So, after he went to sleep, wife she come out on the po’ch where I was settin’, and she says to me, says she, her face all drawed up an’ workin’, says she:  “Honey,” says she, “I reckon we better sen’ for him an’ have it did.”  Thess so, she said it.  “Sen’ for who, wife?” says I, “an’ have what did?” “Why, sen’ for him, the ’Piscopal preacher,” says she, “an’ have Sonny christened.  Them little toes o’ hisn is ez red ez cherry tomatoes.  They burnt my lips thess now like a coal o’ fire an’—­an’ lockjaw is goin’ roun’ tur’ble.

“Seems to me,” says she, “when he started to git sleepy, he didn’t gap ez wide ez he gen’ly does—­an’ I’m ‘feered he’s a-gittin’ it now.”  An’, sir, with that, she thess gathered up her apron an’ mopped her face in it an’ give way.  An’ ez for me, I didn’t seem to have no mo’ backbone down my spinal colume ’n a feather bolster has, I was that weak.

I never ast her why she didn’t sen’ for our own preacher.  I knowed then ez well ez ef she’d ‘a’ told me why she done it—­all on account o’ Sonny bein’ so tickled over the ‘Piscopals’ meetin’s.

It was mos’ nine o’clock then, an’ a dark night, an’ rainin’, but I never said a word—­they wasn’t no room round the edges o’ the lump in my throat for words to come out ef they’d ‘a’ been one surgin’ up there to say, which they wasn’t—­but I thess went out an’ saddled my horse an’ I rid into town.  Stopped first at the doctor’s an’ sent him out, though I knowed’t wouldn’t do no good; Sonny wouldn’t ’low him to tech it; but I sent him out anyway, to look at it, an’, ef possible, console wife a little.  Then I rid on to the rector’s an’ ast him to come out immejate an’ baptize Sonny.  But nex’ day was his turn to preach down at Sandy Crik, an’ he couldn’t come that night, but he promised to come right after services nex’ mornin’—­which he done—­rid the whole fo’teen mile from Sandy Crik here in the rain, too, which I think is a evidence o’ Christianity, though no sech acts is put down in my book o’ “evidences” where they ought rightfully to be.

Well, sir, when I got home that night, I found wife a heap cheerfuler.  The doctor had give Sonny a big apple to eat an’ pernounced him free from all symptoms o’ lockjaw.  But when I come the little feller had crawled ‘way back under the bed an’ lay there, eatin’ his apple, an’ they couldn’t git him out.  Soon ez the doctor had teched a poultice to his foot he had woke up an’ put a stop to it, an’ then he had went off by hisself where nothin’ couldn’t pester him, to enjoy his apple in peace.  An’ we never got him out tell he heered us tellin’ the doctor good-night.

I tried ever’ way to git him out—­even took up a coal o’ fire an’ poked it under at him; but he thess laughed at that an’ helt his apple agin’ it an’ made it sizz.  Well, sir, he seemed so tickled that I helt that coal o’ fire for him tell he cooked a good big spot on one side o’ the apple, an’ et it, an’ then, when I took it out, he called for another, but I didn’t give it to him.  I don’t see no use in over-indulgin’ a child.  An’ when he knowed the doctor was gone, he come out an’ finished roastin’ his apple by the fire—­thess what was left of it ’round the co’e.