Well, sir, we was mightily comforted by the doctor’s visit, but nex’ mornin’ things looked purty gloomy ag’in.  That little foot seemed a heap worse, an’ he was sort o’ flushed an’ feverish, an’ wife she thought she heard a owl hoot, an’ Rover made a mighty funny gurgly sound in his th’oat like ez ef he had bad news to tell us, but didn’t have the courage to speak it.

An’ then, on top o’ that, the nigger Dicey, she come in an’ ’lowed she had dreamed that night about eatin’ spare-ribs, which everybody knows to dream about fresh pork out o’ season, which this is July, is considered a shore sign o’ death.  Of co’se, wife an’ me, we don’t b’lieve in no sech ez that, but ef you ever come to see yo’ little feller’s toes stand out the way Sonny’s done day befo’ yesterday, why, sir, you’ll be ready to b’lieve anything.  It’s so much better now, you can’t judge of its looks day befo’ yesterday.  We never had even so much ez considered it necessary thet little children should be christened to have ’em saved, but when things got on the ticklish edge, like they was then, why, we felt thet the safest side is the wise side, an’, of co’se, we want Sonny to have the best of everything.  So, we was mighty thankful when we see the rector comin’.  But, sir, when I went out to open the gate for him, what on top o’ this round hemisp’ere do you reckon Sonny done?  Why, sir, he thess took one look at the gate an’ then he cut an’ run hard ez he could—­limped acrost the yard thess like a flash o’ zig-zag lightnin’—­an’ ’fore anybody could stop him, he had clumb to the tip top o’ the butter-bean arbor—­clumb it thess like a cat—­an’ there he set, a-swingin’ his feet under him, an’ laughin’, the rain thess a-streakin’ his hair all over his face.

That bean arbor is a favoryte place for him to escape to, ’cause it’s too high to reach, an’ it ain’t strong enough to bear no grown-up person’s weight.

Well, sir, the rector, he come in an’ opened his valise an’ ’rayed hisself in his robes an’ opened his book, an’ while he was turnin’ the leaves, he faced ‘round an’ says he, lookin’ at me direc’, says he: 

“Let the child be brought forward for baptism,” says he, thess that-a-way.

Well, sir, I looked at wife, an’ wife, she looked at me, an’ then we both thess looked out at the butter-bean arbor.

I knowed then thet Sonny wasn’t never comin’ down while the rector was there, an’ rector, he seemed sort o’ fretted for a minute when he see how things was, an’ he did try to do a little settin’ fo’th of opinions.  He ‘lowed, speakin’ in a mighty pompious manner, thet holy things wasn’t to be trifled with, an’ thet he had come to baptize the child accordin’ to the rites o’ the church.

[Illustration:  “Name this child.”]

Well, that sort o’ talk, it thess rubbed me the wrong way, an’ I up an’ told him thet that might be so, but thet the rites o’ the church didn’t count for nothin’, on our farm, to the rights o’ the boy!