"These-here sho' is--am--are a nice messer 'lasses.  I ain't
+never eat sech a good bait.  They sho' is--I aimed to say--these
+'lasses sho' are a bird; they's 'nother sight tastier 'n
+sorghum, an' Aunt Cindy 'lows that sorghum is the very penurity
+of a nigger."
+
+She did not again correct him.
+
+"I must be very patient," she thought, "and go very slowly.  I
+must not expect too much of him at first."
+
+After breakfast Miss Minerva, who would not keep a servant,
+preferring to do her own work, tied a big cook-apron around the
+little boy's neck, and told him to churn while she washed the
+dishes.  This arrangement did not suit Billy.
+
+"Boys don't churn," he said sullenly, "me an' Wilkes Booth
+Lincoln don' never have to churn sence we's born; 'omans has to
+churn an' I ain't agoing to.  Major Minerva--he ain't never
+churn," he began belligerently but his relative turned an
+uncompromising and rather perturbed back upon him.  Realizing
+that he was beaten, he submitted to his fate, clutched the dasher
+angrily, and began his weary work.
+
+He was glad his little black friend did not witness his disgrace.
+
+As he thought of Wilkes Booth Lincoln the big tears came into his
+eyes and rolled down his cheeks; he leaned way over the churn and
+the great glistening tears splashed right into the hole made for
+the dasher, and rolled into the milk.
+
+Billy grew interested at once and laughed aloud; he puckered up
+his face and tried to weep again, for he wanted more tears to
+fall into the churn; but the tears refused to come and he
+couldn't squeeze another one out of his eyes.
+
+"Aunt Minerva," he said mischievously, "I done ruint yo'
+buttermilk."
+
+"What have you done?" she inquired.
+
+"It's done ruint," he replied, "you'll hafter th'ow it away; 't
+ain't fitten fer nothin.' I done cried 'bout a bucketful in it."
+
+"Why did you cry?" asked Miss Minerva calmly.  "Don't you like to
+work?"
+
+"Yes 'm, I jes' loves to work; I wish I had time to work all the
+time.  But it makes my belly ache to churn,--I got a awful pain
+right now."
+
+"Churn on!" she commanded unsympathetically.
+
+He grabbed the dasher and churned vigorously for one minute.
+
+"I reckon the butter's done come," he announced, resting from
+his labors.
+
+"It hasn't begun to come yet," replied the exasperated woman.
+"Don't waste so much time, William."
+
+The child churned in silence for the space of two minutes, and
+suggested: "It's time to put hot water in it; Aunt Cindy always
+puts hot water in it.  Lemme git some fer you."
+
+"I never put hot water in my milk," said she, "it makes the
+butter puffy.  Work more and talk less, William."
+
+Again there was a brief silence, broken only by the sound of the
+dasher thumping against the bottom of the churn, and the rattle
+of the dishes.
+
+"I sho' is tired," he presently remarked, heaving a deep sigh.
+"My arms is 'bout give out, Aunt Minerva.  Ole Aunt Blue-Gum
+Tempy's Peruny Pearline see a man churn with his toes; lemme git
+a chair an' see if I can't churn with my toes."
+
+"Indeed you shall not," responded his annoyed relative
+positively.
+
+"Sanctified Sophy knowed a colored 'oman what had a little dog
+went roun' an' roun' an' churn fer her," remarked Billy after a
+short pause.  "If you had a billy goat or a little nanny I could
+hitch him to the churn fer you ev'ry day."
+
+"William," commanded his aunt, "don't say another word until you
+have finished your work."
+
+"Can't I sing?" he asked.
+
+She nodded permission as she went through the open door into the
+dining-room.
+
+Returning a few minutes later she found him sitting astride the
+churn, using the dasher so vigorously that buttermilk was
+splashing in every direction, and singing in a clear, sweet voice:
+
+   "He'll feed you when you's naked,
+    The orphan stear he'll dry,
+    He'll clothe you when you's hongry
+    An' take you when you die."
+
+Miss Minerva jerked him off with no gentle hand.
+
+"What I done now?" asked the boy innocently.  "'tain't no harm as
+I can see jes' to straddle a churn."
+
+"Go out in the front yard," commanded his aunt, "and sit in the
+swing till I call you.  I'll finish the work without your
+assistance.  And, William," she called after him, "there is a
+very bad little boy who lives next door; I want you to have as
+little to do with him as possible."
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER IV
+
+                   SWEETHEART AND PARTNER
+
+
+Billy was sitting quietly in the big lawn-swing when his aunt,
+dressed for the street, finally came through the front door.
+
+"I am going up-town, William," she said, "I want to buy you some
+things that you may go with me to church Sunday.  Have you ever
+been to Sunday-School?"
+
+"Naw 'm; but I been to pertracted meetin'," came the ready
+response, "I see Sanctified Sophy shout tell she tore ev'y rag
+offer her back 'ceptin' a shimmy.  She's one 'oman what sho' is
+got 'ligion; she ain't never backslid 't all, an' she ain't never
+fell f'om grace but one time--"
+
+"Stay right in the yard till I come back.  Sit in the swing and
+don't go outside the front yard.  I shan't be gone long," said
+Miss Minerva.
+
+His aunt had hardly left the gate before Billy caught sight of a
+round, fat little face peering at him through the palings which
+separated Miss Minerva's yard from that of her next-door
+neighbor.
+
+"Hello!" shouted Billy.  "Is you the bad little boy what can't
+play with me?"
+
+"What you doing in Miss Minerva's yard?" came the answering
+interrogation across the fence.
+
+"I's come to live with her," replied Billy.  "My mama an' papa is
+dead.  What's yo' name?"
+
+"I'm Jimmy Garner.  How old are you? I'm most six, I am."
+
+"Shucks, I's already six, a-going on seven.  Come on, le's
+swing."
+
+"Can't," said the new acquaintance, "I've runned off once to-day,
+and got licked for it."
+
+"I ain't never got no whippin' sence me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln
+'s born," boasted Billy.
+
+"Ain't you?" asked Jimmy.  "I 'spec' I been whipped more 'n a
+million times, my mama is so pertic'lar with me.  She's 'bout the
+pertic'larest woman ever was; she don't 'low me to leave the yard
+'thout I get a whipping.  I believe I will come over to see you
+'bout half a minute."
+
+Suiting the action to the word Jimmy climbed the fence, and the
+two little boys were soon comfortably settled facing each other
+in the big lawn-swing.
+
+"Who lives over there?" asked Billy, pointing to the house across
+the street.
+
+"That's Miss Cecilia's house.  That's her coming out of the front
+gate now."
+
+The young lady smiled and waved her hand at them.
+
+"Ain't she a peach?" asked Jimmy.  "She's my sweetheart and she
+is 'bout the swellest sweetheart they is."
+
+"She's mine, too," promptly replied Billy, who had fallen in love
+at first sight.  "I's a-goin' to have her fer my sweetheart too."
+
+"Naw, she ain't yours, neither; she's mine," angrily declared
+the other little boy, kicking his rival's legs.  "You all time
+talking 'bout you going to have Miss Cecilia for your sweetheart.
+She's done already promised me."
+
+"I'll tell you what," proposed Billy, "lemme have her an' you
+can have Aunt Minerva."
+
+"I wouldn't have Miss Minerva to save your life," replied Jimmy
+disrespectfully, "her nake ain't no bigger 'n that," making a
+circle of his thumb and forefinger.  "Miss Cecilia, Miss
+Cecilia," he shrieked tantalizingly, "is my sweetheart."
+
+"I'll betcher I have her fer a sweetheart soon as ever I see
+her," said Billy.
+
+"What's your name?" asked Jimmy presently.
+
+"Aunt Minerva says it's William Green Hill, but 'tain't, it's
+jest plain Billy," responded the little boy.
+
+"Ain't God a nice, good old man," remarked Billy, after they had
+swung in silence for a while, with an evident desire to make
+talk.
+
+"That He is," replied Jimmy, enthusiastically.  "He's 'bout the
+forgivingest person ever was.  I just couldn't get 'long at all
+'thout Him.  It don't make no differ'nce what you do or how many
+times you run off, all you got to do is just ask God to forgive
+you and tell him you're sorry and ain't going to do so no more,
+that night when you say your prayers, and it's all right with
+God.  S'posing He was one of these wants-his-own-way kind o'
+mans, He could make Hi'self the troublesomest person ever was,
+and little boys couldn't do nothing a tall.  I sure think a heap
+of God.  He ain't never give me the worst of it yet."
+
+"I wonder what He looks like," mused Billy.
+
+"I s'pec' He just looks like the three-headed giant in Jack the
+Giant-Killer," explained Jimmy, "'cause He's got three heads and
+one body.  His heads are name' Papa, Son, and Holy Ghost, and His
+body is just name' plain God.  Miss Cecilia 'splained it all to
+me and she is 'bout the splendidest 'splainer they is.  She's my
+Sunday-School teacher."
+
+"She's goin' to be my Sunday-School teacher, too," said Billy
+serenely.
+
+"Yours nothing; you all time want my Sunday-School teacher."
+
+"Jimmee!" called a voice from the interior of the house in the
+next yard.
+
+"Somebody's a-callin' you," said Billy.
+
+"That ain't nobody but mama," explained Jimmy composedly.
+
+"Jimmee-ee!" called the voice.
+
+"Don't make no noise," warned that little boy, "maybe she'll give
+up toreckly."
+
+"You Jimmee!" his mother called again.
+
+Jimmy made no move to leave the swing.
+
+"I don' never have to go 'less she says `James Lafayette Garner,'
+then I got to hustle," he remarked.
+
+"Jimmy Garner!"
+
+"She's mighty near got me," he said softly; "but maybe she'll
+get tired and won't call no more.  She ain't plumb mad yet.
+
+"James Garner!"
+
+"It's coming now," said Jimmy dolefully.
+
+The two little boys sat very still and quiet.
+
+"James Lafayette Garner!"
+
+The younger child sprang to his feet.
+
+"I got to get a move on now," he said; "when she calls like that
+she means business.  I betcher she's got a switch and a
+hair-brush and a slipper in her hand right this minute.  I'll be
+back toreckly," he promised.
+
+He was as good as his word, and in a very short time he was
+sitting again facing Billy in the swing.
+
+"She just wanted to know where her embroid'ry scissors was," he
+explained.  "It don't matter what's lost in that house I'm
+always the one that's got to be 'sponsible and all time got to
+go look for it."
+
+"Did you find 'em?" asked Billy.
+
+"Yep; I went right straight where I left 'em yeste'day.  I had
+'em trying to cut a piece of wire.  I stole off and went down to
+Sam Lamb's house this morning and tooken breakfast with him and
+his old woman, Sukey," he boasted.
+
+"I knows Sam Lamb," said Billy, "I rode up on the bus with him."
+
+"He's my partner," remarked Jimmy.
+
+"He's mine, too," said Billy quickly.
+
+"No, he ain't neither; you all time talking 'bout you going to
+have Sam Lamb for a partner.  You want everything I got.  You
+want Miss Cecilia and you want Sam Lamb.  Well, you just ain't
+a-going to have 'em.  You got to get somebody else for your
+partner and sweetheart."
+
+"Well, you jest wait an' see," said Billy.  "I got Major
+Minerva."
+
+"Shucks, they ain't no Major name' that away," and Jimmy changed
+the subject.  "Sam Lamb's sow's got seven little pigs.  He lemme
+see 'em suck," said Sam Lamb's partner proudly.  "He's got a cow,
+too; she's got the worrisomest horns ever was.  I believe she's a
+steer anyway."
+
+"Shucks," said the country boy, contemptuously, "You do' know a
+steer when you see one; you can't milk no steer."
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER V
+
+                    TURNING ON THE HOSE
+
+
+"Look! Ain't that a snake?" shrieked Billy, pointing to what
+looked to him like a big snake coiled in the yard.
+
+"Snake, nothing!" sneered his companion, "that's a hose.  You all
+time got to call a hose a snake.  Come on, let's sprinkle," and
+Jimmy sprang out of the swing, jerked up the hose, and dragged it
+to the hydrant.  "My mama don't never 'low me to sprinkle with
+her hose, but Miss Minerva she's so good I don' reckon she'll care,"
+he cried mendaciously.
+
+Billy followed, watched his companion screw the hose to the
+faucet, and turn the water on.  There was a hissing, gurgling
+sound and a stream of water shot out, much to the rapture of the
+astonished Billy.
+
+"Won't Aunt Minerva care?" he asked, anxiously.  "Is she a real
+'ligious 'oman?"
+
+"She is the Christianest woman they is," announced the other
+child. "Come on, we'll sprinkle the street--and I don't want
+nobody to get in our way neither."
+
+"I wish Wilkes Booth Lincoln could see us," said Miss Minerva's
+nephew.
+
+A big, fat negress, with a bundle of clothes tied in a red table
+cloth on her head, came waddling down the sidewalk.
+
+Billy looked at Jimmy and giggled, Jimmy looked at Billy and
+giggled; then, the latter took careful aim and a stream of water
+hit the old woman squarely in the face.
+
+"Who dat?  What's yo' doin'?" she yelled, as she backed off.
+"'I's a-gwine to tell yo' pappy, Jimmy Garner," as she recognized
+one of the culprits.  "Pint dat ar ho'e 'way f'om me, 'fo' I
+make yo' ma spank yuh slabsided.  I got to git home an' wash.
+Drap it, I tell yuh!"
+
+Two little girls rolling two doll buggies in which reposed two
+enormous rag-babies were seen approaching.
+
+"That's Lina Hamilton and Frances Black," said Jimmy, "they're
+my chums."
+
+Billy took a good look at them.  "They's goin' to be my chums,
+too," he said calmly.
+
+"Your chums, nothing!" angrily cried Jimmy, swelling up
+pompously.  "You all time trying to claim my chums.  I can't have
+nothing a tall 'thout you got to stick your mouth in.  You 'bout
+the selfishest boy they is.  You want everything I got, all
+time."
+
+The little girls were now quite near and Jimmy hailed them
+gleefully, forgetful of his anger.
+
+"Come on, Lina, you and Frances," he shrieked, "and we can have
+the mostest fun.  Billy here's done come to live with Miss
+Minerva and she's done gone up town and don't care if we sprinkle,
+'cause she's got so much 'ligion."
+
+"But you know none of us are allowed to use a hose," objected
+Lina.
+
+"But it's so much fun," said Jimmy; "and Miss Minerva she's so
+Christian she ain't going to raise much of a rough-house, and if
+she do we can run when we see her coming."
+
+"I can't run," said Billy, "I ain't got nowhere to run to an'--"
+
+"If that ain't just like you, Billy," interrupted Jimmy, "all
+time talking 'bout you ain't got nowhere to run to; you don't
+want nobody to have no fun.  You 'bout the picayunest boy they
+is."
+
+Little Ikey Rosenstein, better known as "GooseGrease," dressed in
+a cast-off suit of his big brother's, with his father's hat set
+rakishly back on his head and over his ears, was coming proudly
+down the street some distance off.
+
+"Yonder comes Goose-Grease Rosenstein," said Jimmy gleefully.
+"When he gets right close le's make him hop."
+
+"All right," agreed Billy, his good humor restored, "le's
+baptize him good."
+
+"Oh, we can't baptize him," exclaimed the other little boy,
+"'cause he's a Jew and the Bible says not to baptize Jews.  You
+got to mesmerize 'em.  How come me to know so much?" he continued
+condescendingly, "Miss Cecilia teached me in the Sunday-School.
+Sometimes I know so much I I feel like I'm going to bust.  She
+teached me 'bout `Scuffle little chillens and forbid 'em not,'
+and 'bout 'Ananias telled Sapphira he done it with his little
+hatchet,' and 'bout "Lijah jumped over the moon in a automobile:
+I know everything what's in the Bible.  Miss Cecilia sure is a
+crackerjack; sties 'bout the stylishest Sunday-School teacher
+they is."
+
+"'T was the cow jumped over the moon," said Frances, "and it
+isn't in the Bible; it's in Mother Goose."
+
+"And Elijah went to Heaven in a chariot of fire," corrected Lina.
+
+"And I know all 'bout Gabr'el," continued Jimmy unabashed.  "When
+folks called him to blow his trumpet he was under the haystack
+fast asleep."
+
+Ikey was quite near by this time to command the attention of the
+four children.
+
+"Let's mesmerize Goose-Grease," yelled Jimmy, as he turned the
+stream of water full upon him.
+
+Frances, Lina, and Billy clapped their hands and laughed for joy.
+
+With a terrified and angry shriek their victim, dripping water at
+every step, ran howling by his tormentors.  When he reached a
+safe distance he turned around, shook a fist at them, and screamed
+back:
+
+"My papa is going to have you all arrested and locked up in the
+calaboose."
+
+"Calaboose, nothing!" jeered Jimmy.  "You all time wanting to put
+somebody in the calaboose 'cause they mesmerize you.  You got to
+be mesmerized 'cause it's in the Bible."
+
+A short, stout man, dressed in neat black clothes, was coming
+toward them.
+
+"Oh, that's the Major!" screamed Billy delightedly, taking the
+hose and squaring himself to greet his friend of the train, but
+Jimmy jerked it out of his hand, before either of them noticed
+him turning about, as if for something forgotten.
+
+"You ain't got the sense of a one-eyed tadpole, Billy," he said.
+"That's Miss Minerva's beau.  He's been loving her more 'n a
+million years.  My mama says he ain't never going to marry nobody
+a tall 'thout he can get Miss Minerva, and Miss Minerva she just
+turns up her nose at anything that wears pants.  You better not
+sprinkle him.  He's been to the war and got his big toe shot off.
+He kilt 'bout a million Injuns and Yankees and he's name' Major
+'cause he's a Confed'rit vetrun.  He went to the war when he
+ain't but fourteen."
+
+"Did he have on long pants?" asked Billy.  "I call him Major
+Minerva--"
+
+"Gladys Maude's got the pennyskeeters," broke in Frances
+importantly, fussing over her baby, "and I'm going to see Doctor
+Sanford.  Don't you think she looks pale, Jimmy?"
+
+"Pale, nothing!" sneered the little boy.  "Girls got to all time
+play their dolls are sick.  Naw; I don't know nothing a tall
+'bout your Gladys Maude."
+
+Lina gazed up the street.
+
+"That looks like Miss Minerva to me 'way up yonder," she
+remarked.  "I think we had better get away from here before she
+sees us."
+
+Two little girls rolling two doll buggies fairly flew down the
+street and one little boy quickly climbed to the top of the
+dividing fence.  From this safe vantage point he shouted to
+Billy, who was holding the nozzle of the hose out of which poured
+a stream of water.
+
+"You 'd better turn that water off 'cause Miss Minerva's going
+to be madder 'n a green persimmon."
+
+"I do' know how to," said Billy forlornly.  "You turnt it on."
+
+"Drop the hose and run to the hydrant and twist that little thing
+at the top," screamed Jimmy.  "You all time got to perpose
+someping to get little boys in trouble anyway," he added
+ungenerously.
+
+"You perposed this yo'self," declared an indignant Billy.  "You
+said Aunt Minerva's so 'ligious she wouldn't git mad."
+
+"Christian womans can get just as mad as any other kind,"
+declared the other boy, sliding from his perch on the fence and
+running across his lawn to disappear behind his own front door.
+
+Holding her skirts nearly up to her knees Miss Minerva stepped
+gingerly along the wet and muddy street till she got to her gate,
+where her nephew met her, looking a little guilty, but still
+holding his head up with that characteristic, manly air which was
+so attractive.
+
+"William," she said sternly, "I see you have been getting into
+mischief, and I feel it my duty to punish you, so that you may
+learn to be trustworthy.  I said nothing to you about the hose
+because I did not think you would know how to use it."
+
+Billy remained silent.  He did not want to betray his little
+companions of the morning, so he said nothing in his own defense.
+
+"Come with me into the house," continued his aunt, "you must go
+to bed at once."
+
+But the child protested vigorously.
+
+"Don' make me go to bed in the daytime, Aunt Minerva; me an'
+Wilkes Booth Lincoln ain't never went to bed in the daytime since
+we's born, an' I ain't never hear tell of a real 'ligious 'oman
+a-puttin' a little boy in bed 'fore it's dark; an' I ain't never
+a-goin' to meddle with yo' ole hose no mo'."
+
+But Miss Minerva was obdurate, and the little boy spent a
+miserable hour between the sheets.
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER VI
+
+                    SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY.
+
+
+I have a present for you," said his aunt, handing Billy a long,
+rectangular package.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," said her beaming nephew as he sat down on the
+floor, all eager anticipation, and began to untie the string.
+His charming, changeful face was bright and happy again, but his
+expression became one of indignant amaze as he saw the contents
+of the box.
+
+"What I want with a doll?" he asked angrily, "I ain't no girl."
+
+"I think every little boy should have a doll and learn to make
+clothes for it," said Miss Minerva.  "I don't want you to be a
+great, rough boy; I want you to be sweet and gentle like a little
+girl; I am going to teach you how to sew and cook and sweep, so
+you may grow up a comfort to me."
+
+This was a gloomy forecast for the little boy accustomed, as he
+had been, to the freedom of a big plantation, and he scowled darkly.
+
+"Me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln ain't never hafter play with no
+dolls sence we's born," he replied sullenly, "we goes in
+swimmin' an' plays baseball.  I can knock a home-run an' pitch a
+curve an' ketch a fly.  Why don't you gimme a baseball bat?  I
+already got a ball what Admiral Farragut gimme.  An' I ain't
+agoin' to be no sissy neither.  Lina an' Frances plays dolls, me
+an' Jimmy--" he stopped in sudden confusion.
+
+"Lina and Frances and James!" exclaimed his aunt.  "What do you
+know about them, William?"
+
+The child's face flushed.  "I seen 'em this mornin'," he
+acknowledged.
+
+Miss Minerva put a hand on either shoulder der and looked
+straight into his eyes.
+
+"William, who started that sprinkling this morning?" she
+questioned, sharply.
+
+Billy flushed guiltily and lowered his eyelids; but only for an
+instant.  Quickly recovering his composure he returned her gaze
+steadily and ignored her question.
+
+"I see yo' beau too, Aunt Minerva," he remarked tranquilly.
+
+It was Miss Minerva this time who lost her composure, for her
+thin, sallow face became perfectly crimson.
+
+"My beau?" she asked confusedly.  "Who put that nonsense into
+your head?"
+
+"Jimmy show him to me," he replied jauntily, once more master of
+the situation and in full realization of the fact.  "Why don't
+you marry him, Aunt Minerva, so's he could live right here with us?
+An' I could learn him how to churn.  I s'pec' he 'd make a
+beautiful churner.  He sho' is a pretty little fat man," he
+continued flatteringly.  "An' dress?  That beau was jest dressed
+plumb up to the top notch.  I sho' would marry him if I's you an'
+not turn up my nose at him 'cause he wears pants, an' you can
+learn him how to talk properer'n what he do an' I betcher he'd
+jest nachelly take to a broom, an' I s'pec' he ain't got nobody
+'tall to show him how to sew.  An' y' all could get the doctor to
+fetch you a little baby so he wouldn't hafter play with no doll.
+I sho' wisht we had him here," ended a selfish Billy, "he could
+save me a lot of steps.  An' I sho' would like to hear 'bout all
+them Injuns an' Yankees what he's killed."
+
+Billy's aunt was visibly embarrassed.
+
+The persistent admiration of this, her one lover, had been
+pleasing to her, yet she had never been willing to sacrifice her
+independence for the cares and trials of matrimony.  The existing
+state of affairs between the two was known to every one in the
+small town, but such was Miss Minerva's dignified aloofness that
+Billy was the first person who had ever dared to broach the
+subject to her.
+
+"Sit down here, William," she commanded, "and I will read to
+you."
+
+"Tell me a tale," he said, looking up at her with his bright,
+sweet smile.  The doll lay neglected on a chair near by and Billy
+wanted her to forget it.
+
+"Tell me 'bout Piljerk Peter."
+
+"Piljerk Peter?" there was an interrogation in her voice.
+
+"Yas 'm.  Ain't you never hear tell 'bout Piljerk Peter?  He had
+fifteen chillens an' one time the las' one of 'em an' his ole
+'oman was down with the fever an' he ain't got but one pill an'
+they so sick they mos' 'bout to die an' ain't nobody in the fiel'
+fer to pick the cotton an' he can't git no doctor an' he ain't
+got but jest that one pill; so he tie that pill to a string an'
+let the bigges' chile swaller it an' draw it back up an' let the
+nex' chile swaller it an' jerk it back up an' let the nex, Chile
+swaller it an' jerk it back up an' let the nex' Chile swaller it
+an' jerk it back up an' let the nex'--."
+
+"I don't believe in telling tales to children," interrupted his
+aunt, "I will tell you biographical and historical stories and
+stories from the Bible.  Now listen, while I read to you."
+
+"An' the nex' Chile swaller it an' he jerk it back up," continued
+Billy serenely, "an' the nex' Chile swaller it an' he jerk it
+back up tell finely ev'y single one of 'em, plumb down to the
+baby, swaller that pill an' the las' one of 'em got well an' that
+one pill it done the work.  Then he tuck the pill and give it to
+his ole 'oman an' she swaller it an' he jerk it back up but
+didn't nothin' 'tall come up but jest the string an' his ole
+'oman she died 'cause all the strenk done gone outer that pill."
+
+Miss Minerva opened a book called "Gems for the Household," which
+she had purchased from a silvertongued book-agent.  She selected
+an article the subject of which was "The Pure in Heart."
+
+Billy listened with a seemingly attentive ear to the choice flow
+of words, but in reality his little brain was busy with its own
+thoughts.  The article closed with the suggestion that if one
+were innocent and pure he would have a dreamless sleep
+
+   "If you have a conscience clear,
+    And God's commands you keep;
+    If your heart is good and pure,
+    You will have a perfect sleep."
+
+Billy's aunt concluded.  Wishing to know if he had understood
+what she had just read she asked:
+
+"What people sleep the soundest?"
+
+"Niggers," was his prompt reply, as he thought of the long summer
+days and the colored folk on the plantation.
+
+She was disappointed, but not discouraged.
+
+"Now, William," she admonished, "I'm going to read you another
+piece, and I want you to tell me about it, when I get through.
+Pay strict attention."
+
+"Yas 'm," he readily agreed.
+
+She chose an article describing the keen sense of smell in
+animals.  Miss Minerva was not an entertaining reader and the
+words were long and fairly incomprehensible to the little boy
+sitting patiently at her side.
+
+Again his thoughts wandered, though every now and then he caught
+a word or two.
+
+"What animals have the keenest sense of smell, William?" was her
+query at the conclusion of her reading.
+
+"Billy goats," was Billy's answer without the slightest
+hesitation.
+
+"You have goats on the brain," she said in anger.  "I did not
+read one word about billy goats."
+
+"Well, if 'taint a billy goat," he replied, "I do' know what 'tis
+'thout it's a skunk."
+
+"I bought you a little primer this morning," she remarked after
+a short silence, "and I want you to say a lesson every day."
+
+"I already knows a lot," he boasted.  "Tabernicle, he 'an'
+Mercantile both been to school an' they learnt me an' Wilkes
+Booth Lincoln.  I knows crooked S, an' broken back K, an' curly
+tail Q, an' roun' O, an' I can spell c-a-t cat, an' d-o-g dog an'
+A stands fer apple."
+
+That night he concluded his ever lengthy prayer at his
+kinswoman's knee with:
+
+"O Lord, please make for Aunt Minerva a little baby, make her two
+of 'em.  O Lord, if you got 'em to spare please make her three
+little babies an' let 'em all be girls so's she can learn 'em how
+to churn an' sew.  An' bless Aunt Minerva and Major Minerva, f'r
+ever 'nd ever. Amen."
+
+As he rose from his knees he asked: "Aunt Minerva, do God work on
+Sunday?"
+
+"No-o," answered his relative, hesitatingly.
+
+"Well, it look like He'd jest hafter work on Sunday, He's so
+busy jest a-makin' babies.  He makes all the niggers an' heathens
+an' Injuns an' white chillens; I reckon He gits somebody to help
+him.  Don't you, Aunt Minerva?"
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER VII
+
+                  RABBITS' AND OTHER EGGS
+
+
+Billy was sitting in the swing.  Jimmy crawled over the fence and
+joined him.
+
+"Miss Cecilia's dyeing me some Easter eggs," he said, "all blue
+and pink and green and yelluh and every kind they is; I tooken
+her some of our hen's eggs and she is going to fix 'em for me and
+they'll be just like rabbit's eggs; I reckon I'll have 'bout a
+million.  I'll give you one," he added generously.
+
+"I want more 'n one," declared Billy, who was used to having the
+lion's share of everything.
+
+"You all time talking 'bout you want more 'n one egg," said
+Jimmy.  "You 'bout the stingiest Peter they is.  Ain't you got no
+eggs?  Get Miss Minerva to give you some of hers and I'll take
+'em over and ask Miss Cecilia to dye 'em for you 'cause you ain't
+'quainted with her yet."
+
+"Aunt Minerva ain't got none 'cep'in' what she put under a of hen
+fer to set this mornin':"
+
+"Can't you get 'em from under the old hen?  Miss Minerva is such
+a Christian woman, she ain't--"
+
+"You done fool me 'bout that 'ligious business befo',"
+interrupted Billy, "an' I got put to bed in the daytime."
+
+"Well, she won't never miss two or three eggs," coaxed Jimmy.
+"How many did she put under the old hen?"
+
+"She put fifteen," was the response, "an' I don't believe she'd
+want me to tech 'em."
+
+"They 're 'bout the prettiest eggs ever was," continued the
+tempter, "all blue and pink and green, and 'bout a million kinds.
+They're just perzactly like rabbit's eggs."
+
+"Me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln ain't never hear teller no rabbit's
+eggs sence we's born," said Billy; "I don't berlieve rabbits
+lays eggs nohow."
+
+"They don' lay 'em 'cept to Easter," said Jimmy.  "Miss Cecilia
+'splained it all to me and she's my Sunday-School teacher and
+rabbits is bound to lay eggs 'cause it's in the Bible and she's
+'bout the prettiest 'splainer they is.  I'm going over there now
+to see 'bout my eggs," and he made believe to leave the swing.
+
+"Le's us slip roun' to the hen-house an' see what the of hen's
+a-doin'," suggested the sorely tempted Billy.  "Aunt Minerva is
+a-makin' me some nightshirts an' she ain't takin' no notice of
+nothin' else."
+
+They tiptoed stealthily around the house to the back-yard, but
+found the hen-house door locked.
+
+"Can't you get the key?" asked the younger child.
+
+"Naw, I can't," replied the other boy, "but you can git in th'oo
+this-here little hole what the chickens goes in at, whiles I
+watches fer Aunt Minerva.  I'll stand right here an' hol' my cap
+whiles you fetches me the eggs.  An' don't you take more 'n five
+or six," he warned.
+
+"I'm skeered of the old hen," objected Jimmy.  "Is she much of a
+pecker?"
+
+"Naw, she ain't a-goin' to hurt you," was the encouraging reply.
+"Git up an' crawl th'oo; I'll help you."
+
+Billy, having overcome his scruples, now entered into the
+undertaking with great zest.
+
+Jimmy climbed the chicken ladder, kicked his chubby legs through
+the aperture, hung suspended on his fat little middle for an
+instant, and finally, with much panting and tugging, wriggled his
+plump, round body into the hen-house.  He walked over where a
+lonesome looking hen was sitting patiently on a nest.  He put out
+a cautious hand and the hen promptly gave it a vicious peck.
+
+"Billy," he called angrily, "you got to come in here and hold
+this old chicken; she's 'bout the terriblest pecker they is."
+
+Billy stuck his head in the little square hole.  "Go at her from
+behind," he suggested; "put yo' hand under her easy like, an'
+don' let her know what you's up to."
+
+Jimmy tried to follow these instructions, but received another
+peck for his pains.  He promptly mutinied.
+
+"If you want any eggs," he declared, scowling at the face framed
+in the aperture, "you can come get 'em yourself.  I done monkeyed
+with this chicken all I'm going to."
+
+So Billy climbed up and easily got his lean little body through
+the opening.  He dexterously caught the hen by the nape of the
+neck, as he had seen Aunt Cindy do, while Jimmy reached for the
+eggs.
+
+"If we ain't done lef' my cap outside on the groun'," said Billy.
+"What we goin' to put the eggs in?"
+
+"Well, that's just like you, Billy, you all time got to leave
+your cap on the ground.  I'll put 'em in my blouse till you get
+outside and then I'll hand 'em to you.  How many you going to
+take?"
+
+"We might just as well git 'em all now," said Billy.  "Aunt Cindy
+say they's some kinder hens won't lay no chickens 't all if
+folks put they hands in they nests an' this here hen look like to
+me she's one of them kind, so the rester the egg'll jest be
+waste, any how, 'cause you done put yo' han's in her nes', an' a
+dominicker ain't a-goin' to stan' no projeckin' with her eggs.
+Hurry up."
+
+Jimmy carefully distributed the eggs inside his blouse, and Billy
+once more crawled through the hole and stood on the outside
+waiting, cap in hand, to receive them.
+
+But the patient hen had at last raised her voice in angry protest
+and set up a furious cackling, which so frightened the little boy
+on the inside that he was panic-stricken.  He caught hold of a
+low roost pole, swung himself up and, wholly unmindful of his blouse
+full of eggs, pushed his lower limbs through the hole and stuck
+fast.  A pair of chubby, sturdy legs, down which were slowly
+trickling little yellow rivulets, and half of a plump, round body
+were all that would go through.
+
+"Pull!" yelled the owner of the short fat legs.  "I'm stuck and
+can't go no furder.  Pull me th'oo, Billy."
+
+About this time the defrauded fowl flew from her nest and
+attempted to get out by her rightful exit.  Finding it stopped up
+by a wriggling, squirming body she perched herself on the little
+boy's neck and flapped her enraged wings in his face.
+
+"Pull!" yelled the child again, "help me th'oo, Billy, 'fore
+this fool chicken pecks all the meat off 'm my bones."
+
+Billy grabbed the sticky limbs and gave a valiant tug, but the
+body did not move an inch.  Alas, Jimmy with his cargo of broken
+eggs was fast imprisoned.
+
+"Pull again!" yelled the scared and angry child, "you 'bout the
+idjetest idjet they is if you can't do no better 'n that."
+
+Billy jerked with all his strength, but with no visible result.
+
+"Pull harder! You no-count gump!" screamed the prisoner, beating
+off the hen with his hands.
+
+The boy on the outside, who was strong for his years, braced
+himself and gave a mighty wrench of the other child's stout
+extremities.  Jimmy howled in pain and gave his friend an
+energetic kick.
+
+"Lemme go!" he shrieked, "you old impe'dunt backbiter.  I'm going
+to tell Miss Minerva you pulled my legs out by the roots."
+
+A small portion of the prisoner's blouse was visible.  Billy
+caught hold of it and gave a strong jerk.  There was a sound of
+ripping and tearing and the older boy fell sprawling on his back
+with a goodly portion of the younger child's raiment in his
+hands.
+
+"Now see what you done," yelled the victim of his energy, "you
+ain't got the sense of a buffalo gnat.  Oh! oh!  This hole is
+'bout to cut my stomach open."
+
+"Hush, Jimmy!" warned the other child.  "Don't make so much
+noise.  Aunt Minerva'll hear you."
+
+"I want her to hear me," screamed Jimmy.  "You'd like me to stay
+stuck in a chicken hole all night.  Oh! oh! oh!"
+
+The noise did indeed bring Billy's aunt out on a tour of
+investigation.  She had to knock a plank off the hen-house with
+an axe before Jimmy's release could be accomplished.  He was
+lifted down, red, angry, sticky, and perspiring, and was indeed
+a sight to behold.
+
+"Billy got to all time perpose something to get little boys in
+trouble," he growled, "and got to all time get 'em stuck in a
+hole in a chicken-house."
+
+"My nephew's name is William," corrected she.
+
+"You perposed this here yo'self!" cried an indignant Billy.  "Me
+an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln don' know nothin' 't all 'bout no
+rabbit's eggs sence we's born."
+
+"It doesn't matter who proposed it," said his aunt firmly.  "You
+are going to be punished, William.  I have just finished one of
+your night-shirts.  Come with me and put it on and go to bed.
+Jimmy, you go home and show yourself to your mother."
+
+"Pick up yo' shirt-tail offer the groun' what I tore off, Jimmy,"
+advised Billy, "an' take it home to yo' ma.  Aunt Minerva," he
+pleaded, following mournfully behind her, "please don't put me to
+bed; the Major he don' go to bed no daytimes; I won't never get
+me no mo' eggs to make rabbit's eggs outer."
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER VIII
+
+                      TELLERS OF TALES
+
+
+The days flew rapidly by.  Miss Minerva usually attempted to
+train Billy all the morning, and by the midday dinner hour she
+was so exhausted that she was glad to let him play in the front
+yard during the afternoon.
+
+Here he was often joined by the three children whose acquaintance
+he had made the day after his arrival, and the quartette became
+staunch friends and chums.
+
+All four were sitting in the swing one warm spring day, under the
+surveillance of Billy's aunt, sewing on the veranda.
+
+"Let's tell tales," suggested Jimmy.
+
+"All right," agreed Frances.  "I'll tell the first.  Once
+there's--"
+
+"Naw, you ain't neither," interrupted the little boy.  "You all
+time talking 'bout you going to tell the first tale.  I'm going
+to tell the first tale myself.  One time they's--"
+
+"No, you are not either," said Lina positively.  "Frances is a
+girl and she ought to be the first if she wants to.  Don't you
+think so, Billy?"
+
+"Yas, I does," championed he; "go on, Frances."
+
+That little girl, thus encouraged, proceeded to tell the first
+tale:
+
+"Once there's a man named Mr. Elisha, and he had a friend named
+Mr. Elijah, so his mantelpiece fell on top of his head and make
+him perfectly bald; he hasn't got a single hair and he hasn't
+got any money, 'cause mama read me 'bout he rented his garments,
+which is clo'es, 'cause he didn't have none at all what belong
+to him.  I spec' he just rented him a shirt and a pair o'
+breeches and wore 'em next to his hide 'thout no undershirt at all.
+He was drea'ful poor and had a miser'ble time and old mean Mr.
+Per'dventure took him up on a high mountain and left him, so when
+he come down some bad little childern say, `Go 'long back, bald
+head!' and they make pockmocks on him.  Seems like everybody
+treat him bad, so he cuss 'em, so I never see anybody with a bald
+head 'thout I run, 'cause I don't want to get cussed.  So two Teddy
+bears come out of the woods and ate up forty-two hunderd of--"
+
+"Why, Frances," reproved Lina, "you always get things wrong.  I
+don't believe they ate up that many children."
+
+"Yes, they did too," championed Jimmy, "'cause it's in the Bible
+and Miss Cecilia 'splained all 'bout it to me, and she's our
+Sunday-School teacher and 'bout the bullyest 'splainer they is.
+Them Teddy bears ate up 'bout a million chillens, which is all
+the little boys and girls two Teddy bears can hold at a time."
+
+"I knows a man what ain't got no hair 't all on his head,"
+remarked Billy; "he's a conjure-man an' me an' Wilkes Booth
+Lincoln been talkin' to him ever sence we's born an' he ain't
+never cuss us, an' I ain't never got eat up by no Teddy bears
+neither.  Huccome him to be bald?  He's out in the fiel' one day
+a-pickin' cotton when he see a tu'key buzzard an' he talk to her
+like this:
+
+    "`I say tu'key buzzard, I say,
+     Who shall I see unexpected today?'
+
+"If she flop her wings three times you goin' to see yo'
+sweetheart, but this-here buzzard ain't flop no wings 't all; she
+jes' lean over an' th'ow up on his head an' he been bald ever
+sence; ev'y single hair come out."
+
+"Did you-all hear 'bout that 'Talian Dago that works on the
+section gang eating a buzzard?" asked Frances.
+
+"Naw," said Billy.  "Did it make him sick?"
+
+"That it did," she answered; "he sent for Doctor Sanford and
+tells him, `Me killa de big bird, me eat-a de big bird, de big
+bird make-a me seek."'
+
+"Them Dagoes 'bout the funniest talking folks they is," said
+Jimmy, "but they got to talk that way 'cause it's in the Bible.
+They 'sputed on the tower of Babel and the Lord say `Confound
+you!' Miss Cecilia 'splained it all to me and she's 'bout the
+dandiest 'splainer they is."
+
+"You may tell your tale now, Jimmy," said Lina.
+
+"I'm going to tell 'bout William Tell 'cause he's in the Bible,"
+said Jimmy.  "Once they's a man name'--"
+
+"William Tell isn't in the Bible," declared Lina.
+
+"Yes, he is too," contended the little boy, "Miss Cecilia
+'splained it to me.  You all time setting yourself up to know
+more'n me and Miss Cecilia.  One time they's a man name' William
+Tell and he had a little boy what's the cutest kid they is and
+the Devil come 'long and temp' him.  Then the Lord say, `William
+Tell, you and Adam and Eve can taste everything they is in the
+garden 'cepting this one apple tree; you can get all the pears
+and bunnanas and peaches and grapes and oranges and plums and
+persimmons and scalybarks and fig leaves and 'bout a million
+other kinds of fruit if you want to, but don't you tech a single
+apple.'  And the Devil temp' him and say he going to put his cap
+on a pole and everybody got to bow down to it for a idol and if
+William Tell don't bow down to it he got to shoot a apple for
+good or evil off 'm his little boy's head.  That's all the little
+boy William Tell and Adam and Eve got, but he ain't going to fall
+down and worship no gravy image on top a pole, so he put a
+tomahawk in his bosom and he tooken his bow and arrur and shot the
+apple plumb th'oo the middle and never swinge a hair of his head.
+And Eve nibble off the apple and give Adam the core, and Lina all
+time 'sputing 'bout Adam and Eve and William Tell ain't in the
+Bible.  They 're our first parents."
+
+"Now, Billy, you tell a tale and then it will be my time," said
+Lina with a savingthe-best-for-the-last air.
+
+"Once they was a of witch," said Billy, "what got outer her skin
+ev'y night an' lef' it on the he'rth an' turnt herself to a
+great, big, black cat an' go up the chim'ly an' go roun' an' ride
+folks fer horses, an' set on ev'ybody's chis' an' suck they
+breath an' kill 'em an' then come back to bed.  An' can't nobody
+ketch her tell one night her husban' watch her an' he see her
+jump outer her skin an' drop it on the he'rth an' turn to a
+'normous black cat an' go up the chim'ly.  An' he got outer the
+bed an' put some salt an' pepper an' vinegar on the skin an' she
+come back an' turnt to a 'oman an' try to git back in her skin
+an' she can't 'cause the salt an' pepper an' vinegar mos' burn
+her up, an' she keep on a-tryin' an' she can't never snuggle
+inter her skin 'cause it keep on a burnin' worser 'n ever, an'
+there she is a 'oman 'thout no skin on.  So she try to turn back
+to a cat an' she can't 'cause it's pas' twelve erclock, an' she
+jest swivvle an' swivvle tell fine'ly she jest swivvle all up.
+An' that was the las' of the ole witch an' her husban' live
+happy ever after.  Amen."
+
+"Once upon a time," said Lina, "there was a beautiful maiden and
+she was in love, but her wicked old parent wants her to marry a
+rich old man threescore and ten years old, which is 'most all the
+old you can get unless you are going to die; and the lovely
+princess said, `No, father, you may cut me in the twain but I
+will never marry any but my true love.'  So the wicked parent
+shut up the lovely maiden in a high tower many miles from the ground,
+and made her live on turnips and she had nothing else to eat; so
+one day when she was crying a little fairy flew in at the window
+and asked, `Why do you weep, fair one?'  And she said, `A wicked
+parent hath shut me up and I can't ever see my lover any more.'
+So the fairy touched her head with her wand and told her to hang
+her hair out of the window, and she did and it reached the
+ground, and her lover, holding a rope ladder in one hand and
+playing the guitar and singing with the other, climbed up by her
+hair and took her down on the ladder and his big black horse was
+standing near, all booted and spurred, and they rode away and
+lived happy ever after."
+
+"How he goin' to clam' up, Lina," asked Billy, "with a rope
+ladder in one hand and his guitar in the other?"
+
+"I don't know," was the dignified answer.  "That is the way it is
+told in my fairy-tale book."
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER IX
+
+                   CHANGING THE ETHIOPIAN
+
+
+Billy and Jimmy were sitting in the swing.
+
+"What makes your hair curl just like a girl's?" asked the latter.
+"It's 'bout the curliest hair they is."
+
+"Yes, it do," was Billy's mournful response.  "It done worry me
+'mos' to death.  Ever sence me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln's born we
+done try ev'ything fer to get the curl out.  They was a Yankee
+man came 'long las' fall a-sellin' some stuff in a bottle what he
+call `No-To-Kink' what he say would take the kink outer any nigger's
+head.  An' Aunt Cindy bought a bottle fer to take the kink outer
+her hair an' me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln put some on us heads an'
+it jes' make mine curlier 'n what it was already.  I's 'shame' to
+go roun' folks with my cap off, a-lookin' like a frizzly chicken.
+Miss Cecilia say she like it though, an' we's engaged.  We's
+goin' to git married soon's I puts on long pants."
+
+"How long you been here, Billy?" asked the other boy.
+
+"Well, I don't know perxactly, but I been to Sunday-School four
+times.  I got engaged to Miss Cecilia that very firs' Sunday, but
+she didn' know it tell I went over to her house the nex' day an'
+tol' her 'bout it.  She say she think my hair is so pretty."
+
+"Pretty nothin'," sneered his rival.  "She jus' stuffin' you
+fuller 'n a tick with hot air.  It just makes you look like a
+girl.  There's a young lady come to spend a week with my mama
+not long ago and she put somepin' on her head to make it
+right yeller.  She left the bottle to our house and I know
+where 't is.  Maybe if you'd put some o' that on your head 't
+would take the curl out."
+
+"'Tain't nothin' a-goin' to do it no good," gloomily replied
+Billy.  "'Twould jest make it yeller 'n what 'tis now.  Won't
+I be a pretty sight when I puts on long pants with these here
+yaller curls stuck on topper my head?  I'd 'nuther sight ruther
+be bal'headed."
+
+"Bennie Dick's got 'bout the kinkiest head they is."
+
+Bennie Dick was the two-year-old baby of Mrs. Garner's cook,
+Sarah Jane.
+
+"It sho' is," replied Billy.  Wouldn't he look funny if he
+had yaller hair, 'cause his face is so black?"
+
+"I know where the bottle is," cried Jimmy, snatching eagerly
+at the suggestion.  "Let's go get it and put some on Bennie
+Dick's head and see if it'll turn it yeller."
+
+"Aunt Minerva don' want me to go over to yo' house," objected
+Billy.
+
+"You all time talking 'bout Miss Minerva won't let you go
+nowheres; she sure is imperdunt to you.  You 'bout the
+'fraidest boy they is . . . .  Come on, Billy," pleaded Jimmy.
+
+The little boy hesitated.
+
+"I don't want to git Aunt Minerva's dander der up any more
+'n I jest natchelly boun' to," he said, following Jimmy
+reluctantly to the fence; "but I'll jes' take a look at that
+bottle an' see ef it looks anything 't all like 'No-To-Kink'."
+
+Giggling mightily, they jumped the dividing fence and slipped
+with stealthy tread around the house to Sarah Jane's cabin in
+the back-yard.
+
+Bennie Dick was sitting on the floor before the open door, the
+entrance of which was, securely barricaded to keep him inside.
+Sarah Jane was in the kitchen cooking supper; they could hear
+her happy voice raised in religious melody; Mrs. Garner had not
+yet returned from a card party; the coast was clear, and the
+time propitious.
+
+Jimmy tiptoed to the house and soon returned with a big bottle of
+a powerful "blondine" in one hand and a stick of candy in the
+other.
+
+"Bennie Dick," he said, "here's a nice stick of candy for you if
+you'll let us wash your head."
+
+The negro baby's thick, red lips curved in a grin of delight, his
+shiny ebony face beamed happily, his round black eyes sparkled as
+he held out his fat, rusty little hands.  He sucked greedily at
+the candy as the two mischievous little boys uncorked the bottle
+and, poured a generous supply of the liquid on his head.  They
+rubbed it in well, grinning with delight.  They made a second and
+a third application before the bottle was exhausted; then they
+stood off to view the result of their efforts.  The effect was
+ludicrous.  The combination of coal black skin and red gold hair
+presented by the little negro exceeded the wildest expectations
+of Jimmy and Billy.  They shrieked with laughter and rolled over
+and over on the floor in their unbounded delight.
+
+"Hush!" warned Jimmy suddenly, "I believe Sarah Jane's coming out
+here to see 'bout Benny Dick.  Let's get behind the door and see
+what she's going to do."
+
+    "`Hit were good fer Paul an' Silas,
+      Hit were good fer Paul an' Silas,
+      Hit were good fer Paul an' Silas,
+      An' hit's good ernough fer me.'"
+
+floated Sarah Jane's song nearer and nearer.
+
+    "`Hit's de ole time erligion,
+      Hit's de ole time'"
+
+She caught sight of her baby with his glistening black face
+and golden hair.  She threw up her hands, closed her eyes, and
+uttered a terrified shriek.  Presently she slowly opened
+her eyes and took a second peep at her curious-looking offspring.
+Sarah Jane screamed aloud:
+
+"Hit's de handiwork er de great Jehoshaphat!  Hit's de Marster's
+sign.  Who turnt yo' hair, Benny Dick?" she asked of the sticky
+little pickaninny sitting happily on the floor.  "Is a angel been
+here?"
+
+Benny Dick nodded his head with a delighted grin of
+comprehension.
+
+"Hit's de doing er de Lord," cried his mother.  "He gwine turn
+my chile white an' he done begunt on his head!"
+
+There was an ecstatic giggle from behind the door.
+
+Sarah Jane rushed inside as fast as her mammoth proportions
+would admit and caught a culprit in each huge black paw.
+
+"What yer up ter now, Jimmy Garner?" she asked.  "What yer
+been er-doing?"
+
+Sudden suspicion entered her mind as she caught sight of the
+empty bottle lying on a chair.  "You been er-putting' suthin'
+on my chile's head!  I knows yer, I's er-gwine ter make yo'
+mammy gi' ye de worses' whippin' yer eber got an' I's gwine
+ter take dis here William right ober ter Miss Minerva.  Ain't
+y' all 'shame' er yerselves?  Er tamperin' wid de ha'r what
+de good Lord put on er colored pusson's head an' ertryin'
+fer ter scarify my feelin's like yer done.  An' yer hear me,
+I's gwine see dat somebody got ter scarify yer hides."
+
+"If that ain't just like you, Billy," said Jimmy, "you all time
+got to perpose to make nigger heads yeller and you all time
+getting little boys in trouble.  You 'bout the smart Alexist
+jack-rabbit they is."
+
+"You perposed this here hair business yo'self, Jimmy,"
+retorted his fellow-conspirator.  "You's always blamin' yo'
+meanness on somebody else ever sence you's born."
+
+"Hit don't matter who perposed hit," said Sarah Jane firmly;
+"meanness has been did, an' y' all gotter be structified on
+de place pervided by natur fer ter lem my chile erlone."
+
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER X
+
+                    LO! THE POOR INDIANS
+
+
+Billy had just decided to run down to the livery stable to
+pay Sam Lamb a visit when the gate opened, and Lina and
+Frances, their beloved dolls in their arms, came skipping
+in.
+
+Jimmy, who had had a difference with Billy and was in the
+sulks on his own side of the fence, immediately crawled over
+and joined the others in the swing.  He was lonesome and the
+prospect of companionship was too alluring for him to nurse
+his anger longer.
+
+"Aunt Minerva's gone to the Aid Society," remarked the
+host.  "Don't y' all wish it met ev'y day 'stid 'er jes'
+meetin' ev'y Monday?"
+
+"Yes, I do," agreed Frances, "you can have so much fun when
+our mamas go to the Aid.  My mama's gone too, so she left me
+with Brother and he's writing a love letter to Ruth Shelton, so
+I slipped off."
+
+"Mother has gone to the Aid, too," said Lina.
+
+"My mama too," chimed in Jimmy, "she goes to the Aid every
+Monday and to card parties nearly all the time.  She telled
+Sarah Jane to 'tend to me and Sarah Jane's asleep.  I hear
+her snoring.  Ain't we glad there ain't no grown folks to
+meddle?  Can't we have fun?"
+
+"What'll we play?" asked Frances, who had deliberately
+stepped in a mud puddle on the way, and splashed mud all
+over herself, "let's make mud pies."
+
+"Naw, we ain't a-going to make no mud pies," objected Jimmy.
+"We can make mud pies all time when grown folks 'r' looking
+at you."
+
+"Le's's play sumpin' what we ain't never play, sence we 's
+born," put in Billy.
+
+"I hope grandmother won't miss me." said Lina, "she 's
+reading a very interesting book."
+
+"Let's play Injun!" yelled Jimmy; "we ain't never play' Injun."
+
+This suggestion was received with howls of delight.
+
+"My mama's got a box of red stuff that she puts on her face
+when she goes to the card parties.  She never puts none on
+when she just goes to the Aid.  I can run home and get the
+box to make us red like Injuns," said Frances.
+
+"My mother has a box of paint, too."
+
+"I ain't never see Aunt Minerva put no red stuff on her
+face," remarked Billy, disappointedly.
+
+"Miss Minerva, she don't never let the Major come to see
+her, nor go to no card parties is the reason," explained the
+younger boy, "she just goes to the Aid where they ain't no
+men, and you don't hafter put no red on your face at the
+Aid.  We'll let you have some of our paint, Billy.  My mama's
+got 'bout a million diff'ent kinds."
+
+"We got to have pipes," was Frances's next suggestion.
+
+"My papa's got 'bout a million pipes," boasted Jimmy, "but
+he got 'em all to the office, I spec'."
+
+"Father has a meerschaum."
+
+"Aunt Minerva ain't got no pipe."
+
+"Miss Minerva's 'bout the curiousest woman they is," said Jimmy;
+"she ain't got nothing a tall; she ain't got no paint and she
+ain't got no pipe."
+
+"Ladies don't use pipes, and we can do without them anyway,"
+said Lina, "but we must have feathers; all Indians wear
+feathers."
+
+"I'll get my mama's duster," said Jimmy.
+
+"Me, too," chimed in Frances.
+
+Here Billy with flying colors came to the fore and redeemed Miss
+Minerva's waning reputation.
+
+"Aunt Minerva's got a great, big buncher tu'key feathers an' I
+can git 'em right now," and the little boy flew into the house
+and was back in a few seconds.
+
+"We must have blankets, of course," said Lina, with the air of
+one whose word is law; "mother has a genuine Navajo."
+
+"I got a little bow'narruh what Santa Claus bringed me,"
+put in Jimmy.
+
+"We can use hatchets for tomahawks," continued the little girl.
+"Come on, Frances; let us go home and get our things and come
+back here to dress up.  Run, Jimmy, get your things!  You, too,
+Billy!" she commanded.
+
+The children ran breathlessly to their homes nearby and collected
+the different articles necessary to transform them into
+presentable Indians.  They soon returned, Jimmy dumping his load
+over the fence and tumbling after; and the happy quartette sat
+down on the grass in Miss Minerva's yard.  First the paint boxes
+were opened and generously shared with Billy, as with their
+handkerchiefs they spread thick layers of rouge over their
+charming, bright, mischievous little faces.
+
+The feather decoration was next in order.
+
+"How we goin' to make these feathers stick?" asked Billy.
+
+They were in a dilemma till the resourceful Jimmy came to the
+rescue.
+
+"Wait a minute," he cried, "I'll be back 'fore you can say `Jack
+Robinson'."
+
+He rolled over the fence and was back in a few minutes, gleefully
+holding up a bottle.
+
+"This muc'lage'll make 'em stick," he panted, almost out of
+breath.
+
+Lina assumed charge of the head-dresses.  She took Billy first,
+rubbed the mucilage well into his sunny curls, and filled his head
+full of his aunt's turkey feathers, leaving them to stick out
+awkwardly in all directions and at all angles.  Jimmy and Frances,
+after robbing their mothers' dusters, were similarly decorated,
+and last, Lina, herself, was tastefully arrayed by the combined
+efforts of the other three.
+
+At last all was in readiness.
+
+Billy, regardless of consequences, had pinned his aunt's newest
+grey blanket around him and was viewing, with satisfied
+admiration, its long length trailing on the-grass behind him; Lina
+had her mother's treasured Navajo blanket draped around her
+graceful little figure; Frances, after pulling the covers off of
+several beds and finding nothing to suit her fanciful taste, had
+snatched a gorgeous silk afghan from the leather couch in the
+library.  It was an expensive affair of intricate pattern, delicate
+stitches; and beautiful embroidery with a purple velvet border and
+a yellow satin lining.  She had dragged one corner of it through
+the mud puddle and torn a big rent in another place.
+
+Jimmy was glorious in a bright red blanket, carrying his little
+bow and arrow.
+
+"I'm going to be the Injun chief," he boasted.
+
+"I'm going to be a Injun chief, too," parroted Frances.
+
+"Chief, nothing!" he sneered, "you all time trying to be a Injun
+chief.  You 'bout the pompousest little girl they is.  You can't
+be a chief nohow; you got to be a squash, Injun ladies 'r' name'
+squashes; me an' Billy's the chiefs.  I'm name' old Setting Bull,
+hi'self."
+
+"You can't be named `Bull,' Jimmy," reproved Lina, "it isn't
+genteel to say `bull' before people."
+
+"Yes, I am too," he contended.  "Setting Bull's the biggest chief
+they is and I'm going to be name' him."
+
+"Well, I am not going to play then," said Lina primly, "my mother
+wants me to be genteel, and `bull' is not genteel."
+
+"I tell you what, Jimmy," proposed Frances, "you be name'
+`Setting Cow.  'Cow' is genteel 'cause folks milk 'em."
+
+"Naw, I ain't going to be name' no cow, neither," retorted the
+little Indian, "you all time trying to 'suade somebody to be
+name' `Setting Cow'."
+
+"He can't be name' a cow,"--Billy now entered into the discussion
+--"'cause he ain't no girl.  Why don' you be name' 'Settin'
+Steer'?
+Is `steer' genteel, Lina?" he anxiously inquired.
+
+"Yes, he can be named `Sitting Steer'," she granted.  Jimmy
+agreeing to the compromise, peace was once more restored.
+
+"Frances and Lina got to be the squashes," he began.
+
+"It isn't `squashes,' it is `squaws,"' corrected Lina.
+
+"Yes, 'tis squashes too," persisted Jimmy, "'cause it's in the
+Bible and Miss Cecilia 'splained it to me and she's 'bout the
+high-steppingest 'splainer they is.  Me and Billy is the chiefs,"
+he shouted, capering around, "and you and Frances is the squashes
+and got to have papooses strop' to your back."
+
+"Bennie Dick can be a papoose," suggested Billy.
+
+"I'm not going to be a Injun squash if I got to have a nigger
+papoose strapped to my back!" cried an indignant Frances.
+"You can strap him to your own back, Billy."
+
+"But I ain't no squash," objected that little Indian.
+
+"We can have our dolls for papooses," said Lina, going to the
+swing where the dolls had been left.  Billy pulled a piece of
+string from his pocket and the babies were safely strapped to
+their mothers' backs.  With stately tread, headed by Sitting
+Steer, the children marched back and forth across the lawn in
+Indian file.
+
+So absorbed were they in playing Indian that they forgot the
+flight of time until their chief suddenly stopped, all his
+brave valor gone as he pointed with trembling finger up the
+street.
+
+That part of the Ladies' Aid Society which lived in West
+Covington was bearing down upon them.
+
+"Yonder's our mamas and Miss Minerva," he whispered.  "Now look
+what a mess Billy's done got us in; he all time got to perpose
+someping to get chillens in trouble and he all time got to let
+grown folks ketch em."
+
+"Aren't you ashamed to tell such a story, Jimmy Garner?" cried
+Frances.  "Billy didn't propose any such thing.  Come on, let's
+run," she suggested.
+
+"'Tain't no use to run," advised Jimmy.  "They're too close and
+done already see us.  We boun' to get what's coming to us anyway,
+so you might jus' as well make 'em think you ain't 'fraid of 'em.
+Grown folks got to all time think little boys and girls 'r'
+skeered of 'em, anyhow."
+
+"Aunt Minerva'll sho' put me to bed this time," said Billy.
+"Look like ev'y day I gotter go to bed."
+
+"Mother will make me study the catechism all day to-morrow," said
+Lina dismally.
+
+"Mama'll lock me up in the little closet under the stairway,"
+said Frances.
+
+"My mama'll gimme 'bout a million licks and try to take all the
+hide off o' me," said Jimmy; "but we done had a heap of fun."
+
+It was some hours later.  Billy's aunt had ruthlessly clipped the
+turkey feathers from his head, taking the hair off in great
+patches.  She had then boiled his scalp, so the little boy
+thought, in her efforts to remove the mucilage.  Now, shorn of his
+locks and of some of his courage, the child was sitting quietly by
+her side, listening to a superior moral lecture and indulging in a
+compulsory heart-to-heart talk with his relative.
+
+"I don't see that it does you any good, William, to put you to
+bed."
+
+"I don' see as it do neither," agreed Billy.
+
+"I can not whip you; I am constitutionally opposed to corporal
+punishment for children."
+
+"I's 'posed to it too," he assented.
+
+"I believe I will hire a servant, so that I may devote my
+entire time to your training."
+
+This prospect for the future did not appeal to her nephew.  On
+the contrary it filled him with alarm.
+
+"A husban' 'd be another sight handier," he declared with
+energy; "he 'd be a heap mo' 'count to you 'n a cook, Aunt
+Minerva.  There's that Major--"
+
+"You will never make a preacher of yourself, William, unless
+you improve."
+
+The child looked up at her in astonishment; this was the
+first he knew of his being destined for the ministry.
+
+"A preacher what 'zorts an' calls up mourners?" he said,
+--"not on yo' tin-type.  Me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln--"
+
+"How many times have I expressed the wish not to have you
+bring that negro's name into the conversation?" she
+impatiently interrupted.
+
+"I don' perzactly know, 'm," he answered good humoredly,
+"'bout fifty hunerd, I reckon.  Anyways, Aunt Minerva, I
+ain't goin' to be no preacher.  When I puts on long pants I's
+goin' to be a Confedrit Vet'run an' kill 'bout fifty hunderd
+Yankees an' Injuns, like my Major man."
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER XI
+
+                     NOW RIDDLE ME THIS
+
+
+The children were sitting in the swing.  Florence Hammer, a
+little girl whose mother was spending the day at Miss Minerva's,
+was with them.
+
+"Don't you-all wish Santa Claus had his birthday right now
+'stead 'o waiting till Christmas to hang up our stockings?"
+asked Frances.
+
+"Christmas isn't Santa Claus' birthday," corrected Lina.  "God
+was born on Christmas and that's the reason we hang up our
+stockings."
+
+"Yes; it is old Santa's birthday, too," argued Jimmy, "'cause
+it's in the Bible and Miss Cecilia 'splained it to me and she
+'bout the dandiest 'splainer they is."
+
+"Which you-all like the best: God or Doctor Sanford or Santa
+Claus?" asked Florence.
+
+"I like God 'nother sight better 'n I do anybody," declared
+Jimmy, "'cause He so forgivingsome.  He's 'bout the forgivingest
+person they is.  Santa Claus can't let you go to Heaven nor
+Doctor Sanford neither, nor our papas and mamas nor Miss Minerva.
+Now wouldn't we be in a pretty fix if we had to 'pend on Doctor
+Sanford or Santa Claus to forgive you every time you run off or
+fall down and bust your breeches. Naw; gimme God evy time."
+
+"I like Santa Claus the best," declared Frances, "'cause he
+isn't f'rever getting in your way, and hasn't any castor oil
+like Doctor Sanford, and you don't f'rever have to be telling
+him you're sorry you did what you did, and he hasn't all time
+got one eye on you either, like God, and got to follow you
+'round.  And Santa Claus don't all time say, Shet your eyes and
+open your mouth,' like Doctor Sanford, `and poke out your tongue.'"
+
+"I like Doctor Sanford the best," said Florence, "'cause he 's
+my uncle, and God and Santa Claus ain't kin to me."
+
+"And the Bible say, `Love your kin-folks,' Miss Cecilia
+'splained--"
+
+"I use to like my Uncle Doc' heap better 'n what I do now," went
+on the little girl, heedless of Jimmy's interruption, "till I
+went with daddy to his office one day.  And what you reckon that
+man's got in his office?  He's got a dead man 'thout no meat nor
+clo'es on, nothing a tall but just his bones."
+
+"Was he a hant?" asked Billy.  "I like the Major best--he 's
+got meat on."
+
+"Naw; he didn't have no sheet on--just bones," was the reply.
+
+"No sheet on; no meat on!" chirruped Billy, glad of the rhyme.
+
+"Was he a angel, Florence?" questioned Frances.
+
+"Naw; he didn't have no harp and no wings neither."
+
+"It must have been a skeleton," explained Lina.
+
+"And Uncle Doc' just keeps that poor man there and won't let
+him go to Heaven where dead folks b'longs''
+
+"I spec' he wasn't a good man 'fore he died and got to go to the
+Bad Place," suggested Frances.
+
+"I'll betcher he never asked God to forgive him when he 'ceived
+his papa and sassed his mama,"--this from Jimmy, "and Doctor
+Sanford's just a-keeping old Satan from getting him to toast on
+a pitchfork."
+
+"I hope they'll have a Christmas tree at Sunday-School next
+Christmas," said Frances, harking back, "and I hope I'll get a
+heap o' things like I did last Christmas.  Poor little Tommy
+Knott he's so skeered he wasn't going to get nothing at all on the
+tree so he got him a great, big, red apple an' he wrote on a piece
+o' paper `From Tommy Knott to Tommy Knott,' and tied it to the
+apple and put it on the tree for hi'self."
+
+"Let's ask riddles," suggested Lina.
+
+"All right," shouted Frances, "I'm going to ask the first."
+
+"Naw; you ain't neither," objected Jimmy.  "You all time got
+to ask the first riddle.  I'm going to ask the first one--
+
+    "`Round as a biscuit, busy as a bee,
+      Prettiest little thing you ever did see?'--
+                                      'A watch.'
+
+    "Humpty Dumpty set on a wall,
+     Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
+     All the king's horses and all the king's men
+     Can't put Humpty Dumpty back again.  '
+                                      `A egg.'
+
+    "`Round as a ring, deep as a cup,
+      All the king's horses can't pull it up.  '
+                                      `A well.'
+
+    "`House full, yard full, can't ketch--'"
+
+"Hush, Jimmy!" cried Lina, in disgust.  "You don't know how
+to ask riddles.  You must n't give the answers, too.  Ask one
+riddle at a time and let some one else answer it.  I'll ask
+one and see who can answer it:
+
+    "'As I was going through a field of wheat
+      I picked up something good to eat,
+     'Twas neither fish nor flesh nor bone,
+      I kept it till it ran alone?'"
+
+"A snake!  A snake!" guessed Florence.  "That's a easy riddle."
+
+"Snake, nothing!" scoffed Jimmy, "you can't eat a snake.  'Sides
+Lina wouldn't 'a' picked up a snake.  Is it a little baby rabbit,
+Lina?"
+
+"It was neither fish nor flesh nor bone," she declared; "and a
+rabbit is flesh and bone."
+
+"Then it's boun' to be a apple," was Jimmy's next guess;
+"that ain't no flesh and blood and it's good to eat."
+
+"An apple can't run alone," she triumphantly answered.  "Give
+it up?  Well, it was an egg and it hatched to a chicken.  Now,
+Florence, you ask one."
+
+"S'pose a man was locked up in a house," she asked, "how'd
+he get out?"
+
+"Clam' outer a winder," guessed Billy.
+
+"'Twa'n't no winder to the house," she declared.
+
+"Crawled out th'oo the chim'ly, like Santa Claus," was Billy's
+next guess.
+
+"'Twa'n't no chim'ly to it.  Give it up?  Give it up?" the little
+girl laughed gleefully.  "Well, he just broke out with
+measles."
+
+"It is Billy's time," said Lina, who seemed to be mistress of
+ceremonies.
+
+"Tabernicle learnt this here one at school; 'see, if y' all
+can guess it: `Tabby had four kittens but Stillshee didn't
+have none 't all"'
+
+"I don't see no sense a tall in that," argued Jimmy, "'thout
+some bad little boys drownded 'em."
+
+"Tabby was a cat," explained the other boy, "and she had four
+kittens; and Stillshee was a little girl, and she didn't have
+no kittens 't all."
+
+"What's this," asked Jimmy: "`A man rode'cross a bridge and
+Fido walked?  'Had a little dog name' Fido."
+
+"You didn't ask that right, Jimmy," said Lina, "you always
+get things wrong.  The riddle is, `A man rode across a bridge
+and Yet he walked,' and the answer is, `He had a little dog
+named Yet who walked across the bridge.'"
+
+"Well, I'd 'nother sight ruther have a little dog name' Fido,"
+declared Jimmy.  "A little dog name' Yet and a little girl
+name' Stillshee ain't got no sense a tall to it."
+
+"Why should a hangman wear suspenders?" asked Lina.  "I'll
+bet nobody can answer that."
+
+"To keep his breeches from falling off," triumphantly
+answered Frances.
+
+"No, you goose, a hangman should wear suspenders so that he
+'d always have a gallows handy."
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XII
+
+                 IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD.
+
+
+It was a beautiful Sunday morning.  The pulpit of the Methodist
+Church was not occupied by its regular pastor, Brother Johnson.
+Instead, a traveling minister, collecting funds for a church
+orphanage in Memphis, was the speaker for the day.  Miss Minerva
+rarely missed a service in her own church.  She was always on
+hand at the Love Feast and the Missionary Rally and gave
+liberally of her means to every cause.  She was sitting in her
+own pew between Billy and Jimmy, Mr. and Mrs. Garner having
+remained at home.  Across the aisle from her sat Frances Black,
+between her father and mother; two pews in front of her were Mr.
+and Mrs. Hamilton, with Lina on the outside next the aisle.  The
+good Major was there, too; it was the only place he could depend
+upon for seeing Miss Minerva.
+
+The preacher, after an earnest and eloquent discourse from
+the text, "He will remember the fatherless," closed the big
+Bible with a bang calculated to wake any who might be
+sleeping.  He came down from the pulpit and stood close to
+his hearers as he made his last pathetic appeal.
+
+"My own heart," said he, "goes out to every orphan child,
+for in the yellow fever epidemic of '78, when but two years
+old, I lost both father and mother.  If there are any little
+orphan children here to-day, I should be glad if they would
+come up to the front and shake hands with me."
+
+Now Miss Minerva always faithfully responded to every
+proposal made by a preacher; it was a part of her religious
+conviction.  At revivals she was ever a shining, if solemn
+and austere, light.  When a minister called for all those who
+wanted to go to Heaven to rise, she was always the first one
+on her feet.  If he asked to see the raised hands of those
+who were members of the church at the tender age of ten
+years, Miss Minerva's thin, long arm gave a prompt response.
+Once when a celebrated evangelist was holding a big
+protracted meeting under canvas in the town and had asked
+all those who had read the book of Hezekiah in the Bible to
+stand up, Miss Minerva on one side of the big tent and her
+devoted lover on the other side were among the few who had
+risen to their feet.  She had read the good book from cover
+to cover from Genesis to Revelation over and over so she
+thought she had read Hezekiah a score of times.
+
+So now, when the preacher called for little orphans to come
+forward, she leaned down and whispered to her nephew, "Go up
+to the front, William, and shake hands with the nice kind
+preacher."
+
+"Wha' fer?" he asked.  "I don' want to go up there; ev'ybody
+here'll look right at me."
+
+"Are there no little orphans here?" the minister was saying.
+"I want to shake the hand of any little child who has had
+the misfortune to lose its parents."
+
+"Go on, William," commanded his aunt.  "Go shake hands with
+the preacher."
+
+The little boy again demurred but, Miss Minerva insisting,
+he obediently slipped by her and by his chum.  Walking
+gracefully and jauntily up the aisle to the spot where the
+lecturer was standing by a broad table, he held out his
+slim, little hand.
+
+Jimmy looked at these proceedings of Billy's in
+astonishment, not comprehending at all.  He was rather
+indignant that the older boy had not confided in him and
+invited his participation.
+
+But Jimmy was not the one to sit calmly by and be ignored
+when there was anything doing, so he slid awkwardly from the
+bench before Miss Minerva knew what he was up to.  Signaling
+Frances to follow, he swaggered pompously behind Billy and
+he, too, held out a short, fat hand to the minister.
+
+The speaker smiled benignly down upon them; lifting them up
+in his arms he stood the little boys upon the table.  He
+thought the touching sight of these innocent and tender
+little orphans would empty the pockets of the audience.
+Billy turned red with embarrassment at his conspicuous
+position, while Jimmy grinned happily at the amused
+congregation.  Horrified Miss Minerva half rose to her feet,
+but decided to remain where she was.  She was a timid woman
+and did not know what course she ought to pursue.  Besides,
+she had just caught the Major's smile.
+
+"And how long have you been an orphan?" the preacher was
+asking of Billy.
+
+"Ever sence me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln's born," sweetly
+responded the child.
+
+"I 'bout the orphantest boy they is," volunteered Jimmy.
+
+Frances, responding to the latter's invitation, had crawled
+over her father's legs before he realized what was happening.
+She, too, went sailing down the aisle, her stiff white dress
+standing straight up in the back like a strutting gobbler's
+tail.  She grabbed hold of the man's hand, and was promptly
+lifted to the table beside the other "orphans."  Tears stood
+in the good preacher's eyes as he turned to the tittering
+audience and said in a pathetic voice, "Think of it, my friends,
+this beautiful little girl has no mother."
+
+Poor Mrs. Black!  A hundred pairs of eyes sought her pew and
+focused themselves upon the pretty young woman sitting
+there, red, angry, and shamefaced.  Mr. Black was visibly
+amused and could hardly keep from laughing aloud.
+
+As Frances passed by the Hamiltons' pew in her promenade
+down the aisle, Mrs. Hamilton leaned across her husband and
+made an attempt to clutch Lina; but she was too late;
+already that dignified little "orphan" was gliding with
+stately, conscious tread to join the others.  This was too
+much for the audience.  A few boys laughed out and for the
+first time the preacher's suspicions were aroused.  As he
+clasped Lina's slender, graceful little hand he asked:
+
+"And you have no father or mother, little girl?"
+
+"Yes, I have, too," she angrily retorted.  "My father and
+mother are sitting right there," and she pointed a slim
+forefinger to her crimson, embarrassed parents.
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XIII
+
+                   JOB AND POLLIE BUMPUS
+
+
+I never have told a downright falsehood," said Lina.  "Mother
+taught me how wicked it is to tell stories.  Did you ever
+tell a fib to your mother, Frances?"
+
+"'Tain't no use to try to 'ceive my mama," was the reply of the
+other little girl; "she's got such gimlet eyes and ears she can
+tell with 'em shut if you're fibbing.  I gave up hope long ago,
+so I just go 'long and tell her the plain gospel truth when she
+asks me, 'cause I know those gimlet eyes and ears of hers 're
+going to worm it out o' me somehow."
+
+"Grown folks pin you down so close sometimes," said Jimmy, "you
+bound to 'varicate a little; and I always tell God I'm sorry.  I
+tell my mama the truth 'most all time 'cepting when she asks
+questions 'bout things ain't none of her business a tall, and
+she all time want to know `Who done it?' and if I let on it's me,
+I know she'll wear out all the slippers and hair-brushes they is
+paddling my canoe, 'sides switches, so I jus' say `I do' know,
+'m'--which all time ain't perzactly the truth.  You ever tell
+Miss Minerva stories, Billy?"
+
+"Aunt Cindy always say, 't wa'n't no harm 't all to beat 'bout
+the bush an' try to th'ow folks offer the track 'long as you can,
+but if it come to the point where you got to tell a out-an'-out
+fib, she say for me always to tell the truth, an' I jest nachelly
+do like she say ever sence I's born," replied Billy.
+
+The children swung awhile in silence.  Presently Jimmy broke
+the quiet by remarking
+
+"Don't you all feel sorry for old Miss Pollie Bumpus?  She live
+all by herself, and she 'bout a million years old, and Doctor
+Sanford ain't never brung her no chillens 'cause she ain't got
+'er no husban' to be their papa, and she got a octopus in her
+head, and she poor as a post and deaf as job's old turkey-hen."
+
+"Job's old turkey-hen wasn't deaf," retorted Lina primly;
+"she was very, very poor and thin."
+
+"She was deaf, too," insisted Jimmy, "'cause it's in the
+Bible.  I know all 'bout job," bragged he.
+
+"I know all 'bout job, too," chirped Frances.
+
+"Job, nothing!" said Jimmy, with a sneer; "you all time
+talking 'bout you know all 'bout job; you 'bout the womanishest
+little girl they is.  Now I know job 'cause Miss Cecilia
+'splained all 'bout him to me.  He's in the Bible and he sold
+his birthmark for a mess of potatoes and--"
+
+"You never can get anything right, Jimmy," interrupted Lina;
+"that was Esau and it was not his birthmark, it was his
+birthstone; and he sold his birthstone for a mess of potash."
+
+"Yas," agreed Frances; "he saw Esau kissing Kate and Esau
+had to sell him his birthstone to keep his mouth shut."
+
+"Mother read me all about job," continued Lina; "he was
+afflicted with boils and his wife knit him a job's comforter
+to wrap around him, and he--"
+
+"And he sat under a 'tato vine;" put in Frances eagerly,
+"what God grew to keep the sun off o' his boils and--"
+
+"That was Jonah," said Lina, "and it wasn't a potato vine;
+it was--"
+
+"No, 't wasn't Jonah neither; Jonah is inside of a whale's bel--"
+
+"Frances!"
+
+"Stommick," Frances corrected herself, "and a whale swallow
+him, and how's he going to sit under a pumpkin vine when
+he's inside of a whale?"
+
+"It was not a pumpkin vine, it--"
+
+"And I 'd jus' like to see a man inside of a whale a-setting
+under a morning-glory vine."
+
+"The whale vomicked him up," said Jimmy.
+
+"What sorter thing is a octopus like what y' all say is in
+Miss Pollie Bumpus's head?" asked Billy.
+
+"'Tain't a octopus, it's a polypus," explained Frances, "'cause
+she's named Miss Pollie.  It's a someping that grows in your
+nose and has to be named what you's named.  She's named Miss
+Pollie and she's got a polypus."
+
+"I'm mighty glad my mama ain't got no Eva-pus in her head,"
+was Jimmy's comment.  "Ain't you glad, Billy, your Aunt
+Minerva ain't got no Miss Minervapus?"
+
+"I sho' is," fervently replied Miss Minerva's nephew; "she's
+hard 'nough to manage now like she is."
+
+"I'm awful good to Miss Pollie," said Frances.  "I take her
+someping good to eat 'most every day.  I took her two pieces
+of pie this morning; I ate up one piece on the way and she
+gimme the other piece when I got there.  I jus' don't believe
+she could get 'long at all 'thout me to carry her the good
+things to eat that my mama sends her; I takes her pies all
+the time, she says they're the best smelling pies ever she
+smelt."
+
+"You 'bout the piggiest girl they is," said Jimmy, "all time
+got to eat up a poor old woman's pies.  You'll have a
+Frances-pus in your stomach first thing you know."
+
+"She's got a horn that you talk th'oo," continued the little
+girl, serenely contemptuous of Jimmy's adverse criticism,
+"and 'fore I knew how you talk into it, she says to me one
+day, `How's your ma?' and stuck that old horn at me; so I
+put it to my ear, too, and there we set; she got one end of
+the horn to her ear and I got the other end to my ear; so
+when I saw this wasn't going to work I took it and blew into
+it; you-all 'd died a-laughing to see the way I did.  But now
+I can talk th'oo it 's good's anybody."
+
+"That is an ear trumpet, Frances," said Lina, "it is not a
+horn."
+
+"Le's play `Hide the Switch,'" suggested Billy.
+
+"I'm going to hide it first," cried Frances.
+
+"Naw, you ain't," objected Jimmy, "you all time got to hide
+the switch first.  I'm going to hide it first myself."
+
+"No, I'm going to say `William Com Trimbleton,'" said
+Frances, "and see who's going to hide it first.  Now you-all
+spraddle out your fingers."
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                     Mr. ALGERNON JONES
+
+
+Again was it Monday, with the Ladies Aid Society in session.
+Jimmy was sitting on the grass in his own front yard, in
+full view of Sarah Jane, who was ironing clothes in her
+cabin with strict orders to keep him at home.  Billy was in
+the swing in Miss Minerva's yard.
+
+"Come on over," he invited.
+
+"I can't," was the reply across the fence, "I'm so good now
+I 'bout got 'ligion; I reckon I'm going to be a mish'nary
+or a pol'tician, one or t' other when I'm a grownup man
+'cause I'm so good; I ain't got but five whippings this
+week.  I been good ever since I let you 'suade me to play
+Injun.  I'm the goodest little boy in this town, I 'spec'.
+Sometimes I get scared 'bout being so good 'cause I hear a
+woman say if you too good, you going to die or you ain't got
+no sense, one.  You come on over here; you ain't trying to be
+good like what I'm trying, and Miss Minerva don't never do
+nothing a tall to you 'cepting put you to bed."
+
+"I'd ruther to git whipped fifty hunderd times 'n to hafter
+go to bed in the daytime with Aunt Minerva lookin' at you.
+An' her specs can see right th'oo you plumb to the bone.
+Naw, I can't come over there 'cause she made me promise not
+to.  I ain't never go back on my word yit."
+
+"I hope mama won't never ask me to promise her nothing a
+tall, 'cause I'm mighty curious 'bout forgetting.  I 'spec'
+I'm the most forgettingest little boy they is.  But I'm so
+glad I'm so good.  I ain't never going to be bad no more; so
+you might just as well quit begging me to come over and
+swing, you need n't ask me no more,--'tain't no use a tall."
+
+"I ain't a-begging you," cried Billy contemptuously, "you
+can set on yo' mammy's grass where you is, an' be good from
+now tell Jedgement Day an' 'twon't make no change in my
+business."
+
+"I ain't going to be 'ticed into no meanness, 'cause I'm so
+good," continued the reformed one, after a short silence
+during which he had seen Sarah Jane turn her back to him, "but
+I don't b'lieve it'll be no harm jus' to come over and set in
+the swing with you; maybe I can 'fluence you to be good like
+me and keep you from 'ticing little boys into mischief.  I think
+I'll just come over and set a while and help you to be good,"
+and he started to the fence.  Sarah Jane turned around in time
+to frustrate his plans.
+
+"You git right back, Jimmy," she yelled, "you git erway f'om
+dat-ar fence an' quit confabbin' wid datar Willyum.  Fixin'
+to make some mo' Injuns out o' yo'selfs, ain't yeh, or some
+yuther kin' o' skeercrows?"
+
+Billy strolled to the other side of the big yard and climbed
+up and sat on the tall gate post.  A stranger, coming from
+the opposite direction, stopped and spoke to him.
+
+"Does Mr. John Smith live here?" he asked.
+
+"Naw, sir," was the reply; "don't no Mr. 'tall live here;
+jest me an' Aunt Minerva, an' she turns up her nose at
+anything that wears pants."
+
+"And where could I find your Aunt Minerva?" the stranger's
+grin was ingratiating and agreeable.
+
+"Why, this here's Monday," the little boy exclaimed.  "Of
+course she's at the Aid; all the 'omans roun' here goes to
+the Aid on Monday."
+
+"Your aunt is an old friend of mine," went on the man, "and
+I knew she was at the Aid.  I just wanted to find out if you'd
+tell the truth about her.  Some little boys tell stories, but
+I am glad to find out you are so truthful.  My name is Mr.
+Algernon Jones and I'm glad to know you.  Shake!  Put it there,
+partner," and the fascinating stranger held out a grimy paw.
+
+Billy smiled down from his perch at him and thought he had
+never met such a pleasant man.  If he was such an old friend
+of his aunt's maybe she would not object to him because he
+wore pants, he thought.  Maybe she might be persuaded to take
+Mr. Jones for a husband.  Billy almost hoped that she would
+hurry home from the Aid, he wanted to see the two together
+so.
+
+"Is you much of a cusser?" he asked solemnly, "'cause if you
+is you'll hafter cut it out on these premises."
+
+Mr. Jones seemed much surprised and hurt at the question.
+
+"An oath never passed these lips," replied the truthful
+gentleman.
+
+"Can you churn?"
+
+"Churn--churn?" with a reminiscent smile, "I can churn like
+a top."
+
+Jimmy was dying of curiosity but the gate was too far away
+for him to do more than catch a word now and then.  It was
+also out of Sarah Jane's visual line, so she knew nothing of
+the stranger's advent.
+
+"And you're here all by yourself?" insinuated Billy's new
+friend.  "And the folks next door, where are they?"
+
+"Mrs. Garner's at the Aid an' Mr. Garner's gone to
+Memphis.  That is they little boy a-settin' in they yard on
+they grass," answered the child.
+
+"I've come to fix your Aunt Minerva's water pipe," said
+truth-loving Mr. Jones.  "Come, show me the way; I'm the
+plumber."
+
+"In the bath-room?" asked the child.  "I did n' know it
+needed no fixin'."
+
+He led the agreeable plumber through the hall, down the long
+back-porch to the bathroom, remarking "I'll jes' watch you
+work."  And he seated himself in the only chair.
+
+Here is where Billy received one of the greatest surprises
+of his life.  The fascinating stranger grabbed him with a
+rough hand and hissed:
+
+"Don't you dare open your mouth or I'll crack your head
+open and scatter your brains.  I'll eat you alive."
+
+The fierce, bloodshot eyes, which had seemed so laughing and
+merry before, now glared into those of the little boy as the
+man took a stout cord from his pocket, bound Billy to the
+chair, and gagged him with a large bath towel.  Energetic Mr.
+Jones took the key out of the door, shook his fist at the
+child, went out, and locked the door behind him.
+
+Jimmy, seeing no hope of eluding Sarah Jane's vigilance,
+resorted to strategy and deceit.
+
+"'Tain't no fun setting out here," he called to her, "so I
+'m going in the house and take a nap."
+
+She willingly consented, as she was through with her ironing
+and thought to snatch a few winks of sleep herself.
+
+The little boy slipped quietly through the house, noiselessly
+across the back-yard and into his father's big garden, which
+was separated from that of his neighbor by a high board-fence.
+He quickly climbed the fence, flew across Miss Minerva's tomato
+patch and tiptoed up her back steps to the back porch, his
+little bare feet giving no sign of his presence.  Hearing
+curious noises coming from the bad-room, where Billy was
+bumping the chair up and down in his efforts to release his
+mouth, he made for that spot, promptly unlocked the door, and
+walked in.  Billy by scuffling and tugging had freed his mouth
+from the towel that bound it at that moment.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered as Jimmy opened the door, "you'll get eat
+up alive if you don't look out."  His tone was so mysterious and
+thrilling and he looked so scared tied to the chair that the
+younger boy's blood almost froze in his veins.
+
+"What you doing all tied up so?" he asked in low, frightened
+tones.
+
+"Mr. Algernon Jones done it.  I spec' he's a robber an' is
+jes' a-robberin' right now," answered Billy.
+
+"I'll untie you," said his chum.
+
+"Naw; you better not," said Billy bravely.  "He might git
+away.  You leave me jes' like he fixed me so's you can try
+to ketch him.  I hear him in the dinin'-room now.  You leave
+me right here an' step over to yo' house an' 'phone to some
+mens to come and git him quick.  Shet the do' ag'in an' don't
+make no noise.  Fly, now!"
+
+And Jimmy did fly.  He again took the garden route and in a
+minute was at the telephone with the receiver at his ear.
+
+"Hello!  Is that you, Miss Central?  This is me," he howled
+into the transmitter.  "Gimme Miss Minerva's beau.  I don't
+know his number, but he's got a office over my papa's
+bank."
+
+His father being out of town, the little boy shrewdly decided
+that Miss Minerva's beau was the next best man to help capture
+the robber.
+
+"Miss Minerva what lives by me," he shrieked.
+
+Fortunately Central recognized his childish voice and was
+willing to humor him, so as she too knew Miss Minerva's
+beau.  the connection was quickly made.
+
+"Hello!  Is that you, Major?  This is me.  If you don't want
+Mr. Algernon Jones to be robbering everything Miss Minerva's
+got you better get a move on and come right this minute.
+You got to hustle and bring 'bout a million pistols and guns
+and swords and tomahawks and all the mans you can find and
+dogs.  He's the fiercest robber ever was, and he's already done
+tie Billy to a bath-room chair and done eat up 'bout a million
+cold biscuits, I spec'.  All of us is 'bout to be slewed.
+Good-bye."
+
+The plump, round gentleman at the other end of the wire heard
+this amazing message in the utmost confusion and consternation.
+He frantically rang the telephone again and again but could get no
+answer from the Garners' home so he put on his hat and walked the
+short distance to Miss Minerva's house.
+
+Jimmy was waiting to receive him at the front gate, having
+again eluded Sarah Jane's vigilance.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered mysteriously, "he's in the dining-room.
+Ain't you bringed nobody else?  Get your pistol and come on."
+
+Mr. Algernon Jones, feeling safe and secure for the next hour and
+having partaken of a light lunch, was in the act of transferring
+some silver spoons from the sideboard to his pockets when a noise
+at the dining-room door caused him to look in that direction.
+With an oath he sprang forward, and landed his fist upon the nose
+of a plump gentleman standing there, bringing a stream of blood
+and sending him sprawling to the floor.  Mr. Jones overturned a
+big-eyed little boy who was in his way and, walking rapidly in the
+direction of the railroad, the erstwhile plumber was seen no more.
+
+Jimmy quickly recovered himself and sprang to his feet.  Seeing
+the blood streaming down the white shirt front of Miss Minerva's
+unconscious beau, he gathered his wits together and took the
+thread of events again into his own little hands.  He flung
+himself over the fence, careless of Sarah Jane this time, mounted
+a chair and once more rang the telephone.
+
+"Hello!  Is that you, Miss Central?  This is me some more.
+Gimme Doctor Sanford's office, please."
+
+"Hello!  Is that you, Doctor?  This is me.  Mr. Algernon
+Jones done kilt Miss Minerva's beau.  He's on her back-porch
+bloody all over.  He's 'bout the deadest man they is.  You 'd
+better come toreckly you can and bring the hearse, and a
+coffin and a clean shirt and a tombstone.  He's wounded me
+but I ain't dead yet.  Good-bye."
+
+Doctor Sanford received Jimmy's crazy message in astonishment.
+He, too, rang the telephone again and again but could hear
+nothing more, so he walked down to Miss Minerva's house and
+rang the door-bell.  Jimmy opened the door and led the way to
+the back-porch, where the injured man, who had just recovered
+consciousness, was sitting limply in a chair.
+
+"What does all this mean?  Are you hurt?" asked the Doctor
+as he examined Mr. Jones's victim.
+
+"No, I think I'm all right now," was the reply; "but that
+scoundrel certainly gave me a severe blow."
+
+Billy, shut up in the bath-room and listening to all the
+noise and confusion, had been scared nearly out of his
+senses.  He had kept as still as a mouse till now, when,
+thinking he heard friendly voices he yelled out, "Open the
+do' an' untie me."
+
+"We done forgot Billy," said the little rescuer, as he ran
+to the bath-room door and opened it.  He was followed by the
+Doctor, who cut the cords that bound the prisoner.
+
+"Now, William," commanded Doctor Sanford as they grouped
+themselves around the stout, plump gentleman in the chair,
+"begin at the beginning, and let us get at the bottom of
+this affair."
+
+"Mr. Algernon Jones he come to the gate," explained the little
+boy, "an' he say he goin' to fix the water pipe an' he say he's
+a plumber.  He's a very 'greeable man, but I don't want Aunt
+Minerva to marry him, now.  I was plumb tickled at him an' I tuck
+him to the bath-room an' fust thing I knowed he grabbed holter
+me an' shuck me like what you see a cat do a mouse, an' he say--"
+
+"And he'd more 'n a million whiskers," interrupted Jimmy, who
+thought Billy was receiving too much attention, "and he--"
+
+"One at a time," said the Doctor.  "Proceed, William."
+
+"An' he say he'll bust my brains outer my head if I holler,
+an' I ain't a-goin' to holler neither, an' he tie me to a
+chair an' tie my mouth up an' lock the do'--"
+
+"And I comed over," said Jimmy eagerly, "and I run home and
+I see Mr. Algernon Jones is a robber and I 'phoned to Miss
+Minerva's beau, and if he'd brunged what I telled him, he
+wouldn't never got cracked in the face like Mr. Algernon
+Jones done crack him, and Billy got to all time let robbers
+in the house so they can knock mans and little boys down."
+
+"While you stand talking here the scoundrel will get away,"
+said the injured man.
+
+"That is so," agreed Doctor Sanford, "so I'll go and find
+the Sheriff."
+
+Sarah Jane's huge form loomed up in the back-hall doorway,
+and she grabbed Jimmy by the arm.
+
+"Yaas," she cried, "you gwine take you a nap is yuh, yuh
+'ceitful caterpillar.  Come on home dis minute."
+
+"Lemme go, Sarah Jane," protested the little boy, trying to
+jerk away from her, "I got to stay here and pertec' Billy and
+Miss Minerva's beau 'cause they's a robber might come back and
+tie 'em up and make 'em bleed if I ain't here."
+
+"Did Mr. Algernon Jones make all that blood?" asked an
+awe-stricken little boy gazing in admiration at the victim of
+Mr. Jones's energy.  "You sho' is a hero to stan' up an' let
+him knock you down like he done."
+
+"Yes," cried Jimmy, as the black woman dragged him kicking
+and struggling through the hall, "we's all heroes, but I
+bet I'm the heroest hero they is, and I bet Miss Minerva's
+going to be mad 'bout you all spilling all that blood on her
+nice clean floor."
+
+"Lemme see yo' big toe what was shot off by all them Yankees
+and Injuns what you killed in the war," said Billy to Miss
+Minerva's beau.
+
+The Major smiled at the little boy; a man-to-man smile, full
+of good comradeship, humor, and understanding.  Billy's
+little heart went out to him at once.
+
+"I can't take off my shoes at present," said the veteran.
+"Well, I must be going; I feel all right now."
+
+Billy looked at him with big, solemn eyes.
+
+"You couldn't never go 'thout yo' pants, could you?" he
+asked, "'cause Aunt Minerva jest nachelly despises pants."
+
+The man eyed him quizzically.
+
+"Well, no; I don't think I could," he replied; "I don't
+think I'd look any better in a Mother Hubbard or a kimono."
+
+The little boy sighed.
+
+"Which you think is the fitteness name," asked he, "Billy or
+William."
+
+"Billy, Billy," enthusiastically came the reply.
+
+"I like mens," said William Green Hill, "I sho' wisht you
+could come and live right here with me and Aunt Minerva."
+
+"I wish so, too," said the Major.
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER XV
+
+                    BILLY, THE CREDULOUS
+
+
+After the advent and disappearance of the exciting Mr. Jones,
+Miss Minerva, much to Billy's joy, had a telephone put in the
+house.  He sat in the hall the day it was put in waiting for it
+to ring.
+
+Jimmy, coming up on the front porch and through the half-open
+door and seeing him sitting there, rang the door bell just for
+a joke, ready to burst into a laugh when the other little boy
+turned around and saw who it was.  Billy, however, in his
+eagerness mistook the ring for the telephone bell and joyfully
+climbed up on the chair, which he had stationed in readiness.
+He took down the receiver as he had seen Jimmy do in his home
+and, without once seeing that little boy standing a few feet
+from him, he yelled at the top of his lungs:
+
+"Hello!  Who is that?"
+
+"This is Marie Yarbrough," replied Jimmy from the doorway,
+instantly recognizing Billy's mistake.
+
+Marie Yarbrough was a little girl much admired by the two
+boys, as she had a pony and cart of her very own.  However,
+she lived in a different part of the town and attended
+another Sunday-School, so they had no speaking acquaintance
+with her.
+
+"I jus' wanted to talk to you," went on the counterfeit
+Marie, stifling a laugh and trying to talk like a girl.  "I
+think you're 'bout the sweetest little boy they is and I
+want you to come to my party."
+
+"I sho' will," screamed the gratified Billy, "if Aunt
+Minerva'll lemme.  What make you talk so much like Jimmy?"
+
+"Who?--that little old Jimmy Garner?  I hope I don't talk like
+that chicken, he's 'bout the measliest boy they is and I like
+you 'nother sight better 'n him.  you're a plumb jim-dandy,
+Billy," came from the doorway.
+
+"So's you," howled back the delighted and flattered Billy.
+
+Jimmy thought he would pop wide open in his efforts to keep
+from laughing.
+
+"How 'd you like to be my sweetheart?" he asked.
+
+"I's already promise' to marry Miss Cecilia when I puts on
+long pants, but if we ever gits a 'vorce I'd 'nother sight
+ruther have you 'n anybody.  You can be my ladyfrien',
+anyhow," was the loud reply.
+
+"I'm coming for you to go riding in my little pony and cart,"
+said a giggling Jimmy.
+
+"All right, I's going to ask Aunt Minerva to lemme go.  Can't
+we take Jimmy too?"
+
+This was too much for the little boy.  He had held himself in
+as long as possible.  He burst into a peal of laughter so
+merry and so loud that Billy, turning, quickly, almost fell
+out of the chair.
+
+"What you doin', a-listening to me talk to Marie Yarbrough
+th'oo the telephone?" he questioned angrily.
+
+"Marie your pig's foot," was the inelegant response.  "That
+was just me a-talking to you all the time.  You all time
+think you talking to little girls and all time 'tain't
+nobody but me."
+
+A light dawned upon the innocent one.  He promptly hung up
+the receiver and got down out of the chair.  Before Jimmy was
+fully aware of his intention, Billy had thrown him to the floor
+and was giving him a good pommeling.
+
+"Say you got 'nough?" he growled from ibis position astride of
+the other boy.
+
+"I got 'nough, Billy," repeated Jimmy.
+
+"Say you sorry you done it."
+
+"I say I sorry I done it," abjectly repeated the younger child.
+"Get up, Billy, 'fore you bust my stommick open."
+
+"Say you ain't never a-goin' to tell nobody, cross yo' heart,"
+was the next command.
+
+"I say I ain't never going to tell nobody, cross my heart.  Get
+up, Billy, 'fore you make me mad, and ain't no telling what
+I'll do to you if I get mad."
+
+"Say you's a low-down Jezebel skunk."
+
+"I ain't going to say I'm nothing of the kind," spiritedly
+replied the under-dog.  "You all time wanting somebody to call
+theirselfs someping.  You're a low-down Isabella skunk yourself."
+
+"You got to say it," insisted the victor,  renewing hostilities.
+
+"I'll say I'm a Isabella 'cause Isabella  discovered America
+and's in the Bible," replied the tormented one; "Miss Cecilia
+'splained it to me."
+
+Billy accepted his compromise and Jimmy's flattened stomach,
+relieved of its burden, puffed out to its usual roundness as that
+little boy rose to his feet, saying:
+
+"Sam Lamb would 'a' died a-laughing, Billy, if he 'd seen you
+telephoning."
+
+"He 'd better never hear tell of it," was the threatening
+rejoinder.
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XVI
+
+                    THE HUMBLE PETITION
+
+
+Billy, sitting in an old buggy in front of the livery stable, had
+just engaged in a long and interesting conversation with Sam Lamb.
+
+He was getting out of the vehicle when the sharp wire around a
+broken rod caught in the back of his trousers and tore a great
+hole.  He felt a tingling pain and looked over his shoulder to
+investigate.  Not being satisfied with the result, he turned his
+back to the negro and anxiously enquired, "Is my breeches tore,
+Sam?"
+
+"Dey am dat," was the reply, "dey am busted Fm Dan ter
+Beersheba."
+
+"What I goin' to do 'bout it?" asked the little boy, "Aunt
+Minerva sho' will be mad.  These here's branspankin' new
+trousers what I ain't never wore tell today.  Ain't you got a
+needle an' thread so's you can fix 'em.  Sam?"
+
+"Nary er needle," said Sam Lamb.
+
+"Is my union suit tore, too?" and Billy again turned his
+back for inspection.
+
+His friend made a close examination.
+
+"Yo' unions is injured plum scanerous," was his discouraging
+decision, "and hit 'pears ter me dat yo' hide done suffer
+too; you's got er turrible scratch."
+
+The child sighed.  The injury to the flesh was of small
+importance,--he could hide that from his aunt--but the rent
+in his trousers was a serious matter.
+
+"I wish I could git 'em mended 'fore I goes home," he said
+wistfully.
+
+"I tell you what do," suggested Sam, "I 'low Miss Cecilia'll
+holp yeh; jest go by her house an' she'll darn 'em up fer
+yuh."
+
+Billy hesitated.
+
+"Well, you see, Sam, me an' Miss Cecilia's engaged an' we's
+fixin' to marry jes''s soon's I puts on long pants, an' I
+'shame' to ask her.  An' I don't berlieve young 'omans
+patches the breeches of young mans what they's goin' to
+marry nohow.  Do you?  Aunt Minerva ain' never patched no
+breeches for the Major.  And then," with a modest blush, "my
+unions is tore too, an' I ain't got on nothin' else to hide
+my skin."
+
+Again he turned his back to his friend and, his clouded
+little face looking over his shoulder, he asked, "Do my meat
+show, Sam?"
+
+"She am visible ter the naked eye," and Sam Lamb laughed
+loudly at his own wit.
+
+"I don't believe God pays me much attention nohow," said the
+little boy dolefully; "ev'y day I gets put to bed 'cause sumpin's
+all time a-happenin'.  If He'd had a eye on me like He oughter
+they wouldn't a been no snaggin'.  Aunt Minerva's goin' to be mad
+th'oo an' th'oo."
+
+"May be my of 'oman can fix 'em, so's dey won't be so turrible
+bad," suggested the negro, "'taint fer, so you jes' run down ter
+my cabin an' tell Sukey I say fix dem breeches."
+
+The child needed no second bidding,--he fairly flew.  Sam's
+wife was cooking, but she cheerfully stopped her work to help
+the little boy.  She sewed up his union suit and put a bright
+blue patch on his brown linen breeches.
+
+Billy felt a little more cheerful, though he still dreaded
+confessing to his aunt and he loitered along the way till it
+was nearly dark.  Supper was ready when he got home and he
+walked into the diningroom with his customary ease and
+grace.  But he took his seat uneasily, and he was so quiet
+during the meal and ate so little that his aunt asked him if
+he were sick.  He was planning in his mind how to break the
+news of the day's disaster to her.
+
+"You are improving, William," she remarked presently, "you
+haven't got into any mischief to-day.  You have been a mighty
+good little boy now for two days."
+
+Billy flushed at the compliment and shifted uneasily in
+his seat.  That patch seemed to burn him.
+
+"If God'd jest do His part," he said darkly, "I wouldn't
+never git in no meanness."
+
+After supper Miss Minerva washed the dishes in the kitchen
+sink and Billy carried them back to the dining-room.  His
+aunt caught him several times prancing sideways in the most
+idiotic manner.  He was making a valiant effort to keep from
+exposing his rear elevation to her; once he had to walk
+backward.
+
+"William," she said sharply, "you will break my plates.
+What is the matter with you to-night?"
+
+A little later they were sitting quietly in Miss Minerva's
+room.  She was reading "The Christian at Home," and he was
+absently looking at a picture book.
+
+"Sam Lamb's wife Sukey sho' is a beautiful patcher," he
+remarked, feeling his way.
+
+She made no answering comment, and the discouraged little
+boy was silent for a few minutes.  He had worn Aunt Cindy's
+many-colored patches too often to be ashamed of this one for
+himself, but he felt that he would like to draw his aunt out
+and find how she stood on the subject of patches.
+
+"Aunt Minerva," he presently asked, "what sorter patches
+'d you ruther wear on yo' pants, blue patches or brown?"
+
+"On my what?" she asked, looking at him severely over her
+paper.
+
+"I mean if you's me," he hastily explained.  "Don't you
+think blue patches is the mos' nat'ral lookin'?"
+
+"What are you driving at, William?" she asked; but without
+waiting for his answer she went on with her reading.
+
+The child was silent for a long time, his little mind busy,
+then he began, "Aunt Minerva?"
+
+She peered at him over her glasses a second, then dropped
+her eyes to the paper where an interesting article on
+Foreign Missions held her attention.
+
+"Aunt Minerva, I snagged--Aunt Minerva, I snagged my--my
+skin, to-day."
+
+"Let me see the place," she said absently, her eyes glued to
+a paragraph describing a cannibal feast.
+
+"I's a-settin' on it right now," he replied.
+
+Another long silence ensued.  Billy resolved to settle the
+matter.
+
+"I's gettin' sleepy," he yawned.  "Aunt Minerva, I wants to
+say my prayers and go to bed."
+
+She laid her paper down and he dropped to his knees by her
+side.  He usually sprawled all over her lap during his
+lengthy devotions, but to-night he clasped his little hands
+and reared back like a rabbit on its haunches.
+
+After he had rapidly repeated the Lord's prayer, which he
+had recently learned, and had invoked blessings on all his
+new friends and never-to-be-forgotten old ones, he concluded
+with:
+
+"An', O Lord, You done kep' me f'om meddlin' with Aunt Minerva's
+hose any mo', an' you done kep' me f'om gittin' any mo' Easter
+eggs, an' playin' any mo' Injun, an' You done kep' me f'om
+lettin' Mr. Algernon Jones come ag'in, an' now, O Lord, please
+don't lemme worry the very 'zistence outer Aunt Minerva any
+mo' 'n You can help, like she said I done this mornin,' an'
+please, if Thy will be done, don't lemme tear the next new
+breeches what she'll gimme like I done ruint thesehere what I
+got on."
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XVII
+
+                     A GREEN-EYED BILLY
+
+
+Have some candy?" said Miss Cecilia, offering a big box of
+bonbons to Billy, who was visiting her.
+
+"Where 'd you git 'em?" he asked, as he helped himself
+generously.
+
+"Maurice sent them to me this morning."
+
+Billy put all his candy back into the box.
+
+"I don't believe I wants noner yo' candy," he said, scowling
+darkly.  "I reckon you likes him better 'n me anyhow, don't
+you?"
+
+"I love you dearly," she replied.
+
+The child stood in front of her and looked her squarely in
+the eye.  His little form was drawn to its full, proud height,
+his soft, fair cheeks were flushed, his big, beautiful, grey
+eyes looked somber and sad.
+
+"Is you in love with that red-headed Maurice Richmond an'
+jes' a-foolin' o' me?" he asked with dignity.
+
+A bright flush dyed crimson the young lady's pretty face.
+
+She put her arm around the childish, graceful figure and
+drew the little boy to the sofa beside her.
+
+"Now, honey, you mustn't be silly," she said gently, "you
+are my own, dear, little sweetheart."
+
+"An' I reckon he's yo' own, dear, big sweetheart," said the
+jealous Billy.  "Well, all I got to say is thishere; if he's
+a-goin' to come to see you ev'y day then I ain't never
+comin' no mo'.  He's been acarryin' on his foolishness 'bout
+'s long as I can stand it.  You got to chose 'tween us right
+this minute; he come down here mos' ev'y day, he's tuck you
+drivin' more'n fifty hundred times, an' he's give you all
+the candy you can stuff."
+
+"He is not the only one who comes to see me," she said smiling
+down at him.  "Jimmy comes often and Len Hamner and Will Reid.
+Don't you want them to come?"
+
+"Don't nobody pay no 'tention to Jimmy," he replied
+contemptuously; "he ain't nothin' but a baby, an' them other
+mens can come if you wants 'em to; but," said Billy, with a
+lover's unerring intuition, "I ain't a-goin' to stand fer that
+long-legged, sorrel-top Maurice Richmond a-trottin' his great
+big carkiss down here ev'y minute.  I wish Aunt Minerva 'd let
+me put on long pants to-morrer so 's we could git married."
+He caught sight of a new ring sparkling on her finger.
+
+"Who give you that ring?" he asked sharply.
+
+"A little bird brought it to me," she said, trying to speak
+gayly, and blushing again.
+
+"A big, red-headed peckerwood," said Billy savagely.
+
+"Maurice loves you, too,"--she hoped to conciliate him; "he
+says you are the brightest kid in town."
+
+"Kid," was the scornful echo, "'cause he's so big and tall,
+he's got to call me a kid.  Well, he'd jes' awasting' hi'self
+lovin' me; I don't like him an' I ain't agoin' to never like him
+an' soon's I puts on long pants he's goin' to get 'bout the
+worses' lickin' he ever did see.
+
+"Say, does you kiss him like you does me?" he asked presently,
+looking up at her with serious, unsmiling face.
+
+She hid her embarrassment in a laugh.
+
+"Don't be foolish, Billy," she replied.
+
+"I'll bet he's kissed you more 'n fifty hunderd times."
+
+"There's Jimmy whistling for you," said Miss Cecilia.  "How
+do you two boys make that peculiar whistle?  I would
+recognize it anywhere."
+
+"Is he ever kiss you yet?" asked the child.
+
+"I heard that you and Jimmy whipped Ed Brown because he
+imitated your own particular whistle.  Did you?"
+
+"How many times is he kiss you?" asked Billy.
+
+The young girl put her arm around him and tried to nestle
+his little body against her own.
+
+"I'm too big, anyway, for your real sweetheart," she said.
+"Why, by the time you are large enough to marry I should be
+an old maid.  You must have Frances or Lina for your
+sweetheart."
+
+"An' let you have Maurice!" he sneered.
+
+She stooped to lay her flushed cheek against his own.
+
+"Honey," she softly said, "Maurice and I are going to be
+married soon; I love him very much and I want you to love
+him too."
+
+He pushed her roughly from him.
+
+"An' you jes' 'ceived me all the time," he cried, "an' me
+a-lovin' you better 'n anybody I ever see sence I's born?  An'
+you a Sunday-School teacher?  I ain't never a-goin' to trus'
+nobody no mo'.  Good-bye, Miss Cecilia."
+
+She caught his hand and held it fast; "I want you and Jimmy
+to be my little pages at the wedding, and wear dear little
+white satin suits all trimmed with gold braid," she tried to
+be enthusiastic and arouse his interest; "and Lina and Frances
+can be little flower-girls and we'll have such a beautiful
+wedding."
+
+"Jimmy an' Lina an' Frances can be all the pages an' flower-girls
+an' brides an' grooms they wants to, but you can't rope me in,"
+he scornfully replied.  "I's done with you an' I ain't never
+goin' to have me no mo' sweetheart long's I live."
+
+
+
+
+                       CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                   CLOSER THAN A BROTHER
+
+
+It was a bad, rainy day.  Jimmy and Billy were playing in
+Sarah Jane's cabin, she, however, being in happy ignorance
+of the fact.  Her large stays, worn to the preaching the
+night before, were hanging on the back of a chair.
+"Ain't I glad I don' have to wear no corset when I puts on
+long pants?" remarked Billy, pointing to the article.  "Ain't
+that a big one?  It's twice's big's Aunt Minerva's."
+
+"My mama wears a big co'set, too," said Jimmy; "I like fat
+womans 'nother sight better 'n lean ones.  Miss Minerva's
+'bout the skinniest woman they is; when I get married I'm
+going to pick me out the fattest wife I can find, so when
+you set in her lap at night for her to rock you to sleep
+you'll have a soft place to put your head, while she sings to
+you."
+
+"The Major--he's mos' plump enough for two," said Billy,
+taking down the stays and trying to hook them around him.
+
+"It sho' is big," he said; "I berlieve it's big 'nough to
+go 'round both of us."
+
+"Le's see if 'tain't," was the other boy's ready suggestion.
+
+He stood behind Billy and they put the stays around both little
+bodies, while, with much squeezing and giggling, Billy hooked
+them safely up the front.  The boys got in front of Sarah Jane's
+one looking-glass and danced about laughing with glee.
+
+"We're like the twinses what was growed together like mama
+read me 'bout," declared the younger child.
+
+Presently they began to feel uncomfortable, especially
+Jimmy, whose fat, round little middle was tightly
+compressed.
+
+"Here, unhook this thing, Billy, and le's take her off," he
+said.  "I'm 'bout to pop open."
+
+"All right," agreed his companion.
+
+He tugged and pulled, but could get only the top and bottom
+hooks unclasped; the middle ones refused to budge.
+
+"I can't get these-here hooks to come loose," Billy said.
+
+Jimmy put his short, fat arms around him and tried his hand,
+but with no better success.  The stays were such a snug fit
+that the hooks seemed glued.
+
+"We sho' is in a fix," said Billy gloomily; "look like God
+all time lettin' us git in trouble."
+
+"You think of more fool stunts to do, William Hill, than any
+boy they is," cried the other; "you all time want to get us
+hooked up in Sarah Jane's corset and you all time can't get
+nobody loose.  What you want to get us hooked up in this
+thing for?"
+
+"You done it yo'self," defended the boy in front with rising
+passion.  "Squeeze in, Jimmy; we jes' boun' to git outer this
+'fore somebody finds it out."
+
+He backed the other child close to the wall and pressed so
+hard against him that Jimmy screamed aloud and began to
+pound him on the head with his chubby fists.
+
+Billy would not submit tamely to any such treatment.  He
+reached his hand behind him and gave the smaller boy's cheek
+a merciless pinch.  The fight was on.  The two little boys,
+laced up tightly as they were in a stout pair of stays,
+pinched and scratched, and kicked and jerked.  Suddenly
+Billy, leaning heavily against Jimmy, threw him flat on his
+back and fell on top of him.
+
+Bennie Dick, sitting on the floor, had up to this time
+watched the proceedings with an interested eye; now, thinking
+murder was being committed, he opened his big, red mouth and
+emitted a howl that could be heard half a mile.  It immediately
+brought his mother to the open door.  When she saw the children
+squirming on the floor in her only corset, her indignation
+knew no bounds.
+
+"You, Jimmy Garner, an' you, too, William Hill, yuh little
+imps o' Satan, what you doin' in my house? didn't yo' mammy
+tell you not to tamper wid me no mo'?  Git up an' come here an'
+lemme git my co'set off o' yuh."
+
+Angry as she was she could not keep from laughing at the
+sight they presented, as, with no gentle hand, she unclasped
+the hooks and released their imprisoned bodies.
+
+"Billy all time--" began Jimmy.
+
+"Billy all time nothin," said Sarah Jane, "'tain't no use
+fo' to try to lay dis-here co'set business onto Billy; both
+o' yuh is ekally in it.  An' me a-aimin' fo' to go to three
+fun'els dis week an' a baptizin' on Sunday.  S'pose y' all'd
+bruck one o' de splints, how'd I look a-presidin' at a
+fun'el 'thout nare co'set on, an' me shape' like what I is?"
+
+"Who's dead, Sarah Jane?" asked Jimmy, hoping to stem the
+torrent of her wrath.
+
+"Sis' Mary Ellen's las' husban', Brudder Littlejohn--dat 's
+a-who," she replied, somewhat mollified at his interest.
+
+"When did he die?"--Jimmy pursued his advantage.
+
+"He got 'way f'om here 'bout moon-down las' night," she replied,
+losing sight of her grievance in his flattering interrogations.
+"You know Sis' Littlejohn, she been married goin' on five times.
+Dis-here'll make fo' gentlemans she done buriet an' dey ain't
+nobody can manage a fun'el like she kin; 'pears like hit jes'
+come natchel to her.  She sho' is done a good part by eb'ry
+single husban' too, an' she's figgerin' to outdo all the yuthers
+wid Brudder Littlejohn's co'pse."  Sarah Jane almost forgot her
+little audience in her intense absorption of her subject.
+"She say to me dis mornin', she say, `Marri'ge am a lott'ry, Sis
+Beddinfiel', but I sho' is drawed some han'some prizes.  'She
+got 'em all laid out side by side in de buryin' groun' wid er
+little imige on ebry grabe; an.  'Sis Mary Ellen, seein' as she
+can't read de writin' on de tombstones, she got a diff'unt little
+animal asettin' on eb'ry head res' so's she kin tell which
+husban' am which.  Her fus' husban' were all time ahuntin',
+so she got a little white marble pa'tridge arestin' on he' head,
+an' hit am a mighty consolement to a po' widda 'oman fo' to know
+dat she can tell de very minute her eyes light on er grabe which
+husban' hit am.  Her secon' man he got er mighty kinky, woolly head
+an' he mighty meek, so she got a little white lamb a-settin' on he
+grabe; an' de nex husban' he didn't have nothin' much fo' to
+disgueese him f'om de res' 'cep'in' he so slow an' she might nigh
+rack her brain off, twell she happen to think 'bout him bein' a
+Hardshell Baptis' an' so powerful slow, so she jest got a little
+tarrapim an' sot it on him.  Hit sho' am a pretty sight jes' to go
+in dat buryin' groun' an' look at 'em all, side by side; an' now
+she got Brudder Littlejohn to add to de res'.  He de onliest one
+what's got er patch o' whiskers so she gwine to put a little white
+cat on he' grabe.  Yes, Lord, ef anythink could pearten' a widda
+'oman hit would be jes' to know dat yuh could go to de grabeyard
+any time yuh want to an' look at dat han'some c'llection an' tell
+'zactly which am which."
+
+Sarah Jane stopped for breath and Billy hastened to inquire,
+
+"Who else is dead, Sarah Jane?"
+
+"'Tain't nobody else dead, yit, as I knows on, but my two
+cousins is turrible low; one's got a hemrage on de lung an'
+de yuther's got a congestin' on de brain, an' I 'lows dey'll
+bofe drap off 'twix' now an' sun-up to-morra.  "Her eyes
+rolled around and happened to light on her corset.  She at
+once returned to her grievance.
+
+"An' sposin' I hadn't 'av' came in here when I did?  I'd 'a'
+had to went to my own cousins' fun'el 'thout nare co'set.  Y'
+all gotta go right to y' all's mamas an' Miss Minerva dis very
+minute.  I low dey'll settle yo' hashes.  Don't y' all know
+dat Larroes ketch meddlers?"
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XIX
+
+                     TWINS AND A SISSY
+
+
+Mrs. Hamilton and Mrs. Black were sitting on Miss Minerva's
+veranda talking to her, and Lira and Frances were in the swing
+with Billy.
+
+The attraction proved too great for Jimmy; he impolitely left
+a disconsolate little visitor sitting on his own porch while he
+jumped the fence and joined the other children.
+
+"Don't you all wish you could see Mrs. Brown's new twinses?" was
+his greeting as he took his seat by Billy.
+
+"Where'd she get 'em?" asked Frances.
+
+"Doctor Sanford tooken 'em to her last night."
+
+"He muster found 'em in a holler stump," remarked Billy.  "I
+knows, 'cause that's where Doctor Shacklefoot finds aller of Aunt
+Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline's, an' me an' Wilkes Booth
+Lincoln been lookin' in evy holler stump we see ever sence we's
+born, an' we ain't never foun' no baby 't all, 'cause can't
+nobody but jes' doctors fin' 'em.  I wish he'd a-give 'em to
+Aunt Minerva 'stidder Mrs. Brown."
+
+"I wish he'd bringed 'em to my mama," said Frances.
+
+"I certainly do think he might have given them to us," declared
+Lina, "and I'm going to tell him so, too.  As much money as
+father has paid him for doctor's bills and as much old, mean
+medicine as I have taken just to 'commodate him; then he gives
+babies to everybody but us."
+
+"I'm awful glad he never give 'em to my mama," said Jimmy, "'cause
+I never could had no more fun; they'd be stuck right under my nose
+all time, and all time put their mouth in everything you want to
+do, and all time meddling. You can't fool me 'bout twinses. But I
+wish I could see 'em! They so weakly they got to be hatched in a
+nincubator."
+
+"What's that?" questioned Frances.
+
+"That's a someping what you hatches chickens and babies in
+when they's delicate, and ain't got 'nough breath and ain't
+got they eyes open and ain't got no feathers on," explained
+Jimmy.
+
+"Reckon we can see 'em?" she asked.
+
+"See nothing!" sniffed the little boy.  "Ever sence Billy let
+Mr. Algernon Jones whack Miss Minerva's beau we can't do
+nothing at all 'thout grown folks 'r' stuck right under your
+nose.  I'm jes' cramped to death."
+
+"When I'm a mama," mused Frances, "I hope Doctor Sanford'll bring
+me three little twinses, and two Maltese kittens, and a little
+Japanee, and a monkey, and a parrit."
+
+"When I'm a papa," said Jimmy, "I don' want no babies at all, all
+they's good for is jus' to set 'round and yell."
+
+"Look like God 'd sho' be busy a-makin' so many babies,"
+remarked Billy.
+
+"Why, God don' have none 'a the trouble," explained Jimmy.  "He's
+just got Him a baby factory in Heaven like the chair factory and
+the canning factory down by the railroad, and angels jus' all
+time make they arms and legs, like niggers do at the chair
+factory, and all God got to do is jus' glue 'em together, and
+stick in their souls.  God's got 'bout the easiest job they is."
+
+"I thought angels jes' clam' the golden stair and play they
+harps," said Billy.
+
+"Ain't we going to look sweet at Miss Cecilia's wedding," said
+Frances, after a short silence.
+
+"I'll betcher I'll be the cutest kid in that church," boasted
+Jimmy conceitedly.  "You coming, ain't you, Billy?"
+
+"I gotter go," answered that jilted swain, gloomily, "Aunt
+Minerva ain't got nobody to leave me with at home.  I jes'
+wish she'd git married."
+
+"Why wouldn't you be a page, Billy?" asked Lina.
+
+"'Cause I didn't hafto," was the snappish reply.
+
+"I bet my mama give her the finest present they is," bragged
+the smaller boy; "I reckon it cost 'bout a million dollars."
+
+"Mother gave her a handsome cut-glass vase," said Lina.
+
+"It looks like Doctor Sanford would've give Miss Cecilia
+those twinses for a wedding present," said Frances.
+
+"Who is that little boy sitting on your porch, Jimmy?" asked
+Lina, noticing for the first time a lonely-looking child.
+
+"That's Leon Tipton, Aunt Ella's little boy.  He just come
+out from Memphis to spend the day with me and I'll be awful
+glad when he goes home; he's 'bout the stuck-up-est kid they
+is, and skeery?  He's 'bout the 'fraidest young un ever you see.
+And look at him now?  Wears long curls like a girl and don't
+want to never get his clean clo'es dirty."
+
+"I think he's a beautiful little boy," championed Lina.  "Call
+him over here, Jimmy."
+
+"Naw, I don't want to.  You all'll like him a heap better
+over there; he's one o' these-here kids what the furder you
+get 'way from 'em, the better you like 'em."
+
+"He sho' do look lonesome," said Billy; "'vite him over,
+Jimmy."
+
+"Leon!" screamed his cousin, "you can come over here if you
+wantta."
+
+The lonesome-looking little boy promptly accepted the invitation,
+and came primly through the two gates.  He walked proudly to the
+swing and stood, cap in hand, waiting for an introduction.
+
+"Why didn't you clam' the fence, 'stead of coming th'oo the
+gates?" growled Jimmy.  "You 'bout the prissiest boy they is.
+Well, why don't you set down?"
+
+"Introduce me, please," said the elegant little city boy.
+
+"Interduce your grandma's pussy cats," mocked Jimmy.  "Set
+down, I tell you."
+
+Frances and Lina made room for him between them and soon
+gave him their undivided attention, to the intense envy and
+disgust of the other two little boys.
+
+"I am Lina Hamilton," said the little girl on his right.
+
+"And I'm Frances Black, and Jimmy ought to be 'shamed to
+treat you like he does."
+
+"I knows a turrible skeery tale," remarked a malicious
+Billy, looking at Lina and Frances.  "If y' all wa'n't girls
+I 'd tell it to you."
+
+"We aren't any more scared 'n you, William Hill," cried
+Frances, her interest at once aroused; "I already know 'bout
+`raw meat and bloody bones' and nothing's scarier 'n that."
+
+"And I know `Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an
+Englishman.  Be he alive or be he dead, I'll ground his bones
+to make me bread,"' said Lina.
+
+"This-here tale," continued Billy, glueing his big eyes to those
+of the little stranger, "is one Tabernicle learnt fer a speech
+at school.  It's all 'bout a 'oman what was buriet in a graveyard
+with a diamant ring on her finger, an' a robber come in the
+night--"
+
+The child's tones were guttural, thrilling, and hair-raising as
+he glared into the eyes of the effeminate Leon, "an' a robber come
+in the night an' try to cut it off, an' ha'nts was groanin' an' the
+win' moan 'oo-oo' an--"
+
+Leon could stand it no longer.
+
+"I am going right back," he cried rising with round, frightened
+eyes, "I am not going to sit here and listen to you, scaring
+little girls to death.  You are a bad boy to scare Lina and Frances
+and I am not going to associate with you;" and this champion of
+the fair sex stalked with dignity across the yard to the gate.
+
+"I'm no more scared 'n nothing," and indignant Frances hurled at
+his back.  "you're just scared yourself."
+
+Jimmy giggled happily.  "What'd I tell you all," he cried,
+gleefully.  "Lina and Frances got to all time set little 'fraid
+cats 'tween 'em," he snorted.  "It's just like I tell you, he's
+the sissyest boy they is; and he don't care who kiss him neither;
+he'll let any woman kiss him what wants to.  Can't no woman at
+all 'cepting my mama and Miss Cecilia kiss me.  But Leon is 'bout
+the kissingest kid they is; why, he'd just as soon's not let
+Frances and Lina kiss him; he ain't got no better sense.  'Course
+I gotta let Miss Cecilia kiss me 'cause she's 'bout the plumpest
+Sunday-School teacher they is and the Bible say `If your
+Sunday-School teacher kiss you on one cheek turn the other cheek
+and let her kiss you on that, too,' and I all time bound to do
+what the Bible say.  You 'd better call him back, Frances, and
+kiss him, you and Lina 're so stuck on him."
+
+"I wouldn't kiss him to save his life," declared Frances;
+"he's got the spindliest legs I ever saw."
+
+
+
+
+                         CHAPTER XX
+
+                    RISING IN THE WORLD
+
+
+The painter had just finished putting a bright green coat of
+paint upon the low, flat roof of Miss Minerva's long back-porch.
+And he left his ladder leaning against the house while he went
+inside to confer with her in regard to some other work.
+
+Billy, Jimmy, Frances, and Lina had been playing "Fox and
+Geese."  Running around the house they spied the ladder and
+saw no owner to deny them.
+
+'Le's clam' up and get on top the porch," suggested Jimmy.
+
+"Aunt Minerva'll put me to bed if I do," said Billy.
+
+"Mother'll make me learn a whole page of the catechism if
+I climb a ladder," said Lina.
+
+"My mama'll shut me up in the closet, but our mamas aren't
+bound to know 'bout it,"--this from Frances.  "Come on,
+let's climb up."
+
+"I ain't neverpromise not to clam' no ladder but--" Billy
+hesitated.
+
+"You-all 'bout the skeeriest folks they is," sneered Jimmy.
+"Mama'll whip me going and coming if she finds out 'bout it,
+but I ain't skeered.  I dare anybody to dare me to clam' up."
+
+"I dare you to climb this ladder," responded an accommodating
+Frances.
+
+"I ain't never tooken a dare yet," boasted the little boy
+proudly, his foot on the bottom rung.  "Who's going to foller
+me?"
+
+"Don't we have fun?" cried a jubilant Frances.
+
+"Yes," answered Jimmy; "if grown folks don't all time be
+watching you and sticking theirselfs in your way."
+
+"If people would let us alone," remarked Lina, "we could
+enjoy ourselves every day."
+
+"But grown folks got to be so pertic'lar with you all time,"
+cried Jimmy, "they don't never want us to play together."
+
+He led the way up the ladder, followed by Frances and Billy;
+and Lina brought up the rear.  The children ran the long length
+of the porch leaving their footprints on the fresh, sticky
+paint.
+
+"Will it wash off?" asked Frances, looking gloomily down at
+her feet, which seemed to be encased in green moccasins.
+
+At that moment she slipped and fell sprawling on top of the
+roof.  When the others helped her to her feet, she was a
+sight to behold, her white dress splotched with vivid green
+from top to bottom.
+
+"If that ain't jus' like you, Frances," Jimmy exclaimed;
+"you all time got to fall down and get paint on your dress
+so we can't 'ceive nobody.  Now our mamas bound to know 'bout
+us clamming up here."
+
+"They would know it anyhow," mourned Lina; "we'll never get
+this paint off of our feet.  We had better get right down and
+see if we can't wash some of it off."
+
+While they were talking the owner of the ladder, who had not
+noticed them--and was deaf in the bargain--had quietly removed
+it from the back-porch and carried it around to the front of
+the house.
+
+The children looked at each other in consternation when they
+perceived their loss.
+
+"What we goin' to do now?" asked Billy.
+
+"If this ain't just like Billy, all time got to perpose to clam'
+a ladder and all time got to let the ladder get loose from him,"
+growled Jimmy.  "We done cooked a goose egg, this time.  You got
+us up here, Billy, how you going to get us down?"
+
+"I didn't, neither."
+
+"Well, it's Miss Minerva's house and she's your aunt and we's
+your company and you got to be 'sponsible."
+
+"I can clam' down this-here post," said the responsible party.
+
+"I can climb down it, too," seconded Frances.
+
+"You can't clam' down nothing at all," said Jimmy contemptuously.
+"Talk 'bout you can clam' down a post; you'd fall and bust
+yourself wide open; you 'bout the clumsiest girl there is;
+'sides, your legs 're too fat."
+
+"We can holla," was Lina's suggestion.
+
+"And have grown folks laughing fit to pop their sides open?  I'm
+'shame' to go anywheres now 'cause folks all time telling me
+when I'm going to dye some more Easter eggs!  Naw, we better not
+holler," said Jimmy.  "Ain't you going to do nothing, Billy?"
+
+"I'll jest slide down this-here post and git the painter man to
+bring his ladder back.  Y' all wait up here."
+
+Billy's solution of the difficulty seemed the safest, and they
+were soon released from their elevated prison.
+
+"I might as well go home and be learning the catechism," groaned
+Lina.
+
+"I'm going to get right in the closet soon's I get to my house,"
+said Frances.
+
+"Go on and put on your night-shirt, Billy."  Billy took himself
+to the bath-room and scrubbed and scrubbed; but the paint refused
+to come off.  He tiptoed by the kitchen where his aunt was
+cooking dinner and ran into his own room.
+
+He found the shoes and stockings which were reserved for Sunday
+wear, and soon had them upon his little feet.
+
+Miss Minerva rang the dinner-bell and he walked quietly into the
+dining-room trying to make as little noise and to attract as
+little attention from his aunt as possible; but she fastened her
+eyes at once upon his feet.
+
+"What are you doing with your shoes on, William?" she asked.
+
+Billy glanced nonchalantly at her.
+
+"Don't you think, Aunt Minerva," he made answer, "I's gittin' too
+big to go 'thout any shoes?  I's mos' ready to put on long pants,
+an' how'd I look, I'd jest like to know, goin' roun' barefooted
+an' got on long breeches.  I don' believe I'll go barefooted no
+mo'--I'll jest wear my shoes ev'y day."
+
+"I just believe you won't.  Go take them off at once and hurry
+back to your dinner."
+
+"Lemme jest wait tell I eats," he begged, hoping to postpone the
+evil hour of exposure.
+
+"No, go at once, and be sure and wash your hands."
+
+Miss Minerva spied the paint the instant he made his second
+entrance and immediately inquired, "How did you get that paint
+on your feet?"
+
+The little boy took his seat at the table and looked up at
+her with his sweet, attractive, winning smile.
+
+"Paint pertec's little boys' feets," he said, "an' keeps 'em
+f'om gittin' hurted, Aunt Minerva, don't it?"
+
+Miss Minerva laid down her fork and gave her nephew her
+undivided attention.
+
+"You have been getting into mischief again, I see, William;
+now tell me all about it.  Are you afraid of me?"
+
+"Yas 'm," was his prompt response, "an' I don't want to be put
+to bed neither.  The Major he wouldn't put little boys to bed
+day times."
+
+She blushed and eyed him thoughtfully.  She was making slow
+progress with the child, she knew, yet she still felt it her
+stern duty to be very strict with him and, having laid down
+certain rules to rear him by, she wished to adhere to them.
+
+"William," she said after he had made a full confession, "I won't
+punish you this time for I know that Jimmy led you into it but--"
+
+"Naw'm, Jimmy didn't.  Me an' him an' Frances an' Lina's all
+'sponsible, but I promise you, Aunt Minerva, not to clam' no mo'
+ladders."
+
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XXI
+
+                     PRETENDING REALITY
+
+
+The chain-gang had been working in the street not far from Miss
+Minerva's house, and Lina, Frances, Billy and Jimmy had hung on
+her front fence for an hour, watching them with eager interest.
+The negroes were chained together in pairs, and guarded by two,
+big, burly white men.
+
+"Let's us play chain-gang," suggested Jimmy.
+
+"Where we goin' to git a chain?" queried Billy; "'t won't be
+no fun 'thout a lock an' chain."
+
+"I can get the lock and chain off 'm Sarah Jane's cabin."
+
+"Yo' mama don't 'low you to go to her cabin," said Billy.
+
+"My mama don't care if I just borra a lock and chain; so I 'm
+going to get it."
+
+"I'm going to be the perlice of the gang," said Frances.
+
+"Perlice nothing.  You all time talking 'bout you going to be
+the perlice," scoffed Jimmy.  "I'm going to be the perlice
+myself."
+
+"No, you are not," interposed Lina, firmly.  "Billy and I are the
+tallest and we are going to be the guards, and you and Frances
+must be the prisoners."
+
+"Well, I ain't going to play 'thout I can be the boss of the
+niggers.  It's Sarah Jane's chain and she's my mama's cook, and
+I'm going to be what I please."
+
+"I'll tell you what do," was Billy's suggestion, "we'll take it
+turn about; me an' Lina'll firs' be the perlice an' y' all be the
+chain-gang, an' then we'll be the niggers an' y' all be the
+bosses."
+
+This arrangement was satisfactory, so the younger boy climbed the
+fence and soon returned with a short chain and padlock.
+
+Billy chained Jimmy and Frances together by two round, fat
+ankles and put the key to the lock in his pocket.
+
+"We must decide what crimes they have committed," said Lina.
+
+"Frances done got 'rested fer shootin' craps an' Jimmy done
+got 'rested fer 'sturbin' public worship," said the other boss.
+
+"Naw, I ain't neither," objected the male member of the
+chain-gang, "I done cut my woman with a razor 'cause I see her
+racking down the street like a proud coon with another gent, like
+what Sarah Jane's brother telled me he done at the picnic."
+
+The children played happily together for half an hour, Billy
+and Lina commanding, and the prisoners, entering thoroughly
+into the spirit of the game, according prompt obedience to
+their bosses.  At last the captives wearied of their role and
+clamored for an exchange of parts.
+
+"All right," agreed Lina.  "Get the key, Billy, and we'll be
+the chain-gang."
+
+Billy put his right hand in his pocket but found no key there;
+he tried the other pocket with the same success; he felt in his
+blouse, he looked in his cap, he jumped up and down, he nearly
+shook himself to pieces all without avail; the key had
+disappeared as if by magic.
+
+"I berlieve y' all done los' that key," concluded he.
+
+"Maybe it dropped on the ground," said Frances.
+
+They searched the yard over, but the key was not to be found.
+
+"Well, if that ain't just like you, Billy," cried Jimmy, "you
+all time perposing to play chain-gang and you all time lose
+the key."
+
+Lina grew indignant.
+
+"You proposed this yourself, Jimmy Garner," she said; "we
+never would have thought of playing chain-gang but for you."
+
+"It looks like we can't never do anything at all," moaned
+Frances, "'thout grown folks 've got to know 'bout it."
+
+"Yes, and laugh fit to pop theirselfs open," said her
+fellow-prisoner.  "I can't never pass by Owen Gibbs and Len
+Hamner now 'thout they laugh just like idjets and grin just
+like pole-cats."
+
+"I ain't never hear tell of a pole-cat grinnin'," corrected
+Billy, "he jes' smell worser 'n what a billy goat do."
+
+"It is Chessy cats that grin," explained Lina.
+
+"Look like folks would get 'em a lot of pole-cats stead o'
+chillens always hafto be wearing assfetty bags 'round their
+nakes, so's they can keep off whopping-cough," said Frances.
+
+"You can't wear a pole-cat roun' yo' nake," grinned Billy.
+
+"And Len Hamner all time now asking me," Jimmy continued,
+"when I'm going to wear Sarah Jane's co'set to Sunday-School.
+Grown folks 'bout the lunatickest things they is.  Ain't you
+going to unlock this chain, Billy?" he demanded.
+
+"What I got to unlock it with?" asked Billy.
+
+As Jimmy's father was taking the crestfallen chaingang to the
+blacksmith shop to have their fetters removed, they had to
+pass by the livery stable; and Sam Lamb, bent double with
+intoxicating mirth at their predicament, yelled:
+
+"Lordee!  Lordee!  Y' all sho' is de outlandishest kids
+'twixt de Bad Place an' de moon."
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XXII
+
+                   A TRANSACTION IN MUMPS
+
+
+"Don't you come near me," screamed Billy, sauntering.  slowly and
+deliberately toward the dividing fence; "keep way f'om me; they's
+ketchin'."
+
+Jimmy was sitting on his front steps and the proverbial red flag
+could not have excited a bull to quicker action.  He hopped down
+the steps and ran across his own yard toward Billy as fast as
+his short, fat legs, could carry him.
+
+"Git 'way f'om me; you'll ketch 'em if you teches me," warned
+Billy; "an' you too little to have 'em," and he waved an
+authoritative hand at the other child.  But Jimmy's curiosity
+was aroused to the highest pitch.  He promptly jumped the
+fence and gazed at his chum with critical admiration.
+
+"What's the matter," he inquired, "you got the toothache?"
+
+"Toothache!" was the scornful echo, "well, I reckon not.  Git
+back; don't you tech 'em; you ain't ol' 'nough to have 'em."
+
+Billy's head was swathed in a huge, white cloth; his usually
+lean little cheeks were puffed out till he resembled a young
+hippopotamus, and his pretty grey eyes were almost invisible.
+
+"You better git 'way f'om me an' don't tech 'em, like I tells
+you," he reiterated.  "Aunt Minerva say you ain't never had 'em
+an' she say fer me to make you keep 'way f'om me 'cause you
+ain't a ol' chile like what I is."
+
+"You ain't but six," retorted angry Jimmy, "and I'll be six
+next month; you all time trying to 'suade little boys to
+think you're 'bout a million years old.  What's the matter
+with you, anyhow?  You 'bout the funniest looking kid they
+is."
+
+Billy theatrically touched a distended cheek.  "These here is
+mumps," he said impressively; "an' when you got 'em you can make
+grown folks do perzactly what you want 'em to.  Aunt Minerva's
+in the kitchen right now makin' me a 'lasses custard if I'll be
+good an' stay right in the house an' don't come out here in the
+yard an' don't give you the mumps.  Course I can't tech that
+custard now 'cause I done come out here an' it ain't honer'ble;
+but she's makin' it jes' the same.  You better git 'way f'om me
+an' not tech 'em; you too little to have 'em."
+
+"Are they easy to ketch?" asked the other little boy eagerly;
+"lemme jest tech 'em one time, Billy."
+
+"Git 'way, I tell you," warned the latter with a superior air.
+To increase Jimmy's envy he continued: "Grown folks tries to
+see how nice they can be to chillens what's got the mumps.  Aunt
+Minerva ain't been impedent to me to-day; she lemme do jest
+'bout like I please; it sho' is one time you can make grown
+folks step lively."  He looked at Jimmy meditatively, "It sho'
+is a plumb pity you ain't a ol' chile like what I is an' can't
+have the mumps.  Yo' ma 'd be skeered to spank you, skeered
+she 'd injuh yo' mumps.  Don't you come any closter to me," he
+again warned, "you too little to have 'em."
+
+"I'll give you five peewees if you'll lemme tech 'em so 's
+I can get 'em," pleaded the younger boy.
+
+Billy hesitated.  "You mighty little--" he began.
+
+"And my stoney," said the other child eagerly.
+
+"If you was a ol' little boy," said Billy, "it wouldn't make no
+diffunce; I don't want to make yo' ma mad an' Aunt Minerva say
+for me to keep 'way f'om you anyhow, though I didn't make her no
+promises."
+
+Jimmy grew angry.
+
+"You're the stingiest Peter they is, William Hill," he cried;
+"won't let nobody tech your old mumps.  My cousin in Memphis's
+got the measles; you just wait till I get 'em."
+
+Billy eyed him critically.
+
+"If you was ol'--" he was beginning.
+
+Jimmy thought he saw signs of his yielding.
+
+"And I'll give you my china egg, too," he quickly proposed.
+
+"Well, jest one tech," agreed Billy; "an' I ain't a-goin' to
+be 'sponsible neither," and he poked out a swollen jaw for
+Jimmy to touch.
+
+Ikey Rosenstein at this moment was spied by the two little
+boys as he was Walking jauntily by the gate.
+
+"You better keep 'way f'om here, Goose-Grease," Jimmy yelled at
+him; "you better get on the other side the street.  Billy here's
+got the mumps an' he lemme tech 'em so's I can get 'em, so's my
+papa and mama'll lemme do just perzactly like I want to; but
+you're a Jew and Jews ain't got no business to have the mumps,
+so you better get 'way.  I paid Billy 'bout a million dollars'
+worth to lemme tech his mumps," he said proudly.  "Get 'way; you
+can't have em."
+
+Ikey had promptly stopped at the gate.
+
+"What'll you take, Billy, to lemme get 'em?" he asked, his
+commercial spirit at once aroused.
+
+"What'll you gimme?" asked he of the salable commodity,
+with an eye to a bargain.
+
+Ikey pulled out a piece of twine and a blue glass bead from
+his pocket and offered them to the child with the mumps.
+These received a contemptuous rejection.
+
+"You can do perzactly like you please when you got the mumps,"
+insinuated Jimmy, who had seemingly allied himself with Billy
+as a partner in business; "grown folks bound to do what little
+boys want 'em to when you got the mumps."
+
+Ikey increased his bid by the stub of a lead pencil, but it was
+not until he had parted with his most cherished pocket
+possessions that he was at last allowed to place a gentle finger
+on the protuberant cheek.
+
+Two little girls with their baby-buggies were seen approaching.
+
+"G' 'way from here, Frances, you and Lina," howled Jimmy.  "Don't
+you come in here; me and Billy's got the mumps and you-all 'r'
+little girls and ought n' to have 'em.  Don't you come near us;
+they 're ketching."
+
+The two little girls immediately opened the gate, crossed the
+yard, mid stood in front of Billy.  They inspected him with
+admiration; he bore their critical survey with affected unconcern
+and indifference, as befitted one who had attained such
+prominence.
+
+"Don't tech 'em," he commanded, waving them off as he leaned
+gracefully against the fence.
+
+"I teched 'em," boasted the younger boy.  "What'll you all give
+us if we Il let you put your finger on 'em?"
+
+"I ain't a-goin' to charge little girls nothin'," said the
+gallant Billy, as he proffered his swollen jowl to each in turn.
+
+A little darkey riding a big black horse was galloping by;
+Jimmy hailed and halted him.
+
+"You better go fast," he shrieked.  "Me and Billy and Frances and
+Lina's got the mumps and you ain't got no business to have 'em
+'cause you're a nigger, and you better take your horse to the
+lib'ry stable 'cause he might ketch 'em too."
+
+The negro boy dismounted and hitched his horse to the fence.  "I
+gotter little tarrapim--" he began insinuatingly.
+
+And thus it came to pass that there was an epidemic of mumps
+in the little town of Covington, and William Green Hill grew
+rich in marbles, in tops, in strings, in toads, in chewing gum,
+and in many other things which comprise the pocket treasures of
+little boys.
+
+
+
+
+                       CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                   THE INFANT MIND SHOOTS
+
+
+Miss Minerva had bought a book for Billy entitled "Stories of
+Great and Good Men," which she frequently read to him for his
+education and improvement.  These stories related the principal
+events in the lives of the heroes but never mentioned any names,
+always asking at the end, "Can you tell me who this man was?"
+
+Her nephew heard the stories so often that he had some expression
+or incident by which he could identify each, without paying much
+attention while she was reading.
+
+He and his aunt had just settled themselves on the porch for a
+reading.
+
+Jimmy was on his own porch cutting up funny capers, and making
+faces for the other child's amusement.
+
+"Lemme go over to Jimmy's, Aunt Minerva," pleaded her nephew,
+"an' you can read to me to-night.  I 'd a heap ruther not hear
+you read right now.  It'll make my belly ache."
+
+Miss Minerva looked at him severely.
+
+"William," she enjoined, "don't you want to be a smart man when
+you grow up?"
+
+"Yes 'm," he replied, without much enthusiasm.  "Well, jes' lemme
+ask Jimmy to come over here an' set on the other sider you whils'
+you read.  He ain't never hear 'bout them tales, an' I s'pec'
+he'd like to come."
+
+"Very well," replied his flattered and gratified relative, "call
+him over."
+
+Billy went to the fence, where he signaled Jimmy to meet him.
+
+"Aunt Minerva say you come over an' listen to her read some er
+the pretties' tales you ever hear," he said, as if conferring a
+great favor.
+
+"Naw, sirree-bob!" was the impolite response across the fence,
+"them 'bout the measliest tales they is.  I'll come if she'll
+read my Uncle Remus book."
+
+"Please come on," begged Billy, dropping the patronizing manner
+that he had assumed, in hope of inducing his chum to share his
+martyrdom.  "You know Aunt Minerva'd die in her tracks 'fore
+she'd read Uncle Remus.  You'll like these-here tales 'nother
+sight better anyway.  I'll give you my stoney if you'll come."
+
+"Naw; you ain't going to get me in no such box as that.  If
+she'd just read seven or eight hours I wouldn't mind; but she'll
+get you where she wants you and read 'bout a million hours.  I
+know Miss Minerva."
+
+Billy's aunt was growing impatient.
+
+"Come, William," she called.  "I am waiting for you."
+
+Jimmy went back to his own porch and the other boy joined
+his kinswoman.
+
+"Why wouldn't Jimmy come?" she asked.
+
+"He--he ain't feeling very well," was the considerate
+rejoinder.
+
+"Once there was a little boy who was born in Virginia--" began
+Miss Minerva.
+
+"Born in a manger," repeated the inattentive little boy to
+himself, "I knows who that was."  So, this important question
+settled in his mind, he gave himself up to the full enjoyment
+of his chum and to the giving and receiving secret signals, the
+pleasure of which was decidedly enhanced by the fear of imminent
+detection.
+
+"Father, I can not tell a lie, I did it with my little
+hatchet,--"
+read the thin, monotonous voice at his elbow.
+
+Billy laughed aloud--at that minute Jimmy was standing on
+his head waving two chubby feet in the air.
+
+"William," said his aunt reprovingly, peering at him over her
+spectacles, "I don't see anything to laugh at,"--and she did
+not, but then she was in ignorance of the little conspiracy.
+
+"He was a good and dutiful son and he studied his lessons so
+well that when he was only seventeen years old he was employed
+to survey vast tracts of land in Virginia--"
+
+Miss Minerva emphasized every word, hoping thus to impress
+her nephew.  But he was so busy, keeping one eye on her and
+one on the little boy on the other porch, that he did not have
+time to use his ears at all and so did not hear one word.
+
+"Leaving his camp fires burning to deceive the enemy, he stole
+around by a circuitous route, fell upon the British and
+captured--"
+
+Billy held up his hands to catch a ball which Jimmy made believe
+to throw.
+
+Miss Minerva still read on, unconscious of her nephew's
+inattention:
+
+"The suffering at Valley Forge had been intense during the
+winter--"
+
+Billy made a pretense behind his aunt's upright back of throwing
+a ball while the other child held up two fat little hands to
+receive it.  Again he laughed aloud as Jimmy spat on his hands
+and ground the imaginary ball into his hip.
+
+She looked at him sternly over her glasses:
+
+"What makes you so silly?" she inquired, and without waiting for
+a reply went on with her reading; she was nearing the close now
+and she read carefully and deliberately.
+
+"And he was chosen the first president of the United States."
+
+Billy put his hands to his ears and wriggled his fingers at
+Jimmy, who promptly returned the compliment.
+
+"He had no children of his own, so he is called the Father of
+his Country."
+
+Miss Minerva closed the book, turned to the little boy at her
+side, and asked:
+
+"Who was this great and good man, William?"
+
+"Jesus," was his ready answer, in an appropriately solemn little
+voice.
+
+"Why, William Green Hill!" she exclaimed in disgust.  "What are
+you thinking of?  I don't believe you heard one word that
+I read."
+
+Billy was puzzled; he was sure she had said "Born in a manger."
+"I didn't hear her say nothin' 'bout bulrushes," he thought, "so
+'tain't Moses; she didn't say `log cabin,' so 'tain't Ab'aham
+Lincoln; she didn't say `Thirty cents look down upon you,' so
+'tain't Napolyon.  I sho' wish I'd paid 'tention."
+
+"Jesus!" his aunt was saying, "born in Virginia and first
+president of the United States!"
+
+"George Washin'ton, I aimed to say," triumphantly screamed
+the little boy, who had received his cue.
+
+
+
+
+                       CHAPTER, XXIV
+
+                    A FLAW IN THE TITLE
+
+
+Come on over," invited Jimmy.
+
+"All right; I believe I will," responded Billy, running to the
+fence.  His aunt's peremptory voice arrested his footsteps.
+
+"William, come here!" she called from the porch.
+
+He reluctantly retraced his steps.
+
+"I am going back to the kitchen to bake a cake and I want
+you to promise me not to leave the yard."
+
+"Lemme jes' go over to Jimmy's a little while," he begged.
+
+"No; you and Jimmy can not be trusted together; you are sure
+to get into mischief, and his mother and I have decided to
+keep the fence between you for a while.  Now, promise me that
+you will stay right in my yard."
+
+Billy sullenly gave her the promise and she went back to her
+baking.
+
+"That's always the way now," he said, meeting his little
+neighbor at the fence, "ever sence Aunt Minerva got onto
+this-here promisin' business, I don' have no freedom 't all.
+It's `William, promise me this,' an' it's `William, don't
+ferget yo' promise now,' tell I's jes' plumb sick 'n tired
+of it.  She know I ain't goin' back on my word an' she jest
+nachelly gits the 'vantage of me; she 'bout the hardest
+'oman to manage I ever seen sence I's born."
+
+"I can nearly all time make my mama do anything 'most if I jus'
+keep on trying and keep on a-begging," bragged the other boy;
+"I just say `May I, mama?' and she'll all time say, `No, go 'way
+from me and lemme 'lone,' and I just keep on, `May I, mama?  May
+I, mama?  May I, mama?  'and toreckly she'll say, `Yes, go on
+and lemme read in peace.'"
+
+"Aunt Minerva won't give in much," said Billy.  "When she say
+`No, William,' 'tain't no use 'tall to beg her; you jest wastin'
+yo' breath.  When she put her foot down it got to go just like
+she say; she sho' do like to have her own way better 'n any
+'oman I ever see."
+
+"She 'bout the mannishest woman they is," agreed Jimmy.  "She
+got you under her thumb, Billy.  I don' see what womans 're
+made fo' if you can't beg 'em into things.  I wouldn't let no
+old spunky Miss Minerva get the best of me that 'way.  Come
+on, anyhow."
+
+"Naw, I can't come," was the gloomy reply; "if she'd jest tol'
+me not to, I coulder went but she made me promise, an' I ain't
+never goin' back on my word.  You come over to see me."
+
+"I can't," came the answer across the fence; "I'm earning me a
+baseball mask.  I done already earnt me a mitt.  My mama don't
+never make me promise her nothing, she just pays me to be good.
+That's huccome I'm 'bout to get 'ligion and go to the mourner's
+bench.  She's gone up town now and if I don't go outside the
+yard while she's gone, she's going to gimme a baseball mask.  You
+got a ball what you bringed from the plantation, and I'll have
+a bat and mitt and mask and we can play ball some.  Come on over
+just a little while; you ain't earning you nothing like what
+I'm doing."
+
+"Naw; I promis' her not to an' I ain't ever goin' to break
+my promise."
+
+"Well, then, Mr. Promiser," said Jimmy, "go get your ball
+and we'll th'ow 'cross the fence.  I can't find mine."
+
+Billy kept his few toys and playthings in a closet, which was
+full of old plunder.  As he reached for his ball something fell
+at his feet from a shelf above.  He picked it up, and ran
+excitedly into the yard.
+
+"Look, Jimmy," he yelled, "here's a baseball mask I found in the
+closet."
+
+Jimmy, forgetful of the fact that he was to be paid for staying
+at home, immediately rolled over the fence and ran eagerly
+toward his friend.  They examined the article in question with
+great care.
+
+"It looks perzactly like a mask," announced Jimmy after a
+thorough inspection, "and yet it don't."  He tried it on.  "It
+don't seem to fit your face right," he said.
+
+Sarah Jane was bearing down upon them.  "Come back home dis
+minute, Jimmy!" she shrieked, "want to ketch some mo' contagwous
+'seases, don't yuh?  What dat y' all got now?"  As she drew
+nearer a smile of recognition and appreciation overspread her
+big good-natured face.  Then she burst into a loud, derisive
+laugh.  "What y' all gwine to do wid Miss Minerva's old bustle?"
+she enquired.  "Y' all sho' am de contaritest chillens in dis
+here copperation."
+
+"Bustle?" echoed Billy, "What's a bustle?"
+
+"Dat-ar's a bustle--dat's what's a bustle.  Ladies useto wear
+'em 'cause dey so stylish to make they dresses stick out in the
+back.  Come on home, Jimmy, 'fore yuh ketch de yaller jandis er
+de epizootics; yo' ma tol' yuh to stay right at home."
+
+"Well, I'm coming, ain't I?" scowled the little boy.  "Mama
+needn't to know nothing 'thout you tell."
+
+"Would you take yo' mama's present now, Jimmy?" asked Billy;
+"you ain't earnt it."
+
+"Wouldn't you?" asked Jimmy, doubtfully.
+
+"Naw, I would n't, not 'thout I tol' her."
+
+"Well, I'll tell her I just comed over a minute to see 'bout
+Miss Minerva's bustle," he agreed as he again tumbled over
+the fence.
+
+A little negro boy, followed by a tiny, white dog, was passing
+by Miss Minerva's gate.
+
+Billy promptly flew to the gate and hailed him.  Jimmy, looking
+around to see that Sarah Jane had gone back to the kitchen, as
+promptly rolled over the fence and joined him.
+
+"Lemme see yo' dog," said the former.
+
+"Ain't he cute?" said the latter.
+
+The little darkey picked up the dog and passed it across the
+gate.
+
+"I wish he was mine," said the smaller child, as he took the
+soft,
+fluffy little ball in his arms; "what'll you take for him?"
+
+The negro boy had never seen the dog before, but he immediately
+accepted the ownership thrust upon him and answered without
+hesitation, "I'll take a dollar for her."
+
+"I ain't got but a nickel.  Billy, ain't you got 'nough money to
+put with my nickel to make a dollar?"
+
+"Naw; I ain't got a red cent."
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," suggested Jimmy; "we'll trade you
+a baseball mask for him.  My mama's going to give me a new mask
+'cause I all time stay at home; so we'll trade you our old one.
+Go get it, Billy."
+
+Thus commanded Billy ran and picked up the bustle where it lay
+neglected on the grass and handed it to the quasi-owner of the
+puppy.
+
+The deal was promptly closed and a little black negro went
+grinning down the street with Miss Minerva's old bustle tied
+across his face, leaving behind him a curly-haired dog.
+
+"Ain't he sweet?" said Jimmy, hugging the fluffy white ball close
+to his breast, "we got to name him, Billy."
+
+"Le's name her Peruny Pearline," was the suggestion of the other
+joint owner.
+
+"He ain't going to be name' nothing at all like that," declared
+Jimmy; "you all time got to name our dogs the scalawaggest name
+they is.  He's going to be name' 'Sam Lamb' 'cause he's my
+partner."
+
+"She's a girl dog," argued Billy, "an' she can't be name' no
+man's name.  If she could I'd call her Major."
+
+"I don't care what sort o' dog he is, girl or boy, he's going to
+be name' 'Sam Lamb'!" and he fondly stroked the little animal's
+soft head.
+
+"Here, Peruny!  Here, Perunyl" and Billy tried to snatch her
+away.
+
+The boys heard a whistle; the dog heard it, too.  Springing from
+the little boy's arms Sam Lamb Peruny Pearline ran under the gate
+and flew to meet her master, who was looking for her.
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XXV
+
+                  EDUCATION AND ITS PERILS
+
+
+It was a warm day in early August and the four children were
+sitting contentedly in the swing.  They met almost every
+afternoon now, but were generally kept under strict surveillance
+by Miss Minerva.
+
+"'Twon't be long 'fore we'll all hafto go to school," remarked
+Frances, "and I'll be mighty sorry; I wish we didn't ever hafto
+go to any old school."
+
+"I wisht we knowed how to read an' write when we's born," said
+Billy.  "If I was God I'd make all my babies so's they is already
+eddicated when they gits born.  Reckon if we'd pray evy night an'
+ask God, He'd learn them babies what He's makin' on now how to
+read an' write?"
+
+"I don' care nothing at all 'bout them babies," put in Jimmy,
+"'tain't going to do us no good if all the new babies what Doctor
+Sanford finds can read and write; it'd jes' make 'em the
+sassiest things ever was.  'Sides, I got plenty things to ask
+God for 'thout fooling long other folks' brats, and I ain't
+going to meddle with God's business nohow."
+
+"Did you all hear what Miss Larrimore, who teaches the little
+children at school, said about us?" asked Lina importantly.
+
+"Naw," they chorused, "what was it?"
+
+"She told the Super'ntendent," was the reply of Lina, pleased
+with herself and with that big word, "that she would have to have
+more money next year, for she heard that Lina Hamilton, Frances
+Black, William Hill, and Jimmy Garner were all coming to school,
+and she said we were the most notorious bad children in town."
+
+"She is the spitefullest woman they is," Jimmy's black eyes
+snapped; "she 'bout the meddlesomest teacher in that school."
+
+"Who telled you 'bout it, Lina?" questioned the other little
+girl.
+
+"The Super'ntendent told his wife and you know how some ladies
+are,--they just can't keep a secret.  Now it is just like burying
+it to tell mother anything; she never tells anybody but father,
+and grandmother, and grandfather, and Uncle Ed, and Brother
+Johnson, and she makes them promise never to breathe it to a
+living soul.  But the Super'ntendent's wife is different; she tells
+ever'thing she hears, and now everybody knows what that teacher
+said about us."
+
+"Everybody says she is the crankiest teacher they is," cried
+Jimmy, "she won't let you bring nothing to school 'cepting your books;
+you can't even take your slingshot, nor your air-gun, nor--"
+
+"Nor your dolls," chimed in Frances, "and she won't let  you bat
+your eye, nor say a word, nor cross your legs, nor  blow your
+nose."
+
+"What do she think we's goin' to her of school fer if we can't
+have fun?" asked Billy.  "Tabernicle sho' had fun when he went to
+school.  He put a pin in the teacher's chair an' she set down on it
+plumb up to the head, an' he tie the strings together what two
+nigger gals had they hair wropped with, an' he squoze up a little
+boy's legs in front of him with a rooster foot tell he squalled
+out loud, an' he th'owed spitballs, an' he make him some
+watermelon teeth, an' he paint a chicken light red an' tuck it to
+the teacher fer a dodo, an' he put cotton in his pants 'fore he
+got licked, an' he drawed the teacher on a slate.  That's what you
+go to school fer is to have fun, an' I sho' is goin' to have fun
+when I goes, an' I ain't goin' to take no bulldozin' offer her,
+neither."
+
+"I bet we can squelch her," cried Frances, vindictively.
+
+"Yes, we'll show her a thing or two,'--for once Jimmy agreed with
+her, "she 'bout the butt-in-est old woman they is, and she's
+going to find out we 'bout the squelchingest kids ever she tackle."
+
+"Alfred Gage went to school to her last year," said Frances,
+"and he can read and write."
+
+"Yes," joined in Jimmy, "and he 'bout the proudest boy they
+is; all time got to write his name all over everything."
+
+"You 'member 'bout last Communion Sunday," went on the little
+girl, "when they hand roun' the little envellups and telled all the
+folks what was willing to give five dollars more on the pastor's
+sal'y just to write his name; so Alfred he so frisky 'cause he
+know how to write; so he tooken one of the little envellups and
+wroten `Alfred Gage' on it; so when his papa find out 'bout it
+he say that kid got to work and pay that five dollars hi'self,
+'cause he done sign his name to it."
+
+"And if he ain't 'bout the sickest kid they is," declared Jimmy;
+"I'll betcher he won't get fresh no more soon.  He telled me the
+other day he ain't had a drink of soda water this summer, 'cause
+every nickel he gets got to go to Mr. Pastor's sal'ry; he says
+he plumb tired supporting Brother Johnson and all his family;
+and, he say, every time he go up town he sees Johnny Johnson
+a-setting on a stool in Baltzer's drug store just a-swigging
+milk-shakes; he says he going to knock him off some day 'cause
+it's his nickels that kid's a-spending."
+
+There was a short silence, broken by Billy, who remarked, apropos
+of nothing:
+
+"I sho' is glad I don't hafter be a 'oman when I puts on long
+pants, mens is heap mo' account."
+
+"I wouldn't be a woman for nothing at all," Jimmy fully agreed
+with him; "they have the pokiest time they is."
+
+"I'm glad I am going to be a young lady when I grow up," Lina
+declared, "I wouldn't be a gentleman for anything.  I'm going to
+wear pretty clothes and be beautiful and be a belle like mother
+was, and have lots of lovers kneel at my feet on one knee and
+play the guitar with the other."
+
+"How they goin' to play the guitar with they other knee?" asked
+the practical Billy.
+
+"And sing `Call Me Thine Own,'" she continued, ignoring his
+interruption.  "Father got on his knees to mother
+thirty-seven-and-a-half times before she'd say, `I will."'
+
+"Look like he'd 'a' wore his breeches out," said Billy.
+
+"I don't want to be a lady," declared Frances; "they can't
+ever ride straddle nor climb a tree, and they got to squinch
+up their waists and toes.  I wish I could kiss my elbow right
+now and turn to a boy."
+
+
+
+
+                        CHAPTER XXVI
+
+                  UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
+
+
+"They's going to be a big nigger 'scursion to Memphis at 'leven
+o'clock," said Jimmy as he met the other little boy at the
+dividing fence; "Sam Lamb's going and 'most all the niggers they
+is.  Sarah Jane 'lowed she's going, but she ain't got nobody to
+'tend to Bennie Dick.  Wouldn't you like to go, Billy?"
+
+"You can't go 'thout you's a nigger," was the reply; "Sam Lamb
+say they ain't no white folks 'lowed on this train 'cepin' the
+engineer an' conductor."
+
+"Sam Lamb'd take care of us if we could go," continued Jimmy.
+"Let's slip off and go down to the depot and see the niggers
+get on.  There'll be 'bout a million."
+
+Billy's eyes sparkled with appreciation.
+
+"I sho' wish I could," he said;" but Aunt Minerva'd make me stay
+in bed a whole week if I want near the railroad."
+
+"My mama 'd gimme 'bout a million licks, too, if I projeckted
+with a nigger 'scursion she 'bout the spankingest woman they is.
+My papa put some burnt cork on his face in the Knights er Pythi's
+minstrels and I know where we can get some to make us black; you
+go get Miss Minerva's ink bottle too, that'll help some, and get
+some matches, and I'll go get the cork and we can go to Sarah
+Jane's house and make usselfs black."
+
+"I ain't never promise not to black up and go down to the depot,"
+said Billy waveringly.  "I promise not to never be no mo' Injun
+--I--"
+
+"Well, run then," Jimmy interrupted impatiently.  "We'll just
+slip down to the railroad and take a look at the niggers.  You
+don't hafto get on the train just 'cause you down to the depot."
+
+So Miss Minerva's nephew, after tiptoeing into the house for
+her ink bottle and filling his pockets with contraband matches,
+met his chum at the cabin.  There, under the critical survey of
+Bennie Dick from his customary place on the floor, they darkened
+their faces, heads, hands, feet, and legs; then, pulling their
+caps over their eyes, these energetic little boys stole out of
+the back gate and fairly flew down an alley to the station.  No
+one noticed them in that hot, perspiring, black crowd.  A
+lively band was playing and the mob of good-humored, happy
+negroes, dressed in their Sunday best, laughing and joking,
+pushing and elbowing, made their way to the excursion train
+standing on the track.
+
+The two excited children got directly behind a broad, pompous
+negro and slipped on the car just after him.  Fortunately they
+found a seat in the rear of the coach and there they sat
+unobserved, still and quiet, except for an occasional delighted
+giggle, till the bell clanged and the train started off.  "We'll
+see Sam Lamb toreckly," whispered Jimmy, "and he'll take care of
+us."
+
+The train was made up of seven coaches, which had been taking
+on negroes at every station up the road as far as Paducah, and
+it happened that the two little boys did not know a soul in
+their car.
+
+But when they were nearing Woodstock, a little station not far
+from Memphis, Sam Lamb, making a tour of the cars, came into
+their coach and was promptly hailed by the children.  When he
+recognized them, he burst into such a roar of laughter that it
+caused all the other passengers to turn around and look in their
+direction.
+
+"What y' all gwine to do nex' I jes' wonder," he exclaimed.
+"Yo' ekals ain't made dis side o' 'ternity.  Lordee, Lordee,"
+he gazed at them admiringly, "you sho' is genoowine corn-fed,
+sterlin' silver, all-woolan'-a-yard-wide, pure-leaf, Green-River
+Lollapaloosas.  Does yo' folks know 'bout yer?  Lordee!  What I
+axin' sech a fool question fer?  'Course dey don't.  Come on, I
+gwine to take y' all off 'n dese cars right here at dis
+Woodstock, an' we kin ketch de 'commodation back home."
+
+"But Sam," protested Billy, "We don't want to go back home.
+We wants to go to Memphis."
+
+"Hit don't matter what y' all wants," was the negro's reply,
+"y' all gotta git right off.  Dis-here 'scursion train don't
+leave Memphis twell twelve o'clock tonight an' yuh see how
+slow she am runnin', and ev'y no 'count nigger on her'll be
+full o' red eye.  An' yo' folks is plumb 'stracted 'bout yer
+dis minute, I 'low.  Come on.  She am gittin' ready to stop."
+
+He grabbed the blackened hand of each, pushing Jimmy and
+pulling Billy, and towed the reluctant little boys through
+the coach.
+
+"Yuh sho' is sp'iled my fun," he growled as he hustled them
+across the platform to the waitingroom.  "Dis-here's de fus'
+'scursion I been on widout Sukey a-taggin' long in five year
+an' I aimed fo' to roll 'em high; an' now, 'case o' ketchin'
+up wid y' all, I gotta go right back home.  Now y' all set
+jes' as straight as yer kin set on dis here bench," he
+admonished, "whilst I send a telegraph to Marse Jeems
+Garner.  An' don' yuh try to 'lope out on de flatform neider.
+Set whar I kin keep my eye skinned on yuh, yuh little
+slipp'ry-ellum eels.  Den I gwine to come back an' wash yer,
+so y' all look like 'spectable white folks."
+
+Miss Minerva came out of her front door looking for Billy at
+the same time that Mrs. Garner appeared on her porch in search
+of Jimmy.
+
+"William!  You William!" called one woman.
+
+"Jimmee-ee!  O Jimmee-ee-ee!" called the other.
+
+"Have you seen my nephew?" asked the one.
+
+"No.  Have you seen anything of Jimmy?" was the reply of the
+other.
+
+"They were talking together at the fence about an hour ago,"
+said Billy's aunt.  "Possibly they are down at the livery
+stable with Sam Lamb; I'll phone and find out."
+
+"And I'll ring up Mrs. Black and Mrs. Hamilton.  They may
+have gone to see Lina or Frances."
+
+In a short time both women appeared on their porches again:
+
+"They have not been to the stable this morning," said Miss
+Minerva uneasily, "and Sam went to Memphis on the excursion
+train."
+
+"And they are not with Lina or Frances,"--Mrs. Garner's face
+wore an anxious look, "I declare I never saw two such
+children.  Still, I don't think we need worry as it is nearly
+dinner time, and they never miss their meals, you know."
+
+But the noon hour came and with it no hungry little boys.
+Then, indeed, did the relatives of the children grow uneasy.
+The two telephones were kept busy, and Mr. Garner, with
+several other men on horseback, scoured the village.  Not a
+soul had seen either child.
+
+At three o'clock Miss Minerva, worn with anxiety and on the
+verge of a collapse, dropped into a chair on her veranda,
+her faithful Major by her side.  He had come to offer help
+and sympathy as soon as he heard of her distress, and,
+finding her in such a softened, dependent, and receptive
+mood, the Major had remained to try to cheer her up.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Garner were also on the porch, discussing what
+further steps they could take.
+
+"It is all the fault of that William of yours," snapped one
+little boy's mother to the other little boy's aunt: "Jimmy is
+the best child in the world when he is by himself, but he is
+easily led into mischief."
+
+Miss Minerva's face blazed with indignation.
+
+"William's fault indeed!" she answered back.  "There never
+was a sweeter child than William;" for the lonely woman knew
+the truth at last.  At the thought that her little nephew
+might be hurt, a long forgotten tenderness stirred her bosom
+and she realized for the first time how the child had grown
+into her life.
+
+The telegram came.
+
+"They are all right," shouted Mr. Garner joyously, as he
+quickly opened and read the yellow missive, "they went on
+the excursion and Sam Lamb is bringing them home on the
+accommodation."
+
+
+As the Major, short, plump, rubicund, jolly, and Miss
+Minerva, tall, sallow, angular, solemn, were walking to the
+station to meet the train that was bringing home the
+runaways, the elderly lover knew himself to be at last
+master of the situation.
+
+"The trouble with Billy--" he began, adjusting his steps to
+Miss Minerva's mincing walk.
+
+"William," she corrected, faintly.
+
+"The trouble with Billy," repeated her suitor firmly, "is
+this: you have tried to make a girl out of a healthy,
+high-spirited boy; you haven't given him the toys and
+playthings a boy should have; you have not even given the
+child common love and affection."  He was letting himself go,
+for he knew that she needed the lecture, and, wonderful to
+tell, she was listening meekly.  "You have steeled your
+heart," he went on, "against Billy and against me.  You have
+about as much idea how to manage a boy as a--as a--" he
+hesitated for a suitable comparison: he wanted to say "goat,"
+but gallantry forbade; "as any other old maid," he blurted out,
+realizing as he did so that a woman had rather be called a goat
+than an old maid any time.
+
+The color mounted to Miss Minerva's face.
+
+"I don't have to be an old maid," she snapped spunkily.
+
+"No; and you are not going to be one any longer," he
+answered with decision.  "I tell you what, Miss Minerva, we
+are going to make a fine, manly boy out of that nephew of yours."
+
+"We?" she echoed faintly.
+
+"Yes, we!  I said we, didn't I?" replied the Major ostentatiously.
+"The child shall have a pony to ride and every thing else that a
+boy ought to have.  He is full of natural animal spirits and has
+to find some outlet for them; that is the reason he is always in
+mischief.  Now, I think I understand children."  He drew himself
+up proudly.  "We shall be married to-morrow," he announced, "that
+I may assume at once my part of the responsibility of Billy's
+rearing."
+
+Miss Minerva looked at him in fluttering consternation.
+
+"Oh, no, not to-morrow," she protested; "possibly next year some
+time."
+
+"To-morrow," reiterated the Major, his white moustache bristling
+with determination.  Having at last asserted himself, he was
+enjoying the situation immensely and was not going to give way
+one inch.
+
+"We will be married to-morrow and--"
+
+"Next month," she suggested timidly.
+
+"To-morrow, I tell you!"
+
+"Next week," she answered.
+
+"To-morrow!  To-morrow!  To-morrow!" cried the Major, happy as
+a schoolboy.
+
+"Next Sunday night after church," pleaded Miss Minerva.
+
+"No, not next Sunday or Monday or Tuesday.  We will be married
+to-morrow," declared the dictatorial Confederate veteran.
+
+Billy's aunt succumbed.
+
+"Oh, Joseph," she said with almost a simper, "you are so
+masterful."
+
+"How would you like me for an uncle?" Miss Minerva's affianced
+asked Billy a few minutes later.
+
+"Fine an' dandy," was the answer, as the child wriggled himself
+out of his aunt's embrace.  The enthusiastic reception accorded
+him, when he got off the train, was almost too much for the
+little boy.  He gazed at the pair in embarrassment.  He was for
+the moment disconcerted and overcome; in place of the expected
+scoldings and punishment, he was received with caresses and
+flattering consideration.  He could not understand it at all.
+
+The Major put a hand on the little boy's shoulder and smiled a
+kindly smile into his big, grey, astonished eyes as the happy
+lover delightedly whispered, "Your aunt Minerva is going to
+marry me to-morrow, Billy."
+
+"Pants an' all?" asked William Green Hill.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Minerva and William Green Hill
+by Frances Boyd Calhoun
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS MINERVA ***
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