“Why, William Green Hill!” she exclaimed in disgust.  “What are you thinking of?  I don’t believe you heard one word that I read.”

Billy was puzzled; he was sure she had said “Born in a manger.”  “I didn’t hear her say nothin’ ’bout bulrushes,” he thought, “so ‘tain’t Moses; she didn’t say `log cabin,’ so ’tain’t Ab’aham Lincoln; she didn’t say `Thirty cents look down upon you,’ so ‘tain’t Napolyon.  I sho’ wish I’d paid ’tention.”

“Jesus!” his aunt was saying, “born in Virginia and first president of the United States!”

“George Washin’ton, I aimed to say,” triumphantly screamed the little boy, who had received his cue.

Chapter, XXIV

A flaw in the title

Come on over,” invited Jimmy.

“All right; I believe I will,” responded Billy, running to the fence.  His aunt’s peremptory voice arrested his footsteps.

“William, come here!” she called from the porch.

He reluctantly retraced his steps.

“I am going back to the kitchen to bake a cake and I want you to promise me not to leave the yard.”

“Lemme jes’ go over to Jimmy’s a little while,” he begged.

“No; you and Jimmy can not be trusted together; you are sure to get into mischief, and his mother and I have decided to keep the fence between you for a while.  Now, promise me that you will stay right in my yard.”

Billy sullenly gave her the promise and she went back to her baking.

“That’s always the way now,” he said, meeting his little neighbor at the fence, “ever sence Aunt Minerva got onto this-here promisin’ business, I don’ have no freedom ’t all.  It’s `William, promise me this,’ an’ it’s `William, don’t ferget yo’ promise now,’ tell I’s jes’ plumb sick ’n tired of it.  She know I ain’t goin’ back on my word an’ she jest nachelly gits the ’vantage of me; she ’bout the hardest ’oman to manage I ever seen sence I’s born.”

“I can nearly all time make my mama do anything ‘most if I jus’ keep on trying and keep on a-begging,” bragged the other boy; “I just say `May I, mama?’ and she’ll all time say, `No, go ’way from me and lemme ‘lone,’ and I just keep on, `May I, mama?  May I, mama?  May I, mama? ’and toreckly she’ll say, `Yes, go on and lemme read in peace.’”

“Aunt Minerva won’t give in much,” said Billy.  “When she say `No, William,’ ’tain’t no use ‘tall to beg her; you jest wastin’ yo’ breath.  When she put her foot down it got to go just like she say; she sho’ do like to have her own way better ’n any ’oman I ever see.”

“She ’bout the mannishest woman they is,” agreed Jimmy.  “She got you under her thumb, Billy.  I don’ see what womans ’re made fo’ if you can’t beg ’em into things.  I wouldn’t let no old spunky Miss Minerva get the best of me that ’way.  Come on, anyhow.”

“Naw, I can’t come,” was the gloomy reply; “if she’d jest tol’ me not to, I coulder went but she made me promise, an’ I ain’t never goin’ back on my word.  You come over to see me.”