So absorbed were they in playing Indian that they forgot the flight of time until their chief suddenly stopped, all his brave valor gone as he pointed with trembling finger up the street.

That part of the Ladies’ Aid Society which lived in West Covington was bearing down upon them.

“Yonder’s our mamas and Miss Minerva,” he whispered.  “Now look what a mess Billy’s done got us in; he all time got to perpose someping to get chillens in trouble and he all time got to let grown folks ketch em.”

“Aren’t you ashamed to tell such a story, Jimmy Garner?” cried Frances.  “Billy didn’t propose any such thing.  Come on, let’s run,” she suggested.

“’Tain’t no use to run,” advised Jimmy.  “They’re too close and done already see us.  We boun’ to get what’s coming to us anyway, so you might jus’ as well make ’em think you ain’t ’fraid of ’em.  Grown folks got to all time think little boys and girls ‘r’ skeered of ’em, anyhow.”

“Aunt Minerva’ll sho’ put me to bed this time,” said Billy.  “Look like ev’y day I gotter go to bed.”

“Mother will make me study the catechism all day to-morrow,” said Lina dismally.

“Mama’ll lock me up in the little closet under the stairway,” said Frances.

“My mama’ll gimme ’bout a million licks and try to take all the hide off o’ me,” said Jimmy; “but we done had a heap of fun.”

It was some hours later.  Billy’s aunt had ruthlessly clipped the turkey feathers from his head, taking the hair off in great patches.  She had then boiled his scalp, so the little boy thought, in her efforts to remove the mucilage.  Now, shorn of his locks and of some of his courage, the child was sitting quietly by her side, listening to a superior moral lecture and indulging in a compulsory heart-to-heart talk with his relative.

“I don’t see that it does you any good, William, to put you to bed.”

“I don’ see as it do neither,” agreed Billy.

“I can not whip you; I am constitutionally opposed to corporal punishment for children.”

“I’s ’posed to it too,” he assented.

“I believe I will hire a servant, so that I may devote my entire time to your training.”

This prospect for the future did not appeal to her nephew.  On the contrary it filled him with alarm.

“A husban’ ’d be another sight handier,” he declared with energy; “he ‘d be a heap mo’ ’count to you ’n a cook, Aunt Minerva.  There’s that Major—­”

“You will never make a preacher of yourself, William, unless you improve.”

The child looked up at her in astonishment; this was the first he knew of his being destined for the ministry.

“A preacher what ‘zorts an’ calls up mourners?” he said, —­“not on yo’ tin-type.  Me an’ Wilkes Booth Lincoln—­”

“How many times have I expressed the wish not to have you bring that negro’s name into the conversation?” she impatiently interrupted.