An’ wife she’d always jump up an’ git the mutton taller.  I never took it serious myself, ‘cause I know how a triflin’ thing ’ll sometimes turn a level-headed little chap into a drizzlin’ ejiot.  I been there myself.

But th’ ain’t no danger in it, not less’n he’s made a laughin’-stalk of—­which is cruelty to animals, an’ shouldn’t be allowed.

I know when I went to school up here at Sandy Cri’k, forty year ago, I was teached by a certain single lady that has subsequently died a nachel death of old age an’ virtuous works, an’ in them days she wo’e a knitted collar, an’ long curls both sides of her face; an’ I’ve seen many a night, after the candle was out, thet she’d appear befo’ me.  She’d seem to come an’ hang over my bed-canopy same ez a chandelier, with them side curls all a-jinglin’ like cut-glass dangles.  It’s true, she used mostly to appear with a long peach-switch in her hand, but that was nachel enough, that bein’ the way she most gen’ally approached me in life.

But of co’se I come th’oo without taller.  My mother had thirteen of us, an’ ef she’d started anointin’ us for all our little side-curled nightmares, she’d ‘a’ had to go to goose raisin’.

You see, in them days they used goose grease.

I never to say admired that side-curled lady much, though she’s made some lastin’ impressions on me.  Why, I could set down now, an’ make a drawin’ of that knitted collar she used to wear, an’ it over forty year ago.  I ricollec’ she was cross-eyed, too, in the eye todes the foot o’ the class, where I’d occasionally set; an’, tell the truth, it was the strongest reason for study thet I had—­thess to get on to the side of her certain eye.  Th’ ain’t anything much mo’ tantalizin’ to a person than uncertainty in sech matters.

She was mighty plain, an’ yet some o’ the boys seemed to see beauty in her.  I know my brother Bob, he confided to mother once-t thet he thought she looked thess precizely like the Queen o’ Sheba must’a’ looked, an’ I ricollec’ thet he cried bitter because mother told it out on him at the dinner-table.  It was turrible cruel, but she didn’t reelize.

I reckon, ef the truth was known, most of us nine has seen them side curls in our sleep.  An’ nobody but God an’ his angels will ever know how many of us passed th’oo the valley o’ the shadder o’ that singular-appearin’ lady, or how often we notified the other eight of the fact, unbeknowinst to his audience, while they was distributed in their little trundle-beds.

I sometimes wonder ef they ain’t no account took of little child’en’s trials.  Seems to me they ought to be a little heavenly book kep’ a-purpose; an’ ‘t wouldn’t do no harm ef earthly fathers an’ mothers was occasionally allowed to look over it.

My brother Bob, him thet likened Miss Alviry to the Queen o’ Sheba, always was a sensitive-minded child, an’ we all knowed it, too; and yet, we never called him a thing for months after that but Solomon.  We ought to’ve been whupped good for it.