Of co’se Sonny goes to the exhibitions an’ picnics of all the schools.  Last summer we had a time of it when it come picnic season.  Two schools set the same day for theirs, which of co’se wasn’t no ways fair to Sonny.  He payin’ right along in all the schools, of co’se he was entitled to all the picnics; so I put on my Sunday clo’es, an’ I went down an’ had it fixed right.  They all wanted Sonny, too, come down to the truth, ‘cause besides bein’ fond of him, they knowed thet Sonny always fetched a big basket.

[Illustration:  “He was watchin’ a bird-nest on the way to that school.”]

Trouble with Sonny is thet he don’t take nothin’ on nobody’s say-so, don’t keer who it is.  He even commenced to dispute Moses one Sunday when wife was readin’ the Holy Scriptures to him, tell of co’se she made him understand thet that wouldn’t do.  Moses didn’t intend to be conterdicted.

An’ ez to secular lessons, he ain’t got no espec’ for ’em whatsoever.  F’ instance, when the teacher learned him thet the world was round, why he up an’ told him ’t warn’t so, less’n we was on the inside an’ it was blue-lined, which of co’se teacher he insisted thet we was on the outside, walkin’ over it, all feet todes the center—­a thing I’ve always thought myself was mo’ easy said than proved.

Well, sir, Sonny didn’t hesitate to deny it, an’ of co’se teacher he commenced by givin’ him a check—­which is a bad mark—­for conterdictin’.  An’ then Sonny he ‘lowed thet he didn’t conterdic’ to be aconterdictin’, but he knowed’t warn’t so.  He had walked the whole len’th o’ the road ‘twix’ the farm an’ the school-house, an’ they warn’t no bulge in it; an’ besides, he hadn’t never saw over the edges of it.

An’ with that teacher he give him another check for speakin’ out o’ turn.  An’ then Sonny, says he, “Ef a man was tall enough he could see around the edges, couldn’t he?” “No,” says the teacher; “a man couldn’t grow that tall,” says he; “he’d be deformed.”

An’ Sonny, why, he spoke up again, an’ says he, “But I’m thess a-sayin’ ef,” says he.  “An’ teacher,” says he, “we ain’t a-studyin’ efs; we’re studyin’ geoger’phy.”  And then Sonny they say he kep’ still a minute, an’ then he says, says he, “Oh, maybe he couldn’t see over the edges, teacher, ’cause ef he was tall enough his head might reach up into the flo’ o’ heaven.”  And with that teacher he give him another check, an’ told him not to dare to mix up geoger’phy an’ religion, which was a sackerlege to both studies; an’ with that Sonny gethered up his books an’ set out to another school.

I think myself it ’u’d be thess ez well ef Sonny wasn’t quite so quick to conterdic’; but it’s thess his way of holdin’ his p’int.

Why, one day he faced one o’ the teachers down thet two an’ two didn’t haf to make fo’, wh’er or no.

This seemed to tickle the teacher mightily, an’ so he laughed an’ told him he was goin’ to give him rope enough to hang hisself now, an’ then he dared him to show him any two an’ two thet didn’t make fo’, and Sonny says, says he, “Heap o’ two an’ twos don’t make four, ’cause they’re kep’ sep’rate,” says he.