Oh, no, sir; she don’t take his dinner to him reg’lar—­only some days when she happens to have somethin’ extry good, or maybe when she ’magines he didn’t eat hearty at breakfast.  The school-child’en they always likes to see her come, because she gen’ally takes a extry lot o’ fried chicken thess for him to give away.  He don’t keer much for nothin’ but livers an’ gizzards, so we have to kill a good many to get enough for him; an’ of co’se the fryin’ o’ the rest of it is mighty little trouble.

Sonny is a bothersome child one way:  he don’t never want to take his dinner to school with him.  Of co’se thess after eatin’ breakfas’ he don’t feel hungry, an’ when wife does coax him to take it, he’ll seem to git up a appetite walkin’ to school, an’ he’ll eat it up ‘fo’ he gits there.

Sonny’s got a mighty noble disposition, though, take him all round.

Now, the day he slipped down that chimbly an’ run away he wasn’t a bit flustered, an’ he didn’t play hookey the balance of the day neither.  He thess went down to the crik, an’ washed the soot off his face, though they say he didn’t no more ‘n smear it round, an’ then he went down to Miss Phoebe’s school, an’ stayed there till it was out.  An’ she took him out to the well, an’ washed his face good for him.  But nex’ day he up an’ went back to Mr. Clark’s school—­walked in thess ez pleasant an’ kind, an’ taken his seat an’ said his lessons—­never th’owed it up to teacher at all.  Now, some child’en, after playin’ off on a teacher that a-way would a’ took advantage, but he never.  It was a fair fight, an’ Sonny whupped, an’ that’s all there was to it; an’ he never put on no air about it.

Wife did threaten to go herself an’ make the teacher apologize for gittin’ the little feller all sooted up an’ sp’iln’ his clo’es; but she thought it over, an’ she decided thet she wouldn’t disturb things ez long ez they was peaceful.  An’, after all, he didn’t exac’ly send him down the chimbly nohow, though he provoked him to it.

Ef Sonny had ‘a’ fell an’ hurted hisself, though, in that chimbly, I’d ‘a’ helt that teacher responsible, shore.

Sonny says hisself thet the only thing he feels bad about in that chimbly business is thet one o’ the little swallers’ wings was broke by the fall.  Sonny’s got him yet, an’ he’s li’ble to keep him, cause he’ll never fly.  Named him Swally Jones, an’ reg’lar ’dopted him soon ez he see how his wing was.

Sonny’s the only child I ever see in my life thet could take young chimbly-swallers after their fall an’ make em’ live.  But he does it reg’lar.  They ain’t a week passes sca’cely but he fetches in some hurted critter an’ works with it.  Dicey says thet half the time she’s afeerd to step around her cook-stove less’n she’ll step on some critter thet’s crawled back to life where he’s put it under the stove to hatch or thaw out, which she bein’ bare-feeted, I don’t wonder at.