Then Sonny seein’ it was all over, why, he come down.  He was wet ez a drownded rat, but wife rubbed him off an’ give him some hot tea an’ he come a-snuggin’ up in my lap, thess ez sweet a child ez you ever see in yo’ life, an’ I talked to him ez fatherly ez I could, told him we was all ‘Piscopals now, an’ soon ez his little foot got well I was goin’ to take him out to Sunday-school to tote a banner—­all his little ‘Piscopal friends totes banners—­an’ thet he could pick out some purty candles for the altar, an’ he ’lowed immejate thet he’d buy pink ones.  Sonny always was death on pink—­ showed it from the time he could snatch a pink rose—­an’ wife she ain’t never dressed him in nothin’ else.  Ever’ pair o’ little breeches he’s got is either pink or pink-trimmed.

Well, I talked along to him till I worked ‘round to shamin’ him a little for havin’ to be christened settin’ up on top a bean-arbor, same ez a crow-bird, which I told him the parson he wouldn’t ‘a’ done ef he’d ‘a’ felt free to’ve left it undone.  ’Twasn’t to indulge him he done it, but to bless him an’ to comfort our hearts.  Well, after I had reasoned with him severe that-a-way a while, he says, says he, thess ez sweet an’ mild, says he, “Daddy, nex’ time y’all gits christened, I’ll come down an’ be christened right—­like a good boy.”

Th’ ain’t a sweeter child in’ardly ’n what Sonny is, nowheres, git him to feel right comf’table, and I know it, an’ that’s why I have patience with his little out’ard ways.

“Yes, sir,” says he; “nex’ time I’ll be christened like a good boy.”

Then, of co’se, I explained to him thet it couldn’t never be did no mo’, ‘cause it had been did, an’ did ’Piscopal, which is secure.  An’ then what you reckon the little feller said?

Says he, “Yes, daddy, but S’POS’IN’ mine don’t take.  How ’bout that?”

An’ I didn’t try to explain no further.  What was the use?  Wife, she had drawed a stool close-t up to my knee, an’ set there sortin’ out the little yaller rings ez they’d dry out on his head, an’ when he said that I thess looked at her an’ we both looked at him, an’ says I, “Wife,” says I, “ef they’s anything in heavenly looks an’ behavior, I b’lieve that christenin’ is started to take on him a’ready.”

An’ I b’lieve it had.

CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN

By John fox, Jr.

“All that is literature seeks to communicate power.” [Footnote:  De Quincey, “Letters to a Young Man.”] Here the power communicated is that of sympathizing with God’s “lesser children.”  The humanitarian story is a long step in advance of the fable.  It recognizes the true relations of the animal world to man, and insists that it be dealt with righteously and sympathetically.

CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN

[Footnote:  From “Christmas Eve on Lonesome,” by John Fox, Jr.  Copyright, 1904, by Charles Scribner’s Sons.]