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

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*** 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.






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