“An’ then,” says he, “I don’t want my two billy-goats harnessed up with nobody else’s two billys to make fo’ billys.”

“But,” says the teacher, “suppose I was to harness up yo’ two goats with Tom Deems’s two, there’d be fo’ goats, I reckon, whether you wanted ’em there or not.”

“No they wouldn’t,” says Sonny.  “They wouldn’t be but two.  ’T wouldn’t take my team more ‘n half a minute to butt the life out o’ Tom’s team.”

An’ with that little Tommy Deems, why, he commenced to cry, an’ ‘stid o’ punishin’ him for bein’ sech a cry-baby, what did the teacher do but give Sonny another check, for castin’ slurs on Tommy’s animals, an’ gettin’ Tommy’s feelin’s hurted!  Which I ain’t a-sayin’ it on account o’ Sonny bein’ my boy, but it seems to me was a mighty unfair advantage.

No boy’s feelin’s ain’t got no right to be that tender—­an’ a goat is the last thing on earth thet could be injured by a word of mouth.

Sonny’s pets an’ beasts has made a heap o’ commotion in school one way an’ another, somehow.  Ef ‘t ain’t his goats it’s somethin’ else.

Sir!  Sonny’s pets?  Oh, they’re all sorts.  He ain’t no ways partic’lar thess so a thing is po’ an’ miser’ble enough.  That’s about all he seems to require of anything.

He don’t never go to school hardly ’thout a garter-snake or two or a lizard or a toad-frog somewheres about him.  He’s got some o’ the little girls at school that nervous thet if he thess shakes his little sleeve at ’em they’ll squeal, not knowin’ what sort o’ live critter’ll jump out of it.

Most of his pets is things he’s got by their bein’ hurted some way.

One of his toad-frogs is blind of a eye.  Sonny rescued him from the old red rooster one day after he had nearly pecked him to death, an’ he had him hoppin’ round the kitchen for about a week with one eye bandaged up.

When a hurted critter gits good an’ strong he gen’ally turns it loose ag’in; but ef it stays puny, why he reg’lar ‘dopts it an’ names it Jones.  That’s thess a little notion o’ his, namin’ his pets the family name.

The most outlandish thing he ever ’dopted, to my mind, is that old yaller cat.  That was a miser’ble low-down stray cat thet hung round the place a whole season, an’ Sonny used to vow he was goin’ to kill it, ‘cause it kep’ a-ketchin’ the birds.

Well, one day he happened to see him thess runnin’ off with a young mockin’-bird in his mouth, an’ he took a brickbat an’ he let him have it, an’ of co’se he dropped the bird an’ tumbled over—­stunted.  The bird it got well, and Sonny turned him loose after a few days; but that cat was hurted fatal.  He couldn’t never no mo’ ’n drag hisself around from that day to this; an’ I reckon ef Sonny was called on to give up every pet he’s got, that cat would be ’bout the last thing he’d surrender.  He named him Tommy Jones, an’ he never goes to school of a mornin’, rain or shine, till Tommy Jones is fed f’om his own plate with somethin’ he’s left for him special.